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2 results

  • Chapter 6 - Life, Change and Charisma: Memories of UK Psychiatric Hospitals in the Long 1960s

  • from Part I - Social and Institutional Contexts
  • Edited by George Ikkos, Nick Bouras, King's College London
  • Book:
    Mind, State and Society
    Published online:
    17 June 2021
    Print publication:
    24 June 2021, pp 49-59
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  • Summary

    In this chapter, life in UK psychiatric hospitals during the long 1960s is described. Based on oral testimony from a witness seminar, the chapter reveals perspectives which are not readily available in written sources. The authors outline how changes in treatments, the Mental Health Act 1959, multidisciplinary teams and ideals of community care provided opportunities to improve the lives of patients but that wide contrasts existed in the pace and extent of these changes and in clinical standards and practices between, and even within, hospitals. The chapter also addresses how some institutions were characterised by individual charismatic – and often ideologically dogmatic – leaders and the risks that this entailed. For many, their experiences had a lasting impact. Individual senior staff – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – were role models who had profound effects on the course of junior clinicians’ future careers, while the memory of a tragedy, such as the suicide of a patient, could haunt involved staff members lifelong.

  • 9 - When the Illness Is Psychiatric

  • Edited by Thomasine Kushner
  • Book:
    Surviving Health Care
    Published online:
    05 June 2012
    Print publication:
    29 March 2010, pp 124-135

  • Summary

    Psychiatric diagnoses, for the most part, are based on the information reported by the patient (and sometimes by third parties, such as family and friends) and on the observations made by an examining psychiatrist. Most psychiatric consultations involve one or two meetings, each lasting anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour and a half. Sometimes the psychiatrist will extend the consultation process beyond two sessions. Psychiatric treatments can be divided broadly into three categories: biological treatments, psychological treatments, and social treatments. Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of research on the brain and the biology of psychiatric illness, including a search for genetic causes of mental diseases. From the pharmacological relief of difficulties in thought and mood to the psychotherapeutic untangling of self-defeating relationship patterns, psychiatry offers the possibility of living a healthier, more fulfilling life.