Self-harm victims need therapy not hospitalisation
Firstly, the politically-motivated use of the term ‘general hospital’ is to inculcate the change from having dedicated psychiatric hospitals to having psychiatric departments attaching to general hospitals.
Secondly, self-harm is an indication (not a symptom) that a person is emotionally distressed (not mentally ill) and is in need of psychological (not psychiatric) help.
The only reason such persons need hospitalisation is if their wounds require medical treatment. Their injured hearts and confused minds do not need the added anxiety of being labelled first as a patient and thereafter as a ‘loony,’ as manifest in the chemically-induced ‘funny walk’ that encourages the stigma attaching to psychiatric patients.
But what else do psychiatric services have to offer such a person seeking help? Once you place a socially-induced problem into a medical treatment environment, you are into the business of increasing numbers for those it suits and either chemically suppressing or ignoring the real issue.
As a politician, Dan Neville TD would be better served campaigning for interventions that would provide a readily available first-line listening and counselling service in a safe and confidential environment.
For example, an organisation such as Comhairle, with its existing network of centres, would be a good and economical place to start providing such a drop-in service. Persons experiencing emotional difficulties could get help at an earlier stage of distress and thereby avoid not only becoming suicidal but also the risk of stigma, which unfortunately attaches to all psychiatric patients.
The trouble is, there is no political will or financial support for talk therapies because so much of the world’s economy is fast coming under the control of the pharmaceutical industries.
As a point of information for Mr Neville, there is an ocean of completed research into suicide and parasuicide in the archives of the British Psychological Society and the psychology departments of universities such as Trinity College, if anyone cares to look.
There is no need for more costly research - just urgent and effective action.
A Engebretsen
28 Lintown Drive
Johnswell Road
Kilkenny
