Fundamental flaws in the NHS psychiatric system | Mental health

I am disappointed to read such a scathing criticism of Bella Jackson Fragile Minds (A Furious Assault on Nhs Psychiatry, June 30). It is a difficult reading, and yet I thought that Jackson wrote on his experiences with compassion for patients and staff who involuntarily caught in erratic and too extinct services.

I am a doctor, with experience as a psychiatric patient and as a senior doctor “of staff note” in an acute psychiatric room. My memories, Mind Unhackled: a doctor of trauma, liberation and healing, confirms Jackson’s claims that abuses occur in these places. More subtly, there is a continuous dependence on the model of biomedical psychiatry centered on the disease without sufficient attention granted to the circumstances and adversities suffered by patients before being in contact with psychiatry. Consequently, my own early trauma has not been treated for more than 20 years, while I was subjected to increasingly damaging interventions, including electroconvulsive therapy and even a cingulotomy. It was only since I left the psychiatry that I was able to recover.

Jackson’s book recalls that despite the best intentions, many patients fail to obtain the help they need in a fundamentally defective psychiatric system.
Dr Cathy Wield
Abingdon, Oxfordshire

I write to congratulate Dr. Rachel Clarke for his excellent refutation from Bella Jackson’s assault for the failures of modern psychiatry. I worked as a head of mental health law for a large NHS trust for 35 years and as a frequent visitor to mental health services, I am fully agreed that Jackson’s opinions are in contradiction with my experience. I was the last in a secure and secure mental health district a few days ago – with incredibly difficult patients.

All the staff I met was not only human, but kind, compassionate and attentive. I also worked in roles where I visited many hospitals and I have almost without exception of the same thing. Our mental health nurses and our psychiatrists, as well as so many others, do everything possible to display the same values.

I am far from naive and I recognize that there is a small minority of individuals who do not reach the same fundamental values. Over the decades, I have witnessed interactions where psychiatrists, nurses and others are challenged to some extent that might seem almost impossible to face, but they take up the challenge with great competence, kindness and compassion, in accordance with their respective professional codes.
Towers Kevin
Head of mental health law and data protection manager, West London NHS Trust

I write in response to Rachel Clarke’s review, in particular the suggestion that memories are “in a ralmante”. I am a clinical psychologist consultant with more than 20 years of experience in the NHS in several Fiducies based in London. I form people, including the services of parish staff and the crisis, by working effectively with people with personality disorders. Stories similar to those that Bella Jackson tells me are reported and colleagues regularly. I have no doubt about the veracity of Jackson’s complaint, nor that the mental health of the NHS is in a disastrous state; It is interesting to note that Clarke, given his admission to a relatively radical mental health experience.
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