On medicine’s ‘dirty words’
A friend sent me an article on ‘dirty words’ in medicine. It’s yet another postulate to replace a set of words with another set of words, another exercise in futility. I thought I’d respond, though, increasingly, it does feel like banging my head against a wall. Continue reading “On medicine’s ‘dirty words’”
Language and suicide
A few days ago, I was asked to complete a survey on the language ‘around suicide’. As I qualify as a person who ‘has been affected by suicide’, I completed the survey. Here I want to offer a few comments on it. I think parts of this post might be seen as controversial by some readers. Continue reading “Language and suicide”
Anti-psychiatry? Not for me
When I started my interest in mental health issues, very quickly I adopted an anti-psychiatric position. In this post, I want to write why (and how) I changed my mind. This post was inspired by a tweet on fighting between psychology and psychiatry. Fighting which, in my view, is unseemly. Continue reading “Anti-psychiatry? Not for me”
Suicide notes are not ‘personal’
News travels and over the last months I have received a few articles on suicide notes to review. They all make the same assumption – suicide notes are personal (‘ultrapersonal’ even). As the claim is supported and reinforced by reviewers, it seems, I am again fairly solitary in my view that such claims are implausible. This post contains extracts from genuine suicide notes. Continue reading “Suicide notes are not ‘personal’”