Psychiatrist Pat Bracken, “a friend of Mad Pride Ireland,” writes about the current state of psychiatry in the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine. As a review of the 2001 Irish Mental Health Act approaches, Dr. Bracken states that “the decision-making powers that are currently given to psychiatry cannot be justified on either scientific or moral grounds. I will go on to argue that shedding these powers (and subsequent responsibilities) would be a positive move for our profession.”
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A remarkable challenge to the status quo. Ireland would be very progressive to heed this paper.
From the paper: “….It seems that while we are comfortable working with individuals and organisations who accept the medical framing of mental problems, we are less willing to contemplate working with critical service users. These are people who reject the medical model because they feel harmed by a system that describes their problems using the language of psychopathology. If we are serious about having an inclusive debate on mental health we will have to overcome this impasse. We need to entertain the idea that people who reject the medical framing of their problems are nevertheless legitimate stakeholders. It is time that we learned how to talk to them and to listen to their ideas. The user movement, with its substantial critical component, is not going to go away….”
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Exactly, we are not going to go away!
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I am coming in late here, but I want to say that our movement in Ireland seems very inspiring to me. I was there early in 2011 and I was very impressed. I think they are making headway.
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Wasn’t it Michel Foucault who sold the dream of Psychiatric Power?
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