{"id":258875,"date":"2025-07-12T12:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T12:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258875\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T12:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T12:09:09","slug":"fundamental-flaws-in-the-nhs-psychiatric-system-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/258875\/","title":{"rendered":"Fundamental flaws in the NHS psychiatric system | Mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am disappointed to read such a scathing review of Bella Jackson\u2019s book Fragile Minds (A furious assault on NHS psychiatry, 30 June<\/a>). It is a difficult read, and yet I thought that Jackson wrote about her experiences with compassion for both patients and staff unwittingly caught up in erratic and overstretched services.<\/p>\n

I am a doctor, with experience as a psychiatric patient and as a senior \u201cstaff grade\u201d doctor on an acute psychiatric ward. My memoir<\/a>, Unshackled Mind: A Doctor\u2019s Story of Trauma, Liberation and Healing, confirms Jackson\u2019s claims that abuses do happen in these places. More subtly, there is a continued reliance on the disease-centred model of biomedical psychiatry without sufficient attention paid to the circumstances and adversities suffered by patients before they ever came in contact with psychiatry. As a result, my own early trauma was unaddressed for more than 20\u00a0years, while I\u00a0was subjected to increasingly damaging interventions, including electroconvulsive therapy and even a cingulotomy. It is only since\u00a0leaving\u00a0psychiatry that I have\u00a0been able to recover.<\/p>\n

Jackson\u2019s book is a reminder that despite the best intentions, many patients are failing to get the help they need in a fundamentally flawed psychiatric system.
Dr Cathy Wield<\/strong>
Abingdon, Oxfordshire<\/p>\n

I am writing to congratulate Dr\u00a0Rachel Clarke for her excellent rebuttal of Bella Jackson\u2019s assault on the failings of modern psychiatry. I have worked as the head of mental health law for a large NHS<\/a> trust for 35 years, and as a frequent visitor to mental health wards, entirely agree that\u00a0Jackson\u2019s views are at odds with my experience. I was last on a secure, forensic mental health ward just a few days ago \u2013 with incredibly challenging patients.<\/p>\n

All the staff I encountered were not only humane, but kind, compassionate and caring. I\u2019ve also worked in roles where I visited many hospitals and have almost without exception experienced the same. Our mental health nurses and psychiatrists, as well as so many others, go out of their way to display the same values.<\/p>\n

I am far from naive, and recognise that there is a tiny minority of individuals who fail to live up to the same core values. Over decades I have witnessed interactions where psychiatrists, nurses and others are challenged to a degree that might seem almost impossible to cope with, but they rise to the challenge with great skill, kindness and compassion, in line with their respective professional codes of conduct.
Kevin Towers<\/strong>
Head of mental health law and data\u00a0protection officer, West\u00a0London\u00a0NHS\u00a0Trust<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing in response to the review by Rachel Clarke, especially the suggestion that the memoir is \u201cscaremongering\u201d. I am a consultant clinical psychologist with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the NHS across several London-based trusts. I train people, including ward staff and crisis services, in working effectively with people with personality disorder. Similar stories to those that Bella Jackson relates are reported to me and colleagues regularly. I don\u2019t doubt the veracity of Jackson\u2019s complaint, nor that NHS mental health is in a dire state; it is interesting that Clarke does, given her admission of relatively scant mental health experience.
Name and address supplied<\/strong><\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/strong>email<\/strong><\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/strong>letters<\/strong><\/a> section.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I am disappointed to read such a scathing review of Bella Jackson\u2019s book Fragile Minds (A furious assault…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-258875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114840191965261216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}