should be essential reading for anyone working within mental health and that of course includes student counsellors. I see an increasing number of clients—and particularly young people—who arrive at their first appointment convinced that they have bipolar, or even worse ARE ‘bipolar.

K. is that the majority of the population have absorbed the myths of chemical imbalance, genetic ‘predisposition’ and all the rest of it as fact. I became complicit through the naivety of an institutional process that absolved my lack of human connection and moral responsibility because I wasn’t caring for this patient, I was prison guarding them. So therefore, in many ways, this book started to become somewhat revolutionary for me the more I read. These too are ways that the survivors of abuse decide not to face their own feelings, and instead to abuse other survivors. But it was the power of this interaction and the difficult feelings I experienced that encouraged me to start asking myself for the first time… “Exactly how am I helping these people I’m supposed to be caring for?We are very lucky to have this online support network in place because it’s very hard if not impossible to find in many areas of the globe. And this book continues to highlight this as one of the most complicated parts of challenging the system. This of course makes no philosophical sense as there is no psychotherapeutic theory that is compatible with the medicalisation of distress! Many, by the time they get to me, have internalized this as part of their identity along with the understanding that it’s a lifelong situation. e. primarily failures of ongoing emotional support, love, and security – I can present a more hopeful open-ended model of suffering to them.

Jacqui is part of a collective voice demanding a radical shift in the way we understand and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. This is so well phrased and I think this counts for many other examples of oppression in our society where a certain group of people is encouraged to and rewarded for disconnection and discrimination. This moment has stayed with me for all of my working life because it provoked personal feelings of incompetence, inadequacy, and rejection. I figured that getting people together to initiate a conversation about psychiatric diagnosis would be a pretty good start.All are justifiably impassioned and subversive; yet reasoned, full of wisdom, common sense and rigorous analysis, informed by the latest evidence on trauma and attachment. This book is packed with rich narratives, incisive analysis and powerful critiques of a world where everyday emotions are increasingly seen as disease. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. Would they have thought I was healthy if I constantly defied authority, had no conscience, and was promiscuous?