January 2008 Archives

Yesterday the watchdog for detained patients in England and Wales, the Mental Health Act Commission revealed the shocking level of care given to many patients.

In the US, stroppy teenagers are getting tranquilized with psi drugs on the basis they have a condition called "oppositional defiant disorder" (ODD)according to an article on news site Alternet.

Britney Spears - is the whole Britney episode good or bad for the cause of mental health?

Here are the headlines:

A new study, reported on Medical News Today, shows that only about half of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, exhibit the cognitive defects commonly associated with the condition.

by Mike McNabb

Would you vote for a politician who admits to having mental health issues?
Winston Churchill suffered his famous "black dog" episodes but they were unknown to the public while he was in office. Of course there was less understanding about mental health in those days and there was more collusion between the press and the establishment, which would ensure secrecy was maintained.

There are two mental health related articles I found out there that are worth a look.

There's a really interesting blog post by a London Ambulance emergency medical technician on Random Acts Of Reality about the problems faced when trying to deal with a psychiatric patient and unhelpful hospital staff.

The effectiveness of antidepressants may have been exaggerated because the results of unfavourable studies have simply not been published, researchers have found.

by Keith Sellick

“Nearly all of us want bigger and better. Houses, breast implants, penis extensions, televisions, cars. We define our lives through earnings, possessions, appearances, celebrity, and it is making us more miserable than ever before. The bad news is that a quarter of British people have been mentally ill in the last 12 months and another quarter have been on the verge. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way."

So says psychologist Oliver James in an interview in the Daily Telegraph about his latest book “Affluenza: How to be Successful and Stay Sane”.

There are two very interesting pieces of mental health-related journalism in the US papers today - about a doctor who pioneered "ice-pick" lobotomies and the caging of people with mental health problems in China.

A "two-pronged challenge" to plans to close Henderson Hospital is revealed in the Guardian today.

It seems there is a growing campaign to save Henderson Hospital in Surrey and there are various resources out there for those interested in taking part.

Apparently there is now a legal challenge to the proposed closure of Henderson Hospital in Surrey, according to a story on the BBC.

Charities Mind and Rethink are both running surveys or consultations at the moment - giving people with mental health problems the chance to have their say.

Health minister Ivan Lewis was asked Parliament about the Henderson Hospital closure this week.

Poor old Britney - at least her travails are causing a more open discussion of mental health in some quarters, which is never a bad thing. The Canadian Press has used the story to give advice to people who suspect a relation may have mental health problems. Speaking to them about it seems to be the eminently sensible recommendation.

by Anabel Unity Sale

Britney Spears. Don't you just sigh when you read her name? The American singer's recent problems have, unfortunately, made for shocking headline news across the world.

We're not very good at judging what makes us happy, says a story in the Washington Post.

Is workaholism a mental illness? Who knows - everything else seems to be these days. They are certainly taking it seriously in Colombia, where they have opened probably the world's first museum for workaholics, according to this story on Press TV, an Iranian news service as far as I can tell.

by Penny Macoustra

I do feel very strongly about this. What I would say in favour of the Henderson, is that it was a fore-runner of service user involvement. It has 60 years experience in offering a democratically run therapeutic community. Its services have been evaluated beyond others on offer and been found to be both effective to users and economical in terms of reducing future service requirement.

by Allan Norman

It is more than a decade now since the application for judicial review on behalf of HL, of Bournewood Hospital in Surrey began the sequence of litigation that eventually became the seminal ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which overturned the judgements of every court in this country and held the informal arrangements for holding and treating certain people lacking capacity to consent or object contravened their human rights.