Psychiatry and quality just don't mix

I saw this quote from the Pressie of the Royal College of Shrinks in the Guardian today. As usual, it got me thinking. The Pressie, Prof Sue Bailey, said that "Like physicians, psychiatrists are under pressure to deliver quality care with a minimum of resources."

In the World according to Paddy Mac, there's all sorts to pick on in that statement. "Like physicians..."
Shrinks are nothing like physicians. When it comes to the crunch, physicians give people a choice about what happens next. Shrinks don't. At crunch time, shrinks tell the patient what's going to happen and if they don't like it, tough, they initiate a lock-up until the patient agrees or 'complies.'

"Psychiatrists under pressure to deliver quality care..." Since when Prof? If quality care means you get picked up, locked up, drugged up and messed up, I wouldn't call that quality care. Then there's the revolving psychiatric door. A quality plumber for example fixes the boiler so you don't have to keep on calling him out to fix it over and over. If the benchmark of quality is where you don't have to keep going back for constant psychiatric 'repairs,' then I haven't heard of a quality psychiatrist. Ever.

"...with a minimum of resources." I did a Google search for 'mental health spending uk' and found this. The Nuffield Trust put up one of those fancy charts that people like me look at but don't have a clue what they mean. But I read a bit of text under the chart which I did understand. It said, "The largest single category of NHS expenditure is mental health, which includes patients with dementia. Spending in this area has risen by more than one third over less than a decade." I suppose if you have to keep on calling out the shrink for a fix, no pun intended, you're going to rack up the costs. No real fixes though.

Here's how Paddy Mac would rewrite the Prof's statement, "Unlike physicians, psychiatrists are not under pressure to deliver quality care. Quality care doesn't exist in psychiatry. Unlike physicians, psychiatrists lock 'em up and drug 'em up with shedloads of dosh at their disposal."

Nice work if you can get it.

The odds are stacked against child gambling

Interesting story this one. A shrink who goes by the name of Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones thinks, in her ultimate wisdom, that not enough is being done to help kids who have a gambling problem. She says she wants a ban on all child gambling.

So that I don't have to keep writing Dr Bowden-Jones, I'm going to call her Henrietta. I'm sure she won't mind. Henrietta is the director of the NHS's first treatment clinic for people with gambling problems. That's right. A treatment clinic for people with gambling problems. I have to ask, "What the hell would you do in one of these places?" And do they ban fruit in the canteen?

Now, Henrietta thinks kids need one of their own special treatment clinics where they can go to... well... errr... uhh... what the hell would kids do in a clinic for child gamblers? Before anyone has a go, I'll preempt it. "You don't understand Mac, you're not the one with the problem." Yeah, OK, but seriously, what are you going to do with kids in a clinic who insist on putting money in a brightly coloured machine?

Would Henrietta give the kids a bag of cash and put them in a room full of fruities that have hardened chewing gum stuck in the coin slots? Or would she tell them 'to get over it'? Or does she talk to them nicely, say it's not their fault, and prescribe an anti-gambling drug? Or does Henrietta go for the jugular and restrain the kids on a gurney and exorcise the inner gambling demons with her quackery? Perhaps the gambling mice I wrote about last week could teach the kids a thing or two.

But now for the real irony. Henrietta and her gang haven't got a Scooby about the problem. It's a toss-up for anyone going to one of her clinics whether it does anything for them. Just like a whimsical hope of hitting the jackpot, there's no guarantee of getting sorted in a gambling clinic. It's a gamble whether you'll get over the gambling.

Last word. I didn't read anything about the parents. Nuff said.

Shout-out for Sheriff McSherry

Am I allowed to kiss a Sheriff or would I get arrested? Never thought I'd say it but there is one I'd like to plant a smacker on. At long last, someone with a bit of clout has had the guts to stand up and say that shrink-talk in a court is an attempt to 'excuse' the behaviour of thugs.

It was reported in the Scottish Express that Sheriff Craig McSherry, was about to sentence Stuart Lawrie, 23, for assaulting his partner when he was told the accused had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The usual turn of events normally goes something like this - a shrink gets paid a shed load of cash to write a  short story that says the accused has something wrong with them and it's called ADHD. The shrink can't prove it, but he thinks he's God so you'd better shut your gob or else. Then the legal rep tells the Judge about his poor little client, diddums, who's got the world on his shoulders, who finds it hard to control himself, who beats the crap out of others, who trashes a joint for no reason, all because poor little diddums has got ADHD because God The Shrink said he's got it. The little shit is then let off, gets an arm wrapped round his shoulder, told everything will be all right, gets some amphetamines down his throat, and goes on his merry way.

Sheriff McSherry wasn't having it. He slammed ADHD as an excuse for thugs hence I want to kiss him, run my fingers through his wig and tell him he's a good egg. As for the politicians jumping on the bandwagon, I've no time for them. In fact, they need to open their eyes. The Express article said, "Falsely claiming to be suffering from ADHD was “insulting” victims." Oh please. Wake up! No one has ADHD. You can't insult the victims of ADHD because there aren't any. The only way you can be a victim of ADHD is if someone believes you've got it.

Anyone who wants to have a go at me for writing this, bring it on. Tell me ADHD is real. Tell me ADHD is that or that, or that God The Shrink has written about it. I'll have just one thing to say to you, "How d'you know that then?" Please have your answers ready.

Researchers are taking the biscuit

I've been really busy so I thought I should have a 'Time Out', give myself a 'Boost' and write about this 'Topic'.

Just been reading about a study in the Metro online newspaper where participants were encouraged to think unhappy thoughts because, apparently, that makes them less likely to crave chocolate or other unhealthy foods.

I figured I should do a little research of my own on the story, so I went and asked a female friend what she thought of this story. She read a couple of lines of it and I noted her comment so I could refer to it in writing this blog. She said, "That's bollocks." She didn't have any other comments or say anything else about it before walking off.

The story refers to the study author Dr Juliano Laran, who's from the University of Miami. He said, ‘We found when people who are sad are exposed to pictures of indulgent food or words, their sadness highlights the negative consequences of indulging and encourages them to indulge less.'

I can't help thinking of Bridget Jones and the ice cream scene, where she's scoffing it down after the break up with either Hugh Grant or Colin Firth; can't remember which one. It didn't look like she was thinking about the negative consequences of getting a bit of Ben and Jerry's down her neck at the time. 

Now flip the research coin and you get the other side. Last year, the Daily Mail headline was 'Why we eat a whole tub of ice cream when we're sad.' Huh? Are these researchers serious? One lot say one thing, while the other lot say the opposite. One day you eat because you're having a bad hair day, and the next day, you don't eat but you're still having a bad hair day. I do believe the lady quoted above has a point.


And I do believe the researchers are taking the biscuit.

Viva Rat Vegas

I like to think I'm ready to listen to anyone, that I'm ready to shift my load over to the other side of the lorry,
ready to bang my head where I haven't banged it before - in order words try something new having opened my ears to the learned head shrinkers that throw stuff my way.

After all, there's some jaw-dropping stuff out there these days. How about Viva Rat Vegas? The story reported in the Daily Mail said rats gambled for sugar pellets using a slot machine-style device that featured three flashing lights and two levers they could push with their paws.

The rats were reported to have exhibited several behaviours associated with problem gambling such as the tendency to treat near-misses similarly to wins. Oh yeah? You got me thinking. If they exhibited several behaviours, what else did they do? I can see it now. They probably stayed up all night, got shit-faced on bottles of Scotch, picked up a doe who was gagging for it, and showed her a good time before heading back to the casino to try and win more sugar pellets.

You're probably going to say I'm being juvenile and silly. I suppose I could say the same of a bunch of grown men and women asking rats to play pretend slot machines before fobbing us off with bull fertiliser. My killer question would be lost and wasted on this bunch so I won't ask it.

It's quite insulting that intelligent scientists, chaps and chapesses who probably went to University and got all sorts of certificates and letters after their names, would compare people like me to a rat. If they find a rat that can write an intelligent blog and ruminate on the idiosyncracies of Homo Sapiens, then I might listen.

Scientist awarded for researching stuff that doesn't exist

After almost a three-year hiatus, I'm back and what a story to start with.

This is a story of nice work if you can get it son, can you lend us a fiver mate? A big shot, sooper-dooper Cambridge scientist Trevor Robbins is sharing a one million euro slush fund, whoops, that should be prize, for researching stuff to do with the brain.

An article in the Cambridge News says all sorts of things, including technical bits and bobs and other stuff, but the bit that caught my eye was Professor Robbins' work had lead to major discoveries related to good old ADHD. Oh yeah? Is that right? After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked myself, "What the...? How the hell did that happen? Where have I been all this time?"

I'm no Sherlock Holmes and I'm not a rocket scientist, but there's a major stumbling block to the good Prof's research. Here's the question I asked myself, "How can anyone research stuff related to ADHD?" No one out there in Shrinkdom has found ADHD. And that's not for the want of trying. Shrinks have been giving it their best shot but there's still no cigar. The newspaper story says that, "...specific circuits in the forebrain regulate the formation of habits and addiction to drugs, while also showing how disturbances of this circuitry can lead to ADHD and OCD." So, here comes the killer question Professor - how d'you know that then?

How can you say something leads to ADHD when you can't even find it, look at it, touch it, feel it, poke it with a stick or anything? Oh, and you hope the research will lead to new drugs. Well, that's nice for the Big Pharma boys throwing money at you and your mates. Lundbeck isn't it? What are the bets they'll use your research about Scotch Mist aka ADHD, give it to their alchemists, so they can come up with a potion that makes tonnes of dosh?

If you don't agree with anything I've said, post something or do something that proves ADHD is real. I'll bet you one million euros and raise you one million that you can't.

Shrinks push drugs in prisons

A shrink called Susan Young has said that almost half the prison population could have avoided a life of crime if treated as children for ADHD. Doc: how d'you know that then?

ADHD, as far as I can see, is a made up condition used by shrinks to label naughty kids. So, the doc's saying that if you drug kids early enough, they wouldn't be criminals and the prisons would lose half the current population.

The doc thinks that "...up to 45 per cent of youth offenders and 30 per cent of adult criminals have the condition that causes hyperactivity or inattentiveness." How d'you know that then?

As with any mental disorder, it's a case of 'in my opinion', 'studies suggest', blah blah. It's all made up. You can't see ADHD under a microscope. You're just going to have to believe the shrink. Let's face it, for those prisoners who get the diagnosis, they're getting 'kiddie-cocaine' drugs according to the Sunday Express last week. Loads of security is set up in prisons to prevent drugs being taken in, and what d'you know, the shrinks then give them the green light.

Brattish kids are a pain in the proverbial, but it doesn't mean we have to drug them. Don't listen to the doc and her mindless science.

Thinking outside the box

I'm more than willing to be corrected on this, but why do shrinks have anything to do with brains? As far as I know, the cerebrum is the central point for the nervous system. And as far as I know, neurologists practice neurology and are experts in things to do with neurons and the nervous system, which would probably mean they're experts in things like brains.

That means psychiatrists must be real experts in things to do with psyches. According to current definitions... oh, there isn't a current definition for psyches. There are verbs for psyche but there's only one noun listed in the online dictionary for psyche and that refers to psychology. You can probably see where I'm going with this. It begs the question: what are psychiatrists doing playing around with brains? Does this mean psychiatrists are now neurologists?

This line of questioning started when I read the story in a London paper called the Ealing Gazette about a psychiatrist Dr Michael Maier who has a collection of 6,000 brains coming at him. The collection was started 50 years ago to try and unlock the causes of mental illess.

Fifty years later, I guess psychiatrists are still trying to find the answers. The report says the collection is still being used worldwide to try and combat current illness so that means they haven't worked it out yet. I don't have a degree in the bleeding obvious, but could it have something to do with the fact mental illness doesn't have anything to do with brains? Again, I'm not an expert and I repeat, I'm willing to be corrected on this.

I know it's asking alot, but it might be worth it if psychiatrists started thinking outside the usual parameters. They might realise they're talking aload of boxes.

Home, Sweet Home

It's been reported that Oregon State Mental Hospital is reopening. Yes, the movie set for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is going to be opening for business once more.

The report on www.ctv.ca said the hospital was a place where real psychiatric abuse occurred. What a brilliant journalistic description. It got me thinking. If I'm reading that correctly, that means unless a psychiatric hospital was featured in a movie like Cuckoo's Nest, then it was or is a hospital where real psychiatric abuse took place or takes place.

Apparently, a hospital designed to facilitate modern theories in mental health treatment will be put in place of the old one. As far as I know, modern theories in mental health treatment still rely on drugs, shock treatment and a bit of brain-digging now and again, just like Cuckoo's Nest all those years ago. Here's the new modern theory: walking round an imaginary town inside the hospital. That's the new stuff shrinks are trying to pass off as treatment. That got me thinking too: isn't that the sort of thing shrinks normally accuse their patients of doing? Hot-footing it off into the land of make-believe? That normally gets a label banged on it followed by a bit of 'treatment'.

So now, when it suits the shrinks, going to the land of make-believe is being called 'treatment'. Beats me.

On a lighter note, I wonder who'll be the first to emulate Mac. Anyone got a yellow bus?

No more porridge for Mummy Bear

A psychiatric nurse, involved in a ménage à trois, has been struck off the nursing register. Jayne Reed got up to all sorts of seedy shenanigans with a 46-year-old and an 18-year-old patient. The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard that during the shenanigans, Reed would be "mummy bear" while the 46-year-old man... I wont go into details but daddy bear and baby bear were involved if you get my drift.

What struck me in the report in The Sun was that Ms Reed said: "I am angry at the mental health trust who failed to notice the decline in my practice and professionalism." Talk about passing the buck. This lady is off the scale. It's a bit like saying, "I drove at 120mph and lost my license. I'm now angry at the police who failed to notice my rubbish driving." She crossed the boundaries and she knows it.

She should be angry at herself for using patients for her own sexual gratification, angry at herself for thinking she could get away with it by blaming the Trust, and angry at herself for not thinking about the effects of her actions.

No more porridge for you Mummy Bear.

This sounds like a Benny Hill episode

It sounds more like something out of a Benny Hill skit, or something from one of those top shelf products you find in the local video store. As far as I can see, this story has nothing to do with medicine, or nursing.

The Shropshire Star covered the story of Anne Rogers-Hughes, a psychiatric nurse who had a four-month affair with a patient. During that time, she provided topless massages and described him to colleagues as a “stud”. I thought this kind of activity went on in seedy back street 'establishments' where participants usually need the NHS for the treatment of STDs.

Rogers-Hughes' bosses also got to hear the tawdry details of how she had sex with her patient twice a week at his home, and how she took him to see a GP to ask for Viagra while she sat in the waiting room.

I don't think it took much deliberating to decide to strike her off. The Nursing and Midwifery Council found Anne Rogers-Hughes "... guilty of engaging in a sexual relationship with Service User A between July and October 2007 and failing to notify managers of the affair."

So the nurse isn't working anymore. Big deal. I reckon she should be in jail, guility of a sex crime. Apparently the sex was mutually consensual. It seems like patients are only vulnerable when it suits the docs and nurses.

Don't worry, shrinks have found the 'worry centre'

Desperate people take desperate measures. Shrinks at the Institute of Psychiatry in London have apparently found the 'worry centre' of the brain for the first time. MRI scans of people deliberately made anxious by the threat of an electric shock have identified the hippocampus - the brain's memory centre - as the source of the anxiety.

Like all the other psychiatric hot air that's full of weasel words, I don't buy this. It begs the question of whether those under threat of electric shock were 'worriers' or not, or whether they were average Joes taken off the street. So there's some activity in the brain when you threaten them with being shocked. Goodness me! I've a theory about this. I reckon it means the subjects are alive. That's about as much as you can deduce from that.

Unscience aside, I'm getting to think like shrinks now, because the next step in this story is to 'discover' an expensive chemical, give it a name, patent it, sell it at inflated prices, and finally shove it down the throats of the worriers. When they're drugged up, and they stop worrying because they can't think straight, the shrinks will say they've solved the worriers of this world.

I'd like to take the worriers of this world, change a couple of letters and turn them into warriors, who then fight back against the shrinks who attempt to ruin their lives with chemicals.

ADHD is 'genetic', honest guv

Back in September, a shrink from Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom, shouted all over the media that ADHD is genetic. Professor Anita Thapar said, "Now we can say with confidence that ADHD is a genetic disease." How d'you know that then? Yes, there's probably a bubbly-babbly sickly-psycho answer that's supposed to wash over me and people like me, so we don't keep asking how d'you know that then?

But I don't buy the bubbly-babbly sickly-psycho answer. In fact, I thought the doc's nemesis Oliver James had a pretty good argument when he said in the Guardian, "Although she claimed to have proved that ADHD is a "genetic disease", if anything, she proved the opposite."

Fergus Walsh, the BBC's medical correspondent, waded in to the argument as well. He said of Prof Thapar's statement, "...those bold claims do not seem to be borne out by the actual research paper." And after doing his sums, he concluded, "That also means that seven out of eight of the ADHD group did not have the genetic variant - which hardly justifies Professor Thapar's confident assertion that ADHD is a genetic disease."

ADHD isn't scientific. It's a psychiatric obsession about badly behaved kids, based on the psycho-bubbly-babbly 'chemical imbalance' theory. There's no way to measure an imbalance, so the rug that ADHD is sitting on gets pulled every time someone says it's an imbalance in the brain. Or am I being unfair? There are parents out there who'd probably like to ask me whether I've ever had to live with a kid with ADHD. I'd say with complete confidence, no I haven't, because ADHD doesn't exist!

I'd follow that by saying I have lived with a kid who's badly behaved and yes, I know what that's like. It's tough and I couldn't wait to leave home. The badly behaved kid though didn't get drugs stuffed down his throat and now he's doing pretty good, thank you very much. I'm proud to call him my brother.

Doc Thapar should be ashamed of herself. I'm going to answer the question posed to her: she doesn't know it's genetic, and she can't prove it's genetic, but I'll bet she made a bucket load of cash from it.

Blood on their hands

The sad case of the divorce barrister Mark Saunders caught my attention this week. It sounds like he was a really troubled man; booze, depression, and drugs.

A report in the Daily Telegraph stated Mr Saunders had seen a psychiatrist in 2006. I've taken this paragraph from that article to point out something:

"A psychiatrist who examined him in 2006 warned that if he did not “abstain completely from all mind-altering substances” he risked being killed in a pub fight. Doctors were also concerned he would commit suicide if a period of depression and an alcohol binge coincided. To stabilise his mood swings, he was prescribed the antidepressant Prozac. "

If he was told to abstain completely from all mind-altering substances, why was he given antidepressants? The last time I checked, antidepressants were mind-altering, with a list of side effects as long as my arm, including violence.

I expect there's some psychobabbly answer, that 's supposed to satisfy the lemmings' curiosity, but I really don't care what the psychobabblists say. They have blood on their hands and it's time they answered up.

The wrong 'pillar of strength'

Why do these gentleman of the psychiatric persuasion think it's acceptable to, put rather bluntly, have sex with their patients?

I've witnessed the problems that go hand-in-hand for a friend who experienced and continues to experience mental illness. I've seen that person cling on to the tiniest possible scrap of hope, I've seen the desperation, I've seen the hopelessness, and I've felt the inadequacy of not being a pillar of strength at a time when I needed to be. That's me.

But what about a psychiatrist? Before I knew any better, I had them tagged as intelligent and caring individuals, who had the patience of Job and who had the answers for people going round the bend.

I was wrong. It's a crude euphemism, but the 'pillar of strength' that this psychiatrist was thinking of was the wrong kind. Thedore Soutzos who worked in Harley Street, London, had sex with three of his patients. He wasn't content with one. He had three. I keep having to remind myself of what this psychiatrist's position entails, what he's supposed to do according to his job description. Sex with patients aint part of it.

Bearing in mind the fragility of those who go to see a psychiatrist, and my friend is a good example, I was floored by the report in the Daily Mail. Following shenanigans with one of the ladies, Doc Soutzos was asked if he and the lady were in a relationship. Doc Soutzos was reported as having replied, "How can we be? I am a doctor and you are my patient."

What did Doc Soutzos think his words would do to his patient? I would put it to the doc that he knew very well what his words would do to his patient. If he's someone who's looking after the mental condition of people, having sex with them and then telling them there's no relationship is an open invitation to experience the consequences of a woman scorned.

I guess the doc wasn't thinking. No, I'll correct myself. He was thinking, but he was thinking with his 'pillar of strength' and we've all read where that leads in the tawdry headlines of the red tops.

For anyone reading this who needs a helping hand, go see your mates or your girlfriends, talk to them or go down the pub with them for a beer or go somewhere different for a change. Do something with someone you trust rather than with a shrink you don't know from Adam.

Seeing is believing, unless you're a psychiatrist

I've just stumbled across something the Yorkshire Ripper's shrink said earlier this year, and it begs a blog entry along with my fave question, 'How d'you know that then?'

The shrink, Dr Kevin Murray believes Peter Sutcliffe should never have been convicted of murder because Sutcliffe was too ill to know what he was doing and that he was suffering from diminished responsibility. Doc, I'm all ears: "How d'you know that then?" Doc Murray was also backing Sutcliffe's application to be released. As I'm writing this, I'm aware Sutcliffe didn't get released. The High Court Judge wasn't hoodwinked by Doc Murray and his beliefs. Talking of beliefs, I find it hard to believe Doc Murray thought Sutcliffe's release would really happen.

Michael Bilton, the author of the piece published in the Daily Mail, makes a damn good observation. He says, "...if Sutcliffe's doctors have successfully treated his claimed mental sickness, as they seem to suggest, I can't work out why Sutcliffe has not been sent back to serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison."

So here we are, 27 August 2010, about six weeks down the road from the decision to prevent Sutcliffe's release. Despite all the publicity, I'll bet Sutcliffe is still in Broadmoor Hospital right now and Mr Bilton's observation stands up even more robustly.

In summary then:

1) According to Doc Murray, Sutcliffe was well enough to be released

2) The Judge, As far as I know, didn't miraculously metamorphose into a psychiatrist and usurp Doc Murray's belief that Sutcliffe was well enough to be released

3) The decision not to release Sutcliffe, as far as I know, did not result in his contracting a new mental illness

4) Sutcliffe, as far as I know, returned to Broadmoor Hospital following his Court Hearing

Are you following my thought pattern here? How come Sutcliffe hasn't gone to prison? It's not as though it's because he might get hurt in prison. He was attacked in Broadmoor and got pretty mashed up by the look of it.

Might try to get hold of Mr Bilton to ask him for his thoughts on the matter.

Is investment in Big Pharma a mental illness?

I get the idea that while there's been all sorts of criticisms aimed at the authors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for suggesting that temper tantrums or binge eating may be included as a mental disorder, or that eccentricity might result in you lying down on the shrink couch, there are those among us who'd like to see the new book put into practice, if only for the utterly ridiculous factor.

Reading the stories, it got me thinking. It's so ridiculous, I wanted to see how far it could go. I started making a list of things that I didn't like about other people's behaviour, things I objected to, and so on. I basically settled on one thing and it's the reason for this blog. It's the person who asserts something is so with no shed of evidence to back it up. Weapons of mass destruction is an example. So it's not just psychiatrists who blast out hot air.

Shrink says temper tantrums are a mental illness or disorder or whatever. "How d'you know that then?" Are temper tantrums actually a mental illness, or are they so disliked by many, that psychiatrists are about to give parents the day off with a drug nanny?

As for eccentricity, I think my name could be in the hat. My words here could be psychiatrically reinterpreted as being that of a slightly unhinged individual who has a particular eccentricity about psychiatry, where his or her idiosyncracies could impact upon their well being taking over their life, leading to mental this and that. But that would only be because a shrink said so. If he or she were asked, "how d'you know that then?", there'd be even more hot air.

If it weren't for the complete nuttiness of this whole thing, I don't think the DSM would see the light of day. The fact it's so stupid, seems to blind people to the point they think there might be something in it.

But there is something in it: money. If you're a shareholder in Big Pharma, then it's not so ridiculous, stupid, or nutty.

Perhaps there should be a tag for those who invest in Big Pharma.

Definitely not a shrinking violet

Since when has a psychiatrist been in the position to decide whether another psychiatrist was sexually harassing a junior doctor or not?

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Stephen McMillan Arnott, described as an expert witness in the Derby Telegraph, was giving evidence at a hearing into Dr Andrew Clayton's conduct. It is alleged Dr Clayton behaved in a sexually motivated way towards two female patients and two trainee members of staff. He allegedly "fondled patient's breasts and tapped bottom."

I'd live to know what makes Dr Arnott an expert witness on the subject. I expect he did what anyone else would have done; ask the person bringing the allegations what happened. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or for that matter a psychiatrist, to ask those kinds of questions.

After all's been said and done, I reckon the shrink did it, and I've never met him. In May 2009, he was found guilty of possessing child pornography, while in 1990 and 1998, he had faced allegations of "inappropriate sexual behaviour towards patients."

Could have saved a shedload of money instead of paying a shrink.

Centre for the Resolution of Addiction to Psychiatry (CRAP)

The docs in white coats like categorising what we do, the way we behave, what we say, blah blah blah, and the lemmings among us say "Wow! Science!"

Are we 'addicted' to the internet? If so, stop reading this now! The point is, psychiatrists are highly paid men in white coats pointing out the bleedin' obvious. For example:

Person: "Doc, I have problems leaving the internet alone at night."

Doc: "When did this start?"

Person: "About six months ago when I got a computer."

Doc: "How do you feel at night when this happens?"

Person: "Knackered cos I don't go to bed."

Doc: "In my learned opinion, I think you have problems leaving the internet alone at night."

Here's a test I've formulated for all you psychiatrists out there. I'm not assuming you're going to read this blog, but there might come a day when you can laugh at yourselves. I hope I'm around to see it.

If you answer 'yes' to five or more of these questions below, you may have a psychiatric thingymabob, whatsit, some mindset that needs a name... All suggestions for a name by email to howdoyouknowthatthen@gmail.com

Here we go:

1) Do you feel preoccupied with other people's behaviour? (Think about your consulting room or your next appointment.)

2) Do you need increasing amounts of time to convince your patient of their illness to achieve personal satisfaction?

3) Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back or stop thinking about making up new disorders?

4) Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop thinking of making up new disorders?

5) Do you ponder on other people's behaviour longer than originally intended?

6) Have you jeopardised or risked the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of thinking up new disorders no one else has thought of?

7) Have you lied to family members, a colleague or others to conceal the extent of your involvement with other people's behaviour?

8) Do you tell other people they're ill to escape from your own problems (eg, feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?

If you answered yes to 5 or more of the questions, you may be suffering from a sense of humour.

Source: Centre for the Resolution of Addiction to Psychiatry (CRAP)

Mental health treatment like a 'kick in the head'

There's an old saying I've heard: "mental health treatment's like a kick in the head". One mental health nurse took the saying literally. Jongo Vandi, who worked at Broadmoor Hospital, actually kicked a patient in the head.

Let's assume the patient was being 'difficult' at the time. It is Broadmoor after all. So, you'd expect the quality of the staff to be such that they go unphased under provocation, to be of the calibre that they know how to diffuse a volatile situation, that they know through their extensive training how to 'talk someone down', and so on and so on. But no, Mr Vandi kicked the patient in the head.

Alot of the patients in Broadmoor are violent. Sounds like Mr Vandi's just as bad.