You're so clever doctor

Whenever there's a murder these days, the shrinks seem to get in on the action to give their opinion on what they think happened, and what they think the person was thinking when he or she was thinking about killing another person. Beats me why you need a psychiatrist for this.

The Independent covered the story of William Cranston, who said he "lost his rag" when he discovered his partner and best friend making love. Cranston killed Kay Morton, 39, with a single stab wound to the heart and knifed Paul Wilkins, 55, several times, severing one of his arteries.

The shrink involved was Dr Philip Joseph (left), who examined Cranston. Dr Joseph said Cranston had "...suffered "the ultimate betrayal" by Ms Morton, and that catching the pair having sex on the sofa where his son died was "the last straw". A psychiatric examination revealed he suffered a "catastrophic loss of self-control".

Now for Paddy Mac's evaluation of Dr Joseph's evaluation. Suffered the "ultimate betrayal." Most of us mortals could have told the court that and I for one wouldn't mind the cash that was handed over for that opinion.

The best bit though is the "psychiatric examination" to find out Cranston had a "catastrophic loss of self-control." What sort of psychiatric examination was that doc? Perhaps the very 'scientific' psychiatric examination went something like this:

Dr Joseph: "Tell me what happened Mr Cranston."

Mr Cranston: "I saw them having sex and I got mad."

Dr Joesph: "How did you feel?"

Mr Cranston: "I felt very angry."

Dr Joseph: "What happened then?"

Mr Cranston: "I felt myself losing control very quickly because I was so angry."

Dr Joseph: "What happened then?"

Mr Cranston: "I lost my self-control."

Dr Joseph: "What happened then?"

Mr Cranston: "It was a catastrophe. I killed them both when I lost control."

And this is how you can reach the very very very scientific psychiatric evaluation that Mr Cranston had a "catastrophic loss of self-control." Rocket science takes a back seat in comparison to this stuff.

Lessons to be learnt

Broadmoor has been getting a bashing lately in the media. On Monday, I wrote about a report that would be coming out concerning deaths in Broadmoor. I anticipated the hospital authorities would say that they could "learn valuable lessons" from the report.

Well, on the BBC News web site this afternoon, Peter Cubbon of the West London Mental Health NHS Trust, the one which governs Broadmoor, said, "There are lessons to be learnt from the investigation."

On Monday, I also said the Trust would "...be resolute in "implementing the recommendations". " Today Peter Cubbon said, "The trust has already made progress in implementing a number of the recommendations..."

So I'm not just a pretty face then... I should've applied for the job. I obviously say all the right things.

Bureaucratic deaths at Broadmoor

Saw this report in the Financial Times on Broadmoor Hospital following the release of a report from the Care Quality Commission.

There was a particular paragraph that stopped me in my tracks. "Eight suicides occurred at Broadmoor from 2001 to 2008, five by hanging. But because the buildings are grade II-listed, the trust has been "unable to eradicate obvious ligature points such as bars on windows"."

Sorry Mrs A, Mrs B, Mr C, Mrs D, etc, but your loved ones died because the local planners said Broadmoor couldn't change the windows. I wonder if that's really the case, or whether the powers that be in Broadmoor didn't actually make the effort to make the change?

The listed building status of Broadmoor Hospital would appear to be more important than human life.

Psycho-ramblers go rambling

A journalist in the Boston Globe, has written what can only be described as poetry to those who recognise the idiocy of psychiatry. 'So who's crazy now?' considers all of the psycho-ramblers [psychiatrists] and their psycho-ramblings ['disorders'] who periodically come together to form the comic known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

And I thought I was needed to trivialise psychiatry. In an editorial published in Psychiatric Times, Dr. Allen Frances, the editor of DSM-IV, called DSM-V "a wholesale imperial medicalization of normality that will trivialize mental disorder and lead to a deluge of unneeded medication treatment - a bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry but at a huge cost to the new false positive 'patients' caught in the excessively wide DSM-V net." Exactly doc.

And psychiatrist, Dr Daniel Carlat, has described the rambling process on his blog, the Carlat Psychiatry Blog, as a 'Bar Room Brawl'. He says, "There can be no dramatic improvements in psychiatric diagnosis until we make a fundamental leap in our understanding of what causes mental disorders. The incredible recent advances in neuroscience, molecular biology, and brain imaging that have taught us so much about normal brain functioning are still not relevant to the clinical practicalities of everyday psychiatric diagnosis. The clearest evidence supporting this disappointing fact is that not even one biological test is ready for inclusion in the criteria sets for DSM-5."

What? No biological test ready? Surely not.

My tongue, by the way, is once again firmly planted in my cheek.

Who wants the job of top dog at Broadmoor?

If people detained in Broadmoor Hospital die at the hands of another person who's also detained in the hospital, it's a situation where the only answer is to put each of the people into solitary. That'd solve it. How else d'you prevent a detainee from killing another detainee especially when those in question have demonstrated their willingness to take another's life?

I'm writing this after reading the report in the Times about the Chief Executive of Broadmoor Hospital, Mr Simon Crawford, who has jumped ship prior to a report expected to criticise the hospital management following "serious untoward incidents" where detainees have been murdered or have committed suicide. Mr Crawford has reportedly taken up a new position in NHS London.

It said of Mr Crawford’s move: “Discussions have taken place between Simon Crawford and the trust and they both agreed that the time was right for Simon to move on ...” The right time to moveon? I don't think so. How about sticking around and facing up to the failures like a good manager? I guess that's not what managers do these days. Now they leave with their big pensions.

When the report is finally made public, I anticipate the result will be: the hospital can "learn valuable lessons" from the report, and it will be resolute in "implementing the recommendations" and it will say sorry to the family of the deceased. Then it will attempt to carry on in the hope it can attract more employees who haven't read the papers, who haven't listened to the radio or haven't watched the telly. How about doing something different as what's been going on there obviously hasn't worked.

Murder isn't murder according to one psychiatrist

When psychiatrists tamper with stuff they think they know about, we're in trouble. Most people go along with the docs when they start talking shop about people's state of mind, because most people don't stand back and really listen to what they're saying.

The latest tampering is to do with the Stockwell Strangler Kenneth Erskine, who's had his convictions for murder reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, because a psychiatrist said he was suffering from an 'abnormality' of the mind at the time of the killings.

The tampering psychiatrist is Dr Andrew Horne from notorious Broadmoor. So doc, how d'you know that then? How d'you know Erskine had an 'abnormality' of the mind? Rhetorical question because the truth of the matter is you don't know. You just made it up.

Banned for life from working as a nurse

Psychiatric nurse Joanne Holmes has been struck off of the nursing register by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and banned for life from working as a nurse after shenanigans with a man who was a prisoner under her care.