Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T03:05:29.200Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychiatry in Jeopardy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Kenneth Rawnsley*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff CF4 4XN

Extract

Society's attitude to psychiatry has always been ambivalent. When, as a young doctor, I announced my intention to take up this discipline to my then chief, who was a distinguished clinical pathologist, his face turned a deeper shade of purple, and he muttered something about “mumbo-jumbo and guesswork” before stalking off into his den. Much more recently, I broke a lifelong tradition by actually entering into conversation with a stranger on a British railway train. Somehow or another, he extracted from me the information that I was a Professor of Psychological Medicine. “Well, well, he murmured, “and I always thought that was the stuff they put into those huge bottles of red and blue liquid you sometimes see in the windows of the older chemist shops”. That gentle twitting is small beer by comparison with the grave reservations expressed by many individuals and groups.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Butler, S. (1872) Erewhon. Harmondsworth: Penguin English Library.Google Scholar
Cumming, E. & Cumming, J. (1957) Closed ranks: An Experiment in Mental Health Education. Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gluzman, S. & Bukovsky, V. (1975) A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissidents. Survey No. 1/2 (94/95). London: Eastern Press.Google Scholar
House of Commons Official Report (1982) Special Standing Committee. Mental Health (Amendment) Bill. Seventeenth Sitting. June 22nd. 1982. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hubbard, L. R. (1969) Freedom Scientology, No. 8.Google Scholar
Maudsley, H. (1871) Insanity and its Treatment. Journal of Mental Science, 17, 311334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mental Health Act (1983) Section 57. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Pippard, J. & Ellam, L. (1981) Electroconvulsive Therapy in Great Britain: A Report to the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Ashford, Kent: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Rawnsley, K., Loudon, J. B. & Miles, H. L. (1962) Attitudes of Relatives to Patients in Mental Hospitals. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 16, No. 1, 115.Google Scholar
Rawnsley, K., Loudon, J. B. (1962) Factors Influencing the Referral of patients to Psychiatrists by General Practitioners. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 16, No. 4, 174182.Google ScholarPubMed
Rawnsley, K. (1984) The Future of the Consultant in Psychiatry, A Report to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Bulletin, 8, No. 7, 122123.Google Scholar
Russell, G. F. M. & Walton, H. J., (eds.) (1970) The Training of Psychiatrists: Proceedings of the Conference on Postgraduate Psychiatric Education. Royal Medico-Psychological Association. Special Publication No. 5. Ashford, Kent: Headlcy Brothers.Google Scholar
Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Allegations of Ill-Treatment of Patients and Other Irregularities at the Ely Hospital, Cardiff (1969) London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Szasz, T. S. (1961) The Myth of Mental Illness. London: Seeker & Warburg.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.