Printed from: https://archive.cmf.org.uk/advocacy/clinical-practice/psychiatry/?index=20
The standard rhetoric that well designed studies have failed to show any adverse effects of abortion on women is being increasingly undermined by solid new evidence showing that there are indeed increased rates of mental health problems for women post-abortion, even where the pregnancy is unwanted and/or unplanned. The question...
A young woman was brought to the health centre unconscious after her family had found her collapsed on her way to work. She failed to respond even when a lumbar puncture was undertaken without anaesthetic. All results from the tests which were available were normal. As she was transferred from...
Back in 1975, when I started my psychiatry training, it wasn't long before I met my first patient requesting to see 'a Christian psychiatrist'. At first I sympathised: suspicion of atheistic Freudianism had led me to commence my training with a 'Christian' consultant too. But with experience I began to...
Andrew Sims, CMF member and former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and professor at Leeds, considers the question: is faith delusion? He presents the evidence concerning religion and mental health and explains why it is not. Ranging widely, he includes a chapter on the history of psychiatry that...
At a resumed inquest in October, the Coroner ruled that doctors at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital had acted correctly in not giving any lifesaving treatment to 26 year old Kerrie Wooltorton when she was admitted in 2007 having suicidally ingested antifreeze. (1) It appears that she had done...
Until recent research from New Zealand (1) it was a medical mantra that it was safer for a mother's mental health to have an abortion than to continue with the pregnancy. I have twice reviewed this topic (2)(3) and in further developments about abortion affecting mental health Fergusson et al...
Case History Suzie (name changed) is now a GP, and has given consent for this case history to be published. Her childhood was affected by neglect of her fundamental attachment needs because of physical and psychotic illness in both parents; by the trauma of witnessing domestic violence as her mother...
At my medical school more than thirty years ago, psychiatry viewed religious faith as a sign of mental illness. William Sargent had just retired, but I once heard him lecture on his famous book, Battle for the Mind, and had to watch film of a Pentecostal service intercut with African...
Emotional breakdown never arises out of the blue. There is always a background to it and usually there are warning signs that, if heeded, might prevent a precipitous grind to a halt. Personality Traits 'I really can't let them down!' Perfectionism Solo playing, reluctant to...
