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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 175 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 175, May 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Having been through the psychiatric system myself, I was very interested to read Hazel Croft’s article on mental health and community care.
Informative as it was, the article failed to point out the difference in life experience between psychiatrists and their patients. This often leads to a harsher diagnosis for people who are working class, women or black. In my experience these people are also more likely to be detained for compulsory treatment under the Mental Health Act.
Also overlooked was the oppressive nature of the psychiatric system itself. This is not a problem of the recent past, but one of the present, and those doctors and nurses within the system are acting (however good their intentions) as agents of social control for the ruling class.
Finally, with the Tories’ new ‘objective’ health test are we to see people living in the community forced into pitifully paid and meaningless jobs purely for the sake of saving money?
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Dileep Bagnall |
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