Madness and society in Britain

Abstract

Summary The fiftieth anniversary of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and the publication of a detailed multidisciplinary social history of British psychiatry and mental health in recent decades have offered an opportunity to take a helicopter view and reflect on the relation between psychiatry and changing British society. We argue that the time has come to move on from the rhetoric of deinstitutionalisation and community mental healthcare to lead public debate and advocacy for the needs of the mentally ill in the new era of ‘meta-community psychiatry and mental healthcare’. We need to respond effectively to the increasing awareness of mental health problems across society, aiming for a pluralist, integrated and well-funded reform led by joint professional and patient interests which could be unstoppable if we all work together.

European madness 1910–1980: lessons for today from Alastair Morgan's Continental Philosophy of Psychiatry: The Lure of Madness

“…27 We also need to radicalise our political involvement with service user organisations, at both national and local level. 28 Neoliberalism has failed our patients. 29,30 Now that debate is underway on whether we are moving from neoliberalism to neo-or technofeudalism [31][32][33] there will likely be a need for further radicalisation in mental health, somewhat like Fanon and Basaglia although not identical.…”

Metacommunity: the current status of psychiatry and mental healthcare and implications for the future

“…Especially because of failures of social policies and services since 2008, continuity of care, mental symptom control and physical health have suffered 20 and the families of those with severely disabling mental health conditions have too often been let down by the quality (or lack) of care and felt overwhelmed by the burden placed on them. 18,21 1979 and the neoliberal and technological challenge to community psychiatry A pivotal year was 1979: 22 first, the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK (and Ronald Regan the year after in the USA) ushered in the drive to market fundamentalism and a new globalisation; second, the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development and commercialisation of the computed tomography (CT) scanner headlined the technology that from now on would turn psychiatry away from social and towards biological priorities; and third, the publication of Jean-François Lyotard's La Condition Postmoderne (The Post-Modern Condition) 23 signalled the rise of capital, metrics and management at the expense of feelings, narrative and difference. The introduction of the concept of metacommunity is meant to highlight the transformational significance of these changes in political economy and the contemporaneous rapid advances in clinical and information technology and their impact on psychiatry.…”