This Is Madness Too Critical Perspectives on Mental Health Services

Craig Newnes is editor of The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy (formerly Changes), and a comissioning editor and author for the PCCS Books Critical Psychology series. Prior to his retirement he was Director of Psychological Therapies for Shropshire. He has a life time commitment to the NHS and is an outspoken critic of the hypocrisy, self interest, confusion and downright lies which characterise so much of the practise of psychiatry and psychology. He believes that unhappiness is a form of heresy and most of the misery for which people seek help is only amenable to alleviation through changes in their material lives. Guy Holmes works in the NHS as a clinical psychologist in Shropshire. He has published over 40 academic articles in areas as diverse as: the medicalisation of distress; psychiatric medication; patients' councils; service users' experiences of and views on mental health services; sexual abuse of males; community psychology; and various aspects of groupwork. Cailzie Dunn is also a clinical psychologist working in Shropshire (UK). She co-ran an Alternatives to Psychiatry course in Shropshire in 1997. She is particularly interested in talking to people about experiences they have had which have been elsewhere diagnosed as psychotic symptoms, with the aim of trying to find an explanation which is more meaningful and helpful to the person.