Henry, a young, intelligent and likeable young man goes into the freezing cold sea off the coast of Brighton because his voices had told him to swim across the Newhaven estuary in the middle of winter. Henry is admitted to a mental hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia. What follows is a powerful, combined account from Henry himself and from his father, journalist Patrick Cockburn who was in Afghanistan when these dramatic events began. Henry frankly describes his mental world and Patrick’s story is of his own education about long-term mental illness and the effects of schizophrenia on the family as events unfold over the next seven years.

'Personal Recovery and Mental Illness:

A Guide for Mental Health Professionals'

Mike Slade

Edited by Mark Hardcastle, David Kennard, Sheila Grandison and Leonard Fagin.
ISBN 978-0-415-41082-3
Published For ISPS: Routledge, 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA

To find on Amazon please click here

This book speaks from a humanist perspective. It grapples with the range and complexity of how people who are seriously unwell, disordered or distressed, experience mental health in-patient provision.  As some-one who has lived experience of Psychosis and in-patient care, I found many observations to be painfully true.

Each chapter challenges our thinking with well thought out questions that remove any rose coloured spectacles about provision. People speak from many viewpoints, as patients, nurses, psychiatrists and supporters; all reach largely the same conclusions. We don’t have our provision right; Mental Health Services retain established procedures, techniques and rules, which are set up in some ways to act as a protection from the onslaught of pain that people in mental distress are experiencing. But these procedures and organisational structures also act to retain a ‘them and us’ culture.

Read more: Experiences of Mental Health In-patient Care

‘The Roots of the Recovery Movement

in Psychiatry: Lessons Learned’

Larry Davidson, Jaak Rakfeldt and John Strauss

Read more: The Roots of the Recovery Movement