by Nigel Leaney, manager of a mental health residential serviceIt isn't often that soap operas get it right when it comes to portraying someone with mental health needs. Yet the character from Eastenders, Stacey Slater, played superbly by Lacey Turner, gave a credible and poignant account of a person with bi-polar affective disorder slowly going under. Of course it's a soap, so all the conventions of high drama and conflict were a necessary part of the ingredients, though the writers steered clear of becoming gratuitous or pandering to the merely sensational.
Continue reading Eastenders: soap cleans up image of bipolar disorder.
Sam Coates writes a blog for the Time on line. He is the Chief Political Correspondent for The Times, based in the Houses of Parliament.
