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Who Wears the Chains Now

A Personal Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas*
Affiliation:
Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist, Leicester General Hospital, Gwendolen Road, Leicester
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In 1793 Pinel started the move towards modern psychiatry by removing the chains from patients at the Bicetre Psychiatric Asylum. In 1986 the Mental Health Commission through their draft Code of Practice (COP) are metaphorically attempting to place those chains upon the professionals whose job it is to treat psychiatric disorder. Psychiatry will not benefit by having either the patients or the carers chained. I feel that if the COP in its current form is accepted, then it is likely in the long-term to lead to a deterioration of services for the mentally ill and we should ensure through the Royal College that we are not forced into accepting proposals from people who are in a worse position than ourselves to determine what is best for our patients.

Type
The College
Information
Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists , Volume 10 , Issue 6 , June 1986 , pp. 139 - 141
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1986
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