New website sets the agenda for mental health reform
(PRWEB UK) 22 September 2017 -- A New Vision for Mental Health takes a critical and informed look at the current mental health system. It explores ideas, insights and suggestions – from a wide range of individuals and organisations – that will lay the foundations for a new and quite different approach to mental healthcare.
In this respect, finding out what really works is absolutely critical. In the UK, for example, according to the Economic & Social Research Council, mental illness accounted for 50% of all ill-health in people under 65 in 2016. In the same year suicide was the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 15 and 49, more than road accidents, cancer and heart disease combined. Even more shockingly, over 166,000 under 18s, including 7000 under 12s, are on medication for depression and anxiety – a 12% increase in the last year alone!
As Dr David Kupfer, 2013 Chair of the DSM-5 taskforce in the US put it: “biological and genetic markers that provide precise diagnoses are still disappointingly distant. We’ve been telling patients for decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We’re still waiting”.
This over-reliance on drugs-based treatments is just one of the subjects addressed in A New Vision for Mental Health. Others include: myths about counselling and psychotherapy; urban design and its effect on mental health; celebrating neurodiversity; the emotional heart of service provision; and “Mad Studies”.
The new website will be launched on 22nd September, 2017. Access is free and open to all.
Richard Oldfield, A New Vision for Mental Health, http://www.newvisionformentalhealth.com/, +44 1458850350 Ext: 300, [email protected]
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