Enlightened approach to mental health issues

I WISH to congratulate Tony Humphreys (Feelgood, Irish Examiner, August 4) and Asta Engebretsen (Irish Examiner letters, August 11) for their very important contributions to a more enlightened approach to mental health issues.

And I congratulate the Irish Examiner for its comprehensive coverage of the inadequacies of the services available.

Unfortunately, people who suffer severe emotional distress are often treated like guinea pigs by the medical profession.

Eletroconvulsive therapy (ECT) damages the brain and often causes severe memory loss, yet it is used every day in our hospitals on people who have been abused already and are, in fact, victims of our unjust society.

Since the advent of psychotropic drugs in America, psychiatric problems have increased fourfold.

Dr Bob Johnson, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatry and a consultant psychiatrist, says in his latest book, Unsafe At Any Dose — “For the last 50 years, doctors, with few honourable exceptions, have steadfastly ignored the solid, irrefutable evidence that psychiatric drugs prolong disease”.

He also says “there’s more to psychiatry and to life than the current psychiatric approach allows”.

Mary Maddock

Manor Close

Thornbury Heights

Rochestown

Cork