News

By   Adam James
Handsell Publishing
£13.50
ISBN 1 903199 13 7

This book is a missed opportunity, which is a shame given the importance of its subject matter. The Hearing Voices movement helps people with auditory hallucinations find ways to come to terms with their experiences. So its relevance to the dynamics of power and responsibility within psychiatry and society is significant. Also important are the philosophical questions following from a consideration of "psychotic projection" and their subsequent translation into a greater wholeness of meaning in our everyday lives.

James is Mind Journalist of the Year, but this book is, in his words, a polemic. Polemics take one stanza from a symphony and repeat it endlessly at full volume. It doesn't make for good communication. James's stanza relates to the awfulness of psychiatry. Agreed, but what's new?

Needing to constantly portray psychiatry as jaw-droppingly awful skews the book's inner workings. This is unfortunate, especially when a rounded viewpoint pops up: "Assessing psychiatry within a social constructionist paradigm can be a useful and powerful tool to criticise the profession as there is always the underlying implication that such rules and behaviour can be constructed differently, ie, less oppressively."

Indeed so - and the same can even apply for journalism.

Rick Cresswell is an approved social worker at Kent Council.