Schizophrenia and NICE: all quiet on the community front

Schizophrenia and NICE: all quiet on the community front? Evidence-Based Mental Health 2009;12:97-98

Dr Mark Salter, Adult General and Community Psychiatrist, East London Foundation NHS Trust, City and Hackney Centre for Mental Health, London E9 65R, UK; mark.salter@eastlondon.nhs.uk

Abstract:

“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy” attributed to Sun Tzu  

Although the concept of psychotic illness was known to the healers of his age, Sun Tzu did not have mental illness in mind when he penned those words two and a half thousand years ago. His maxim nonetheless remains true of both our responses to war and to schizophrenia. They have much in common. Both are universally associated with images of horror and darkness. Both carry an awful cost—1% of the human population will suffer a psychotic breakdown, often in young adulthood. Both are ever changing. War has altered beyond recognition since 1911 when Bleuler first coined the term “schizophrenia” to describe a shattering of the mind. When the Captains of American psychiatry met last year to consider their future nomenclatures, they came close to dropping the S word altogether. Over here, our top brass—their chateaus .

 

Lancashire Care staff can request the full-text of this paper, email: susan.jennings@lancashirecare.nhs.uk