I came to my critical position having given up my medical training for 8 years between pre-clinical and clinical training (see my Mad in America radio interview). I completed my psychiatric training as a lecturer at Sheffield University, where Alec Jenner was professor of psychiatry (see another past post). He had been a biomedical psychiatrist, although always retaining an interest in philosophy (see yet another past post), having been motivated to find the biochemical explanation for manic-depressive illness (see eg. his book chapter). His research unit lost its funding from the Medical Research Council, and he became interested in Italian democratic psychiatry (see eg. past post), becoming a friend of Franca Ongaro Basaglia, wife of Franco Basaglia. She represented the interests of the mentally ill in the Italian Senate.
I had started my critical psychiatry website (initially called the anti-psychiatry website - see eg. past post), so therefore welcomed the formation of the Critical Psychiatry Network. I organised three CPN annual conferences, leading to my edited Critical Psychiatry book (see eg. past post). I started my critical psychiatry blog (now called Thinking Differently about Mental Health and before that Relational Psychiatry - see past post) over sixteen years ago (see another past post).
My interview with Awais Aftab sums up my views about psychiatry (see past post). As I say in that interview, there is little evidence that critical psychiatry has really changed psychiatry (see eg. another past post). The difficulty of coping with indoctrination in psychiatric training has been compounded by the dysfunction and fragmentation of services. But psychiatry does need people who are prepared to lead the necessary change. I think that was how some of us saw the foundation of CPN but maybe we now need people to follow through on those intentions.
