Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Analysis

Time to end the distinction between mental and neurological illnesses

BMJ 2012; 344 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e3454 (Published 24 May 2012) Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3454

Rapid Response:

Re: Time to end the distinction between mental and neurological illnesses

Just by the way - an interesting development being generated by members of the British Psychology Society and others in the South West of England, is the setting up of 'Hubs in Pubs'. These are informal meetings where specialists speak on a topic which is then open to discussion. The meetings are not exclusive to members, are partly social, and open to everybody with an interest or a curiosity. In contrast psychiatry is still a more closed society. Some psychiatrists do campaign for a cultural change which emphasises issues such as a need for concentrating more on values and meanings, the importance of relationships and equal participation in setting research priorities etc but the funding still mainly supports old paradigms. A group of campaigners in psychiatry, Pat Bracken and colleagues published an important article in the Journal of Psychiatry 2012 with the above title, which calls for a genuine change to the culture of mental health. They need funding as much as the cold 'science' research. Projects such as the 'Hubs in Pubs' are at last reflecting that society is changing from doing to, to doing with...

Competing interests: No competing interests

04 February 2013
susanne stevens
retired
none
cf24