Psychiatry and the human condition

Mental Health Nursing,  Nov/Dec 2000  by Coffey, Michael

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Psychiatry and the human condition

Bruce Charlton

(2000) Radcliffe Medical Press

ISBN 1 857753143

Price: L19.95

pp 250

A central premise to this text is that the human condition is primarily an existence that is plagued by psychiatric symptoms. The conceit here is that any ill-ease we may experience is within the domain of psychiatry and, as such, psychiatry has the power to make us happy (a peculiarly late 20th century western obsession).

Psychiatry can help once it gets its act together and stops trying to apply current research to the `cultural fossils' of a 100-year-old nomenclature. The premise seems a sound one in that we would do well to start seeing mental ill health as a generic human condition and not of the 'other'. There is however something familiarly arrogant in the assertion that the discipline of psychiatry may provide such solutions since the author himself acknowledges the limited contribution the discipline has made to our understanding.

Charlton proposes a new theory of mental illness which, for example, formulates psychosis as a delirium state and depression as malaise. It is much more than a simple rebranding of mental illness however. It leaves one wondering just who is this book aimed at? He suggests that 'we' (presumably mental health professionals or maybe more accurately psychiatrists) should test out these ideas in practice, yet the book is written with little attention to the academic style which bedevils much literature.

Whoever the intended reader is, they will find this book written in an intoxicatingly seductive and refreshing style which might lure the reader into ignoring its deficits. Ultimately, it appears that despite its claims of challenging orthodox views, this text is a product of the system in which it was formulated and is primarily about reasserting a different flavoured but essentially psychiatric orthodoxy, namely that of professional power.

The author attempts to secure the intellectual high ground by offering alternatives to current psychiatric thinking but this seems to be a reworking of old ideas mixed with some sparsely furnished argument rather than the radical thinking it purports to offer. The book is both thought-provoking and interesting an( reads rather like a script for a prime time television series of pop psychiatry. Its underlying concepts may help inform a widening of the debate of the purpose and role of psychiatry and whether it is best placed to offer solutions to achieving the 'unnatural' state of human happiness.

Michael Coffey

Copyright Community Psychiatric Nurses Association Nov/Dec 2000
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