Real change needed in mental health care

FIRST, congratulations to the Irish Examiner’s Jennifer Hough for the excellent special investigation into the topsy-turvy world of mental health treatment in Ireland.

It is clear from your investigation and from previous experience that there is an almost total reliance on drug treatments for psychological difficulties. The evidence has been mounting that much drug treatment is not just ineffective, but can be positively harmful, as Dr Dermot Walsh indicated.

It is criminal to continue to spend hundreds of millions on ineffective or harmful approaches rather than on effective forms of healing which actually work. These funds should instead be devoted to therapies and approaches which lead to true healing and recovery, along the lines of many “recovery” models developed in other countries, which have been shown to work and which are humane.