PÉTITION À SIGNER UK Royal College of Psychiatrists

SIGN UP TO THIS CAUSE SIGN PETITION TO UK ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS Summary 1. Psychiatric diagnoses are not valid. 2. Use of psychiatric diagnosis increases stigma. 3. Using psychiatric diagnosis does not aid treatment decisions. 4. Long term prognosis for mental health problems has got worse. 5. It imposes Western beliefs about mental distress on other cultures. 6. Alternative evidence based models for organizing effective mental health care are available. Introduction Modern Western psychiatry has secured many important advances in the care of people with mental distress. We have a variety of pharmacotherapies that can help manage distressing symptoms alongside an even greater variety of psychotherapeutic approaches that help people in distress make sense of their experiences and find new ways to deal with them. The old asylums have been emptied and community care has developed a rich variety of services from early intervention to crisis management. Researchers have identified many biological and environmental factors associated with greater likelihood of having or developing mental health problems and so our understanding of mental distress has improved. Reflecting this, the academic community, studying mental distress from a variety of angles has grown in numbers and sophistication with many journals and thousands of articles being published each year.