The Wellbeing Foundation

This is part of an interview with Dr Michael Corry conducted by Caroline Brennan of Giant Leap Productions.

We have edited this section into a separate podcast as it represents an excellent summary of his views on the significance of the mind, and how mental distress and disturbances should be dealt with, as well as his views on how psychiatry in Ireland has failed at that task and why.

Giant Leap Productions is an Irish educational media production enterprise.

We are deeply grateful to Caroline for her kind permission to reproduce the interview as a podcast. Please visit http://giantleapproductions.ie if you would like to hear more of the excellent interviews in the Collective Wisdoms Series and other wonderful material produced by Giant Leap.

This is an interview with Dr Michael Corry conducted by Caroline Brennan of Giant Leap Productions. It covers Michael's childhood and adolescence and his life as a doctor in Africa, as well as his experiences with psychiatry, and is perhaps the most intimate of interviews he has ever given.

Giant Leap Productions is an Irish educational media production enterprise. We are deeply grateful to Caroline for her kind permission to reproduce the interview as a podcast. Please visit http://giantleapproductions.ie to hear more of the excellent interviews in the Collective Wisdoms Series and other wonderful material produced by Giant Leap.

The Irish Senate is to consider voting out a section of the Mental Health Act which allows forced administration of ECT without consent or without any external review. The psychiatric lobby opposes this. The Wellbeing Foundation and the newly-formed Irish Network of Critical Voices in Psychiatry are for the deletion of 59.b

See also http://delete59b.com

Basil Miller, Director of Communications The Wellbeing Foundation, on Declan Meehan Show, EastCoastFM, 22/03/2011

The acclaimed American investigative journalist Robert Whitaker,  author of several books on mental distress, speaks to Pat Kenny about the research and conclusions in his important new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

Why has the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past 50 years? Why does this epidemic parallel so closely the growth and dominance of psychiatric drugs as treatment?

Whitaker documents a history of science and medicine that raises a heretical question: Could the drug-based paradigm of care be fueling this modern-day plague?

Whatever the short-term effects of psychiatric drugs, where many trials suggest they can be effective, Whitaker analyses the full history of their use and asks: What about their long-term effects?

His new book carefully documents an answer to that question for four major psychiatric disorders and for child and adolescent disorders. The answer is frightening. The drugs worsen long-term outcomes — and recovery from debilitating mental states has become rare.

On the 'Today With Pat Kenny' show on RTE Radio 1 on 28 February 2011, Whitaker debates with bio-psychiatrist Patricia Casey, professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin, whether we need to start an open conversation about how to stem the epidemic of disabling mental illness in society and move to a paradigm of care that helps people get well and stay well over the long term.

There are five podcasts in the 'When Panic Attacks' series. These are resources to help anyone who has a panic attack to deal with it, and learn how to diminish and eventually eliminate such attacks.

Based on the book When Panic Attacks, by renowned psychotherapist Dr Aine Tubridy, the series includes a discussion of panic attacks in this first episode, followed by episodes including an Emergency Drill, a system of Relaxation, instruction on Breathing Techniques to cope with panic symptoms, and a Meditation to calm the mind and help avoid future attacks.

Aine's book is available from any good bookshop, direct from the publisher, Gill & Macmillan at a discount, or from Amazon.

There are five podcasts in the 'When Panic Attacks' series. These are resources to help anyone who has a panic attack to deal with it, and learn how to diminish and eventually eliminate such attacks.

Based on the book When Panic Attacks, by renowned psychotherapist Dr Aine Tubridy, the series includes a discussion of panic attacks in this first episode, followed by episodes including an Emergency Drill, a system of Relaxation, instruction on Breathing Techniques to cope with panic symptoms, and a Meditation to calm the mind and help avoid future attacks.

Aine's book is available from any good bookshop, direct from the publisher, Gill & Macmillan at a discount, or from Amazon.

There are five podcasts in the 'When Panic Attacks' series. These are resources to help anyone who has a panic attack to deal with it, and learn how to diminish and eventually eliminate such attacks.

Based on the book When Panic Attacks, by renowned psychotherapist Dr Aine Tubridy, the series includes a discussion of panic attacks in this first episode, followed by episodes including an Emergency Drill, a system of Relaxation, instruction on Breathing Techniques to cope with panic symptoms, and a Meditation to calm the mind and help avoid future attacks.

Aine's book is available from any good bookshop, direct from the publisher, Gill & Macmillan at a discount, or from Amazon.

There are five podcasts in the 'When Panic Attacks' series. These are resources to help anyone who has a panic attack to deal with it, and learn how to diminish and eventually eliminate such attacks.

Based on the book When Panic Attacks, by renowned psychotherapist Dr Aine Tubridy, the series includes a discussion of panic attacks in this first episode, followed by episodes including an Emergency Drill, a system of Relaxation, instruction on Breathing Techniques to cope with panic symptoms, and a Meditation to calm the mind and help avoid future attacks.

Aine's book is available from any good bookshop, direct from the publisher, Gill & Macmillan at a discount, or from Amazon.

There are five podcasts in the 'When Panic Attacks' series. These are resources to help anyone who has a panic attack to deal with it, and learn how to diminish and eventually eliminate such attacks.

Based on the book When Panic Attacks, by renowned psychotherapist Dr Aine Tubridy, the series includes a discussion of panic attacks in this first episode, followed by episodes including an Emergency Drill, a system of Relaxation, instruction on Breathing Techniques to cope with panic symptoms, and a Meditation to calm the mind and help avoid future attacks.

Aine's book is available from any good bookshop, direct from the publisher, Gill & Macmillan at a discount, or from Amazon.

The jury in the Shane Clancy inquest returned an 'open verdict' following evidence given at Wicklow Coroner's Court on 15 April 2010 and the coroner's instruction that their choice of verdict had to be either suicide or an open verdict.

Earlier, expert witness Dr David Healy, Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University in Wales, told the court that behaviour such as suicidal or violent thinking or actions, seen in patients prescribed SSRIs, such as the Cipramil tablets taken by Mr Clancy, arose not from the patient's condition but from the drugs.

He said the warnings to patients and doctors which come with SSRIs needed to be strengthened considerably, and that there should compulsory monitoring by doctors of all patients prescribed these drugs. Shane Clancy had levels of citalopram in his blood between 'toxic' and 'lethal' doses, according to Dr Declan Gilsenan, assiatant state pathologist, who performed the autopsy.

Declan Meehan of EastCoast FM's Morning Show interviewed Basil Miller about the controversial drugs on the Monday following the inquest.

To read more about the case, see here and here.

Brian Hartnett founded Hearing Voices Ireland in 2006. In 2007, the Wellbeing Foundation started the Psychosis Dialogues series of meetings, modelled on the successful Depression Dialogues, as a way to explore the disorders of thinking or feeling commonly known as psychoses.

Michael and Brian were on Newstalk's Breakfast Show on the morning of the first Psychosis Dialogues meeting. Brian spoke of his experience of hearing voices in his head over a period of many years, and how he learned to cope. Michael set out to demystify psychosis and explain it.

Hearing Voices Ireland is here

Unfortunately, some patient groups accept funding from the pharmaceutical industry. In Ireland, one of these is AWARE, which accepts what it describes as 'educational grants' from Wyeth, now part of Pfizer.

The Wellbeing Foundation regards such funding as tainted, as it is, in reality, not offered without a quid pro quo. When AWARE first took this money from Wyeth in 2005, considerable controversy followed. As part of the debate, Wellbeing Foundation spokeman Basil Miller was interviewed by Orla Barry on The Morning Show, Newstalk FM, 24 June 2005.

Dr Michael Corry discusses Electro-Convulsive 'Therapy' with presenter Pat Kenny on RTE Radio 1's Today With Pat Kenny show, Friday 9 May 2008.

You can download a free eBook of Dr Corry's pamphlet The Final Solution: Why ECT Must Be Banned here

In 2006, Aine Tubridy and Michael were interviewed by Marie Angeline Lascaux for her programme on Dublin City FM. On Friday 19 March, she broadcast this interview again as a tribute to Michael, who died on 22 February 2010 after a short illness