Four of the last fve issues were given over to one particular theme or another, and they were usually put together by a group of people who wanted to highlight a particular aspect of psychiatry or their response to it. This means we have accumulated a fair number of contributions from readers on a whole array of topics, some of which we can now publish.
Thanks for contributing. Please continue to do so! And apologies if we could not find space to print your particular contribution – we may be able to do so in a future edition. So this edition looks more like a magazine usually looks, in the sense of a mix of different topics and viewpoints. Because they were crowded out by all the ‘special editions’, several chunks of news items take up some of the space.
It seemed to us that readers would be interested in various newsworthy developments over the last year or so. If there has been one particular worry everyone shared recently, it is probably ‘the cuts’.
As soon as they were mooted, and then brought in, many people predicted the short-sighted effects of indiscriminately cutting budgets for mental healthcare. In the past year or so the evidence has started to come in about exactly how much damage is being done. And it seems that the psychiatric and mental health services are visibly and significantly deteriorating.
As predicted, this is proving a false economy because – if they won’t just crawl away and die – the pieces of desperate or distressed people’s lives still have to be picked up. On the other hand, there was often not much to say for psychiatry and mental healthcare even before the cuts.
We publish a number of pieces that address the various ways in which psychiatry and mental health care always did fail, anyway. But don’t be downhearted, there are even more articles here that shine a ray or two of sunny hope. I won’t spoil it for you by telling you which bits I mean. Dip in and you might be surprised!
Phil Virden (Executive Editor)
Contents
- Editorial Phil Virden
- Europe Votes For Clinical Trials Transparency
- Two Way Mirror: Poem Keren Hill
- Dual Psyche Scott Michael
- Psychiatry & The Professional Duty Of (S)CARE Matthew Connolly
- Review: Our Encounters With Suicide William Park
- A Possible Cure For Schizophrenia Alfred A Barrios
- Some Useful Phrases: Poem Rachel Starbuck
- Review: Splitting In Two: Mad Pride And Punk Rock Oblivion jeremy Spandler
- Take Care When You Spill The Beans Julia Young
- The National Research Ethics Committee & MH Service-User Researchers Jane Clewes
- The Survivor’s Manifesto Survivingwork.Org
- The Manifesto Of A Noncompliant Mental Patient
- Aubrey Ellen Shomo
- ‘WELCOME’ To The Asylum: Poem Jackie Joseph
- Hospitality: Poem Richard-Yves Sitoski
- On A Mission From God: Notes On The Anti-Psychiatric
- Experience Of The Homeless Shelter ‘THE Cure’ Giuseppe Bucalo
- A Message From Madlove Madlove.Org.Uk
- News And Comments
- Mental Illness Costs Uk £70 Billion A Year
- Care & The Cuts
- Children’s Mental Health Care Getting Worse
- Depression Is Second Most Common Health Risk
- Thousands Of Mh Patients Die Early
- Bullying Affects People For Decades
- Poverty Saps Mental Powers
- Treat Adhd With Supplements?
- Jury Out On Cbt For Schizophrenia
- Extent Of Self-Harm In Prisons
- Review: Mad Matters: A Critical Reader In Canadian Mad studies China Mills
- Review: The Therapy Industry: The Irresistible Rise Of The talking Cure, And Why It Doesn’t Work William Park
Asylum-21.2-2014_compressed