Ireland’s mental health needs a ‘rebirth’

Ireland needs to undergo a "cultural rebirth", similar to the process Germany engaged in following the Second World War, if it is to become mentally healthy, according to one of the country’s leading psychiatrists.

Medical director at St Patrick’s Mental Health Service and TCD professor of psychiatry, Dr Jim Lucey said much of the country’s history since independence has centred around denial, disassociation and national self-deception.

Speaking at the Merriman Summer School in Glór, Co Clare, where he delivered the keynote address, he argued that this culture of denial was at the expense of analysis and insight and had led us to become a country in distress.