This doesn't sound like intensive care to me

Those who are mentally unstable and who might feel like they want to end it all, need a bit of TLC and some good old common sense from friends and associates to come through what is probably a quagmire of emotions.

What they don't need are tools with which they can fulfil their deathwish. So it was a bit surprising to read on psychminded.co.uk about a nurse who handed a holdall strap to a patient who was being held at a psychiatric intensive care unit in Dundee, Scotland.

The patient Michael Dodds took his own life using the strap. What was the point then in sectioning him in the first place? If psychiatric intensive care units are supposed to give psychiatric intensive care, then I believe there's something seriously wrong with either the description of the facility or the personnel who run it.

Children at risk before they're born

Shrinks from Yale University have issued new professional guidelines on antidepressants and pregnancy. On the uk.reuters.com website, it was stated as follows, "There are both pros and cons to using antidepressants during pregnancy, the report states. The drugs can effectively treat mom's depression, which has been linked to problems in the newborn. However, there is also evidence tying them to birth defects and reduced birth weight."

That's such a difficult statement to reconcile. Is it right to put an unborn child's health at risk by using antidepressants? Moms having a tough time of it have been taking antidepressants during pregnancy. Moms don't have it easy, but to take a drug that can cause birth defects just aint right.

Psychiatric nurse 'filmed up women's skirts'

The Western Morning News in the west country, has reported on a psychiatric nurse who went around town filming up women's skirts.

It seems there are loads of these types of stories that come out of the psychiatric swing doors, or should that be locked doors? Sure, my admiration for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has a bearing on my view, and reflects in what I write about psychiatric nurses. Funny thing is, while Cuckoo's Nest was a movie based on Ken Kesey's brilliant book, it turns out there really are psychiatric nurses like Nurse Ratched and nurses who get into all sorts of dubious stuff, like looking up women's skirts, sexually assaulting patients, rape, and flashing.

Confession time. I knew someone who had an experience in a mental hospital and I didn't believe them. They were having problems, had gone in there for help and ended up getting treated in a way that doesn't belong anywhere near a hospital. I thought the 'experience' I was told about was a bit of made-up stuff that was part of the 'illness'. Turned out the experience was real.

It's a fine line that's walked between believing something someone says and chucking it out just because the person's a bit 'out-to-lunch.'

Please don't dismiss what a patient says. Hence the blog.

If your nose doesn't fit, does it mean you're stupid or nuts?

Facial symmetry is the latest hot air to come out of psychologist's mouths. The BBC Online web site states, "Men with symmetrical faces are less likely to lose their memory and intelligence in later life, according to researchers." It begs the question: how d'you know that then? These psychologists who come up with this stuff must take us for mugs, pun very much intended.

This scientific mapping of the face looks something like the dot-to-dot pictures we used to get in comics as a kid. Frankly, I think this story belongs in a comic too.

How about measuring testicular symmetry in elderly gentlemen to determine the mental welfare of the individual? If testicular symmetry were found to be consistent and that said anatomical structures were indeed in the same horizontal plane, where the perpendicular aspect or each structure was equidistant from the centre of the phallus, what could we determine?

For fear of offending anyone, I will, in answering this highly important question, execute a long standing literary symbol to hide any rudeness or possible embarrassment. So, regarding mental welfare and testicular symmetry, I think it would be fair tosay we're dealing with aload of old b*****ks. Rather like the idea of facial symmetry linked to mental welfare.

Are psychiatrists short of patients?

Kids in the United States, some as young as three, have depression. Craegmoor Healthcare had the story which went like this, "According to lead author Dr Joan Luby, a psychiatrist at Washington University in St Louis, people have not really paid much attention to depressive disorders in children under the age of six because it was thought they were too emotionally immature to experience it."

I'd like to know what the shrinks use to work out a three-year-old is depressed. I'd also like to ask Dr Luby what she has planned for the toddlers. Antidepressants? The ones that create violence and suicide? Adults have done it in the workplace, teenagers have done it in the schoolyard. How about a three-year-old brandishing a gun in kindergarten? Possible?

I've got a really nice brain

Those boffins who do the clandestine laboratory experimentation, you know, the stuff you see in old Hammer films, have come up with a claim that brain scans can show up whether you've got a psychopath brain or an ordinary brain. At least that's what the boffins are saying in the Times. Psychopath brain, ordinary brain: how d'you know that then?

Dr Craig, one of the boffins, said "...the results were interesting because of the function of the two brain regions connected by the UF (uncinate fasciculus). The amygdala is involved in emotional responses such as fear, disgust and pleasure, while the OFC (orbitofrontal cortex) is involved in higher decision-making." That's some clever-sounding stuff doc with some pretty fancy words. But down to the business question again: how d'you know that then?

And Professor Murphy, another boffin, said "...the findings offered the most compelling evidence yet that altered brain anatomy might be involved in psychopathy." One more time, how d'you know that then?

Psychopathy is reported as being "...a disorder in which people struggle to control their impulses, and behave manipulatively, aggressively, dishonestly or exploitatively towards others. They rarely show remorse for their actions." What about looking in a mirror boffs?

D'you remember Road Runner? Doc, I think it's Wylie Coyote...

The Independent carried a story about the secrets of how to interpret the Rorschach test. The secrets were revealed after the ink spillages or whatever they're called and their interpretations, were posted on Wikipedia. According to Herman Rorschach, the intepretation of the splodges can tell what the person is thinking. Paddy Mac would like to ask: "How d'you know that then?"

It's yet another brilliant example of the make-it-up-as-you-go-along brigade claiming this and that when they have absolutely no idea. I guess I leave myself open on this one as any psychiatrist could come along and tell me I'm wrong, or that I'm not an expert in the field. Fine by me. What I could do is make up an equally stupid test and like Dr Rorschach, put it out there and tell others what they should think about this or that.

Then the shrinks out there could come and ask me, "How d'you know that then?" My answer: I made it up in my spare time so I could make a bit of beer money.