bruised uk

survivors making waves "just one drop"

March 2009

7 Mar 2009: Frontman Keith Flint reveals how extroversion helps his act

4 Mar 2009: Harry Phibbs: Yes, researchers say anger is good for promotion. But it's not the shouty temper-tantrum type; channelled anger is the way to go

3 Mar 2009: Programme's designers say only nine of 152 primary care trusts in England have implemented guidance to offer computer-based therapy

3 Mar 2009: Julian Baggini: There's far too much emphasis on being happy these days. Anger is vital too. It could even, say scientists, help our careers

3 Mar 2009: Educational psychologists are seeing a marked increase in referrals for school phobia, says Louise Tickle




February 2009

  • Living without Hamish

    28 Feb 2009: Julia Donaldson was always worried about her eldest son, Hamish. Then, at the age of 25, he killed himself

  • Family under the microscope

    28 Feb 2009:  How we react to stress is largely set in childhood - but it can be changed

        27 Feb 2009: Online shopping has turned me into self-help addict, says Clare Allan

        25 Feb 2009: Those unlucky enough to lack the 'brightside gene' are more likely to suffer from mental health problems

  • Reconnecting with the world

    25 Feb 2009: A Manchester drop-in centre is providing a solution to the alienation of homeless people with mental health problems. Helen Carter reports

 18 Feb 2009: Paul Caesar was hit by a train at Balham station after going on the run from a  secure unit in Springfield Hospital – the latest in a string of security breaches

18 Feb 2009: After reports that Peter Sutcliffe could be moved to a medium security prison, does the enormity of his crimes make rehabilitation impossible?

  • Wanted: more foster homes

    18 Feb 2009: An estimated 8,000 more foster carers are needed and there also needs more money invested in training

  • 'Homage to catatonia'

    18 Feb 2009: It's traumatic enough to be 'sectioned' once. But imagine being confined to secure units on five occasions

  • On the promotion trail

    18 Feb 2009: Shabnam Sardar has a mission: to promote mental health and wellbeing issues. But this means convincing the government to pay for it

  • Fit for purpose

    18 Feb 2009: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme will establish a whole new stratum of psychology services in primary care trusts all across England

  • Back in the saddle

    18 Feb 2009: A range of government schemes are helping people with long-term mental problems get back to work

  • Vital first steps

    18 Feb 2009: The early years in a child's life are vital for its long-term mental health, writes Louise Hunt

  • The best medicine

    18 Feb 2009: Phil Hope, minister at the Department of Health, discusses New Horizons, a new strategy for mental health

  • Introduction

    18 Feb 2009: Mental illness costs the economy £110bn a year in treatment costs and lost productivity

18 Feb 2009: Catherine Jackson discusses the conclusions of a government report that advocates investment in "mental wellbeing" in the workplace

17 Feb 2009: Presenter is latest public figure to talk about dementia but is it right to detail a living loved one's illness so publicly?

16 Feb 2009: Ad agency Mother behind campaign targeted at teenagers in the wake of drug being reclassified as class B. By Mark Sweney

9 Feb 2009: Applicants face a no-win situation as long as stigma remains among employers, writes Clare Allan

  • Eyes meet

    8 Feb 2009: A horrific childhood led to Ruth Dee developing multiple personality disorder, she talks to Louise Carpenter

  • My nightmare in Shanghai 

    6 Feb 2009: First person: A year after she moved to China to take up a teaching post, a mental breakdown left Lucy Hill penniless and barefoot on the streets

4 Feb 2009: Juliet Lyon: In UK prisons, those with mental health problems are doubly punished, since resources to help them are woefully inadequate

  • Electronic files could threaten my privacy

    4 Feb 2009: I recently received a letter informing me that records would henceforth be held not in paper files but on 'a secure, fully backed up London-wide data centre', writes Clare Allan

  • 'Prisons are not hospitals'

    4 Feb 2009: Report condemns damaging practice of people with mental health problems being put behind bars. Mary O'Hara reports

3 Feb 2009: Richard Layard: Schools should take the lead in helping our young people to find a sense of purpose

Children should be allowed to be sad

1 Feb 2009: Lisa Miller and Margaret Rustin: We expect the young to be happy while subjecting them to our concerns. No wonder they are so anxious

1 Feb 2009: After the horrors of war, many servicemen and women find themselves facing another battle: post-traumatic stress

Week Ending 18th January

The pain when a stranger moves into the home you've been forced to leave

  • The Observer, Sunday January 18 2009
  • Andrew Moody
Paul McHugh began the new year with the prospect of his home going under the hammer after he had experiencing the trauma of repossession. The 40-year-old self-employed window cleaner is set to lose his former council house in Castleford, West Yorkshire, on Wednesday, when bailiffs repossess it.

Mad, Bad and Sad

  • The Guardian, Saturday January 17 2009
  • John Dugdale
Exhilaratingly covering two centuries of developments on both sides of the Atlantic, this ambitious study deftly combines a series of profiles of leading mind doctors - from Pinel, who pioneered talking therapy during the French Revolution, to Lacan and Laing

Be glad to be sad

  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday January 17 2009
  • Emily Hill
Good news for people who always fail to see the silver lining on clouds. A report in this month's New Scientist, suggests that a tendency to get down when life beats you up can be good for you.

The truth behind prison suicides

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Erwin James
"There is never any room for complacency in our work to prevent these deaths," said justice minister Shahid Malik in response to the fall in the number of people in prison taking their own lives in 2008. The drop from an average of 91 self-inflicted deaths per year over the previous three years to just 61 last year is noteworthy.

NHS 'personal budget' for patients outlined

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • John Carvel
NHS patients in England will be given cash payments to buy physiotherapy, home nursing and other healthcare services under powers included in a health bill published by the government today. Ministers have not yet worked out the full detail of how the scheme will work or how much of the NHS's £100bn budget will be handed over to individual patients.

Patients to receive own budgets under NHS reform

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Press Association
Patients are to be given control over some of their own healthcare budgets under new plans unveiled by the government today. The new health bill will enable patients to receive direct payments to spend on health services of their choice.

Drug-free help for postnatal depression

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Sarah Boseley, health editor
Postnatal depression, which affects 13% of mothers and can lead to suicide, could be treated without drugs and even prevented, new research suggests today.

Heavy going

  • The Guardian, Friday January 16 2009
  • Emine Saner
Julie Worboys, 49 Five years ago, Julie Worboys gave up her job as a warden for a sheltered housing estate to look after her husband, who is disabled. "It was quite an energetic job, but when I stopped I think that's when the extra weight went on,"

Drug-free help for postnatal depression

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Sarah Boseley, health editor
Postnatal depression, which affects 13% of mothers and can lead to suicide, could be treated without drugs and even prevented, new research suggests today. While depression following the birth of a baby can have a serious effect on the new mother, it can also prove detrimental to her partner, on the development of the infant and the wellbeing of any other children.

The truth behind prison suicides

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Erwin James
"There is never any room for complacency in our work to prevent these deaths," said justice minister Shahid Malik in response to the fall in the number of people in prison taking their own lives in 2008. The drop from an average of 91 self-inflicted deaths per year over the previous three years to just 61 last year is noteworthy.

Patients to receive own budgets under NHS reform

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • Press Association
Patients are to be given control over some of their own healthcare budgets under new plans unveiled by the government today. The new health bill will enable patients to receive direct payments to spend on health services of their choice. Lord Darzi, who will unveil the plans, first trailed the idea last year in his report on the future of the NHS.

NHS 'personal budget' for patients outlined

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 16 2009
  • John Carvel
NHS patients in England will be given cash payments to buy physiotherapy, home nursing and other healthcare services under powers included in a health bill published by the government today. Ministers have not yet worked out the full detail of how the scheme will work or how much of the NHS's £100bn budget will be handed over to individual patients.

Television Personalities

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 15 2009
  • Betty Clarke
Dan Tracey has battled mental-health problems, fought addiction and survived a three-month stretch on a prison ship moored in Portsmouth. Now, 30 years after forming inspirational indie band Television Personalities, he is finding it tricky just to climb on stage.

Searching for enlightenment

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 15 2009
  • Ed Halliwell
Business initiatives trumpeted as selfless efforts to boost human welfare understandably evoke cynicism. The conflict between the profit motive and talk of employee wellbeing seems too tense to be soothed by a few in-house yoga classes, the traditional giant cheques handed out at local schools, or office recycling schemes.

My brilliant survival guide

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 14 2009
  • Clare Allan
Two days after you read these words, an era will come to an end. It's an era more significant, to me at least, than the end of the second millennium, the end of George Bush, or the passing of Harold Pinter, monumental though these events are.

Star treatment of drug addiction

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 14 2009
  • Anna Bawden
There may not be an obvious connection between Frank Sinatra, Leonardo DiCaprio and psychiatry, but a series of screenings at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London hopes to use psychoanalysis to look at the depiction of drug addiction in film.

Clips from films in the Institute of Psychoanalysis season

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 14 2009
The Man With The Golden Arm, 1955 Frank Sinatra plays card shark and heroin addict Frankie Machine. Saul Bass's title sequence for the film is widely considered classic Basketball Diaries, 1995 Leonardo di Caprio's first major film role was based on a true story of a high school basketball player's descent into the abyss

Statistical significance

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 14 2009
  • Ally Fogg
In 2007, the blogger Chameleon interviewed Professor Liz Kelly, one of Britain's leading feminist academics and director of the child and woman abuse studies unit at London Metropolitian University. Kelly described how one of her first studies into child abuse found that one in two women reported some instance of "intimate intrusion" before the age of 18.

Councils feel the pressure as recession deepens

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday January 13 2009
  • Mary O'Hara
The recession is hitting local councils hard with "huge" increases in the number of people turning to them for help with problems ranging from housing to mental health services, according to a survey by the Local Government Association (LGA).

In numbers Autism facts

  • The Guardian, Monday January 12 2009
· Autism is a complex developmental disability involving a biological abnormality in the functioning of the brain. It is not a learning disability or a mental health problem, although people with autism may also be affected by those conditions.

Disorder linked to high levels of testosterone in womb

  • The Guardian, Monday January 12 2009
  • Sarah Boseley
A prenatal screening test for autism comes closer today as new research is published that links high levels of the male hormone testosterone in the womb of pregnant women to autistic traits in their children.

Captain Oates' Left Sock

  • The Guardian, Monday January 12 2009
  • Lyn Gardner
Mr Carter says that his wife suffocated their baby. Fergy is a musician who can't stand the noise of the orchestra and can't make up his mind about anything. Molly just wants the doctor to tell her when she will be able to go home. Dorothy is practically catatonic.

Week Ending 11th January

'For me, acting is tortuous'

  • The Observer, Sunday January 11 2009
  • Lynn Hirschberg
When he was 12 years old, Philip Seymour Hoffman saw a local production of All My Sons near his home in Rochester, New York, and it was, for him, one of those rare, life-altering events where, at an impressionable age, you catch a glimpse of another reality, a world that you never imagined possible.

One flew into the cuckoo's nest

  • The Observer, Sunday January 11 2009
  • Alexander Linklater
To produce her first book, Self-Made Man, lesbian author Norah Vincent embarked on an adventure in "immersion journalism", spending a year disguised as a man. She emerged with a bestselling account of American masculinity and some unresolved mental-health issues.

Ministers failing to abolish mixed-sex wards, claim Tories

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 9 2009
  • Andrew Sparrow and agencies
Ministers were today accused of failing to honour promises to abolish mixed-sex wards in NHS hospitals. The shadow health secretary, Andrew Lansley, published figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act which revealed that many trusts are unable to fully meet government guidelines on eliminating mixed-sex accommodation for patients.

Tearaway teenagers prone to depression and divorce as adults

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday January 9 2009
  • Anthea Lipsett
Tearaway teenagers identified by teachers as misbehaving at school are more likely to go on to experience difficulties in their adult lives, including depression and divorce, a major study has found.

'The media is too extreme about our lives'

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
Imogen Peebles, 14, lives in Camden, north London, which has one of the lowest reported levels of drug and alcohol misuse in the country. "Me and my friends often go to Hampstead Heath for picnics and sometimes we'll go to Oxford Street or Brent Cross as well. We go to the cafe too, and no one ever stops us.

The masters of the universe who cannot live with failure

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday January 8 2009
  • Andrew Clark in New York
One day, they have it all. The next morning, they don't. Sudden, dramatic slumps in fortunes caused by the credit crunch can take a tragic toll on high-flying businessmen accustomed to a life of success. Germany's fifth richest man, the billionaire industrialist Adolf Merckle, this week threw himself under a train in an act blamed by his family on the "desperate situation"

Radio review

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
  • Elisabeth Mahoney
Claudia Hammond has one of the finest radio voices. It's crisp, clear and entirely engaging, even when she's reading, and yet just as importantly it doesn't hog the limelight. Quite simply, you listen to what she says rather than how she says it. When dealing with an important, thorny topic such as mentalhealth issues - the subject of State of Mind (Radio 4)

Beyond retail therapy

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
  • Editorial
To shop or not to shop, that is the question. For Gordon Brown, spending is the route to salvation, and hence he has indulged in a costly VAT cut. The Conservatives have been eyeing expensive goodies of their own, in the form of the chunky tax reductions for savers that David Cameron proposed on Monday.

My life is blighted by misfortune

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
I am a 38-year-old man who, two years ago, was made redundant. Shortly after, my parents suffered severe deteriorations in health; one died six months ago and the surviving one has been left with dementia and mobility problems. I have no siblings, so am solely responsible for managing the care needs of my surviving parent.

More friends and emotional security - how northern children top the happiness league

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
  • Polly Curtis, education editor
Teenagers in the north of England are emotionally more secure than those anywhere else in the country and are the most likely to report that they have more than one best friend by the age of 15, according to a major study of children's happiness that lays to rest the adage that life is grim up north.

'I'm basically always happy ... always giggling'

  • The Guardian, Thursday January 8 2009
Louise Bagot, 16, lives in Liverpool, where teenagers in the report by Ofsted and the Department for Children study are said to have some of the best friendships in the country. "My friends are like my family. I can trust them with anything. I ring them up and ramble together 16 conversations at the same time.

Love potions could soon help soothe the pains of romance

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Ian Sample, Science correspondent
Marriage counsellors may soon be taking a more Shakespearean approach to solving troubles of the heart, by administering love potions to boost couples' feelings for one another, according to a leading scientist.

Javad Nurbakhsh

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Leonard Lewisohn
The master of a branch of the Nimatullahi order of Sufism in Iran, Dr Javad Nurbakhsh not only furthered the cause of his religion, but was also one of the country's leading psychiatrists.

Spending is no remedy for mental health credit crisis

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Clare Allan
The impact of the financial crisis on those with mental health problems is likely to be considerable. One in three people with serious mental health problems are in debt, and they are also approximately three times more likely than average to be in debt. The reasons for this are manifold, ranging from the pressures of living on a low income

Straight talking

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Fay Wertheimer
For Reece (not his real name), the bullying persists, but three years of group work at Support4Progress (S4P) and study for his counselling certificates have given the gentle 14-year-old the understanding and strength to rise above any name-calling and to advise schoolmates experiencing similar problems.

Inner-London teenagers least likely to take drugs

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Polly Curtis, education editor
Inner-London teenagers are the least likely in the country to take drugs and drink alcohol, with schoolchildren in many rural areas more at risk from substance abuse, a major study of children's happiness shows.

The issue of brain tissue

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • James Ironside
Vital research on human brain diseases is currently being hampered by a shortage of tissue samples. Tissue is needed both from patients suffering from brain diseases, and from those who do not, because researchers need to look at the differences between them.

Doubts cast on 'memory clinics'

  • The Guardian, Wednesday January 7 2009
  • Mary O'Hara
When care services minister Phil Hope announced last month that "memory clinics" offering ongoing support for people with dementia would soon be a feature of every town, it was greeted as a welcome precursor to the national dementia strategy scheduled for publication later this month.

It's a miracle that only one in 10 young people are depressed. There's a lot to be miserable about now

  • The Guardian, Tuesday January 6 2009
  • Michele Hanson
The Prince's Trust has discovered that one in 10 16- to 25-year-olds feel that life is meaningless, about a quarter of young people questioned are depressed and nearly a half regularly stressed. Nothing new there then. Perk up Trust, don't be alarmed. This is what young persons are meant to do: feel confused, depressed, slighted, rebellious and pointless.

Everybody needs good neighbours

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday January 6 2009
  • Kevin Harris
Could "meaningful social interaction" make all the difference to local quality of life? Whether it's hugging hoodies, challenging antisocial behaviour, promoting participation in sport, or measuring how we get on with people from different backgrounds, politicians have got the message that interaction matters.

Toxins are all in the mind

  • The Guardian, Tuesday January 6 2009
  • Hadley Freeman
With timing as beautiful as its conclusion is obvious, the charity Sense About Science has announced, with a triumphant calloo callay, that detox paraphernalia, which sprout up every January as reliably as overoptimistic gym memberships, are as medically effective as medieval blood-letting cures.

Depression among the young at alarming level, says charity

  • The Guardian, Monday January 5 2009
  • Mary O'Hara
A significant number of young people are depressed or struggling to cope and the situation is likely to worsen as recession takes hold, according to a report by the Prince's Trust. One in 10 16- to 25-year-olds polled by the charity for its Youth Index study said they felt that life was meaningless

A case for intervention

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday January 5 2009
  • John Kraemer and Larry Gostin
By any reasonable measure, Zimbabwe's president has committed crimes against humanity justifying an international response If the Bush doctrine justified the use of armed force to prevent harm to westerners, then the Obama doctrine should be to use the force of international law to stop crimes against humanity or grave, man-made humanitarian disasters.

China cracks down on 'vulgar' websites

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday January 5 2009
  • Tania Branigan in Beijing
Chinese officials today launched a crackdown on "vulgar" websites including Google and the country's leading search engine, Baidu. Officials named 19 sites they said had failed to censor inappropriate content despite warnings or that had not done so swiftly enough, "harming" young people's physical and mental health.

Making life worth living

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday January 5 2009
  • Rowenna Davis
A new report from the Prince's Trust claims that one in 10 British young people think that life is not worth living. Of the 2,004 young people polled as part of the Trust's online survey, 12% said that life was meaningless, and over a quarter claimed that they were "often" or "always" depressed.

Week Ending 4th January

Reasons to be fearful

  • The Observer, Sunday January 4 2009
  • Tim Adams
A new year is usually a time for hope. But today many of us are full of doubt. The financial crisis has brought wave after wave of bad news, replacing the old certainties with a sense of dread and insecurity. And then there's terrorism, climate change and social breakdown...

Journeys to the edge of madness

  • The Guardian, Saturday January 3 2009
  • Norah Vincent
I couldn't sleep because I was terrified. And because I was bedding down in a fold-out chair. All the trolleys in the hallway were taken, and the hallways were all that we had: women on one side, men on the other and the nurse's station in the middle. Emergency triage was where you were kennelled until they had a bed for you on the ward upstairs.

Try to Remember

  • The Guardian, Saturday January 3 2009
  • Steven Poole
An eminent psychiatrist here conducts a riveting analysis of the American "recovered memory" wars of the 1980s and 1990s, in which psychotherapists elicited from their patients recollections of sexual abuse and Satanic shenanigans by their parents or relatives.

New Year honours list: OBEs

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 30 2008
Order of the British Empire: Officer (OBE) Prof Thomas Alan Acton, Prof of Romani Studies, Univ of Greenwich. For serv Educ. Rebecca Adlington, Swimmer. For serv Sport. Jonathan Patrick Adair Adnams, exec chm, Adnams plc. For serv Corporate Social Responsibility.

New Year honours list: MBEs

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 30 2008
Order of the British Empire: Member (MBE) Pauline Adams, For serv the North East Ambulance Service. Dr David Francis William Adey, Gen Medical Practitioner, Southampton. For serv Healthcare. Barbara Adlington, Higher exec Offr, Jobcentre Plus, Dept for Work and Pensions.

Drivers 'face health tests every decade'

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 30 2008
  • Lee Glendinning
Motorists may have to undergo health tests every 10 years to ensure they are fit to drive under new plans reportedly being considered by the Department for Transport. The proposals would give drivers the option of submitting themselves to tests against new minimum physical and mental requirements, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.

Regular binge drinking can cause long-term brain damage - study

  • The Guardian, Monday December 29 2008
  • Denis Campbell, health correspondent
Just a few sessions of heavy drinking can damage someone's ability to pay attention, remember things and make good judgments, research shows. Binge drinkers are known to be at increased risk of accidents, violence and engaging in unprotected sex.

Week Ending 28th December

My body & soul

  • The Observer, Sunday December 28 2008
1. Are you healthy? I have to look after my body, eat well and rest well, and when I'm training hard my immune system is quite suppressed, so I have to be careful. 2. Do you worry about your weight? I'm not climbing mountains like the road guys, where every extra bit of weight you carry counts against you.

Your letters

  • The Observer, Sunday December 28 2008
In "A man condemned by psychobabble" (Comment, last week), Nick Cohen appears to dismiss the whole of psychology as an unreliable science and the practice of psychology as a disreputable profession in general.

From rotten Egg to the wonder of Woolies: 2008's heroes and zeros

  • The Observer, Sunday December 28 2008
It's been a year of bad news and financial disasters which have provided plenty of opportunities for people and companies to show whether they are heroes or zeros.

2008 in review: Showbiz

  • The Guardian, Saturday December 27 2008
  • Hadley Freeman
Close up, the celebrity world may look merely like a selection of random incidents, strung together by egotism, intoxication and immaturity.

Hanging in shame

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 23 2008
  • Afua Hirsch
It's fair to say that, compared to other forms of capital punishment practised in Britain over the years boiling alive, disembowelling, quartering and gibbeting in chains, to name a few hanging was one of the less sadistic options.

'The Iraqi psyche may be scarred for decades'

  • The Guardian, Tuesday December 23 2008
Dr Hassan, one of an estimated 70 specialists trained in psychiatry nationwide, says the mental healthhealth system throughout the Saddam years landscape in Iraq is far worse than when he left. The doctor, who fled his job at a central Baghdad hospital two years ago after gunmen threatened to kill him and his family, said psychiatry was an underdeveloped arm of a neglected

Lonely this Christmas amid holiday cheer

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 23 2008
  • Clare Allan
For those dependent on support from mental health services, life can sometimes feel like a negative version of the calendar of other people's lives. Weekends, for example, provide for many a break from the world of work, a chance to relax, catch up on sleep and spend time with friends and family. But many service users dread weekends, especially when things are difficult.

Week Ending 21st December

Recession could raise risk of suicide

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday December 18 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
The deepening financial crisis is likely to have a detrimental affect on mental health and could lead to an increase in suicide rates, the Samaritans warned today. An analysis of previous recessions for the charity, by Professor Stephen Platt of Edinburgh University, has suggested a correllation between economic downturns and the level of suicides nationwide.

Body in suitcase: The chaos of James Hughes's family life

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday December 17 2008
  • Steven Morris
To neighbours and friends, Heather Wardle seemed an excellent mother. Her two smallest boys were always neatly turned out, she was supportive of her teenage son, Daniel Kirby, and doted on her eldest boy, 21-year-old James Hughes. But behind the closed doors of the small council house she shared with her partner, Brian Kirby, there was chaos.

Body in suitcase inquest: welfare of disabled man had been raised with social services

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 17 2008
  • Steven Morris
Serious concerns about the health of James Hughes, the severely disabled man whose emaciated corpse was found crammed into a suitcase at his family home, had been raised with social workers, it emerged at his inquest yesterday. But by the time a social worker actually saw his mother, Heather Wardle, four months later, Hughes was almost certainly dead.

Testing times

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 17 2008
  • John Carvel
From today, the NHS in England should no longer be portrayed as a nationalised industry run by ministers from Whitehall. Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts, is announcing that Central Manchester and Manchester Children's University Hospitals will become a self-governing foundation on January 1

Ex-addicts frowned upon by employers

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 17 2008
  • Saba Salman
Prejudice against former drug addicts, and a lack of support for firms prepared to hire them, could scupper government reforms to encourage them off benefits and into work.

The Beverley Hills of Surrey

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 17 2008
  • Debbie Andalo
What they said about Elmbridge "The Beverly Hills of Surrey." Daily Mail. "Residents of Elmbridge have the best quality of life in Great Britain." Halifax quality of life survey 2008.

Most NHS trusts now stand alone, says regulator

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 16 2008
  • John Carvel
The majority of NHS trusts have achieved self-governing status, with all hospitals in England set to become independent of government control within three years, the regulator of foundation trusts has told the Guardian

Prison campaigner intended to take own life, coroner rules

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 16 2008
  • Eric Allison
A coroner has ruled that prison campaigner Pauline Campbell intended to take her own life when she took a fatal dose of anti-depressants earlier this year. Campbell, who protested outside prisons where women had died, began her direct action campaign after her only child, Sarah, met her death at Styal prison, Cheshire, aged 18.

Body in suitcase: Carers 'taken in by mother's lies'

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 16 2008
  • Steven Morris
Carers who worked closely with James Hughes, the disabled man whose decomposing and emaciated body was found crammed into a suitcase in the garden of the family home, today told how they had been taken in by his mother's "lies"

All NHS hospitals to be 'independent within three years'

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 16 2008
  • John Carvel, social affairs editor
All NHS hospitals in England are set to become independent from government control within three years, the regulator of foundation trusts has told SocietyGuardian.

Government plan to raise aspirations of millions of children

  • The Guardian, Monday December 15 2008
  • Patrick Wintour and Allegra Stratton
The government today outlines plans for major public service reforms to lift the aspirations of Britain's least ambitious 2.4 million children, predominantly white working-class boys in northern cities.

Week Ending 14th December

Fear comes to the office

  • The Observer, Sunday December 14 2008
  • Heather Stewart
Korn Ferry, the firm of blue-chip headhunters, has issued a series of tips for shell-shocked professionals who find themselves driven to the indignity of unemployment by the credit crunch. 'Be patient, but don't be picky,' they are counselled, and 'be willing to commute or relocate.'

This column will change your life

  • The Guardian, Saturday December 13 2008
  • Oliver Burkeman
It's rare to open a self-help book and to know, from page one, that you're in a better state of mind than its author. Of course, it's not uncommon to suspect this might be the case - that people who write books on how to be happy might secretly be empty inside

The cleverness pill

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 12 2008
  • Adam Rutherford
Be all that you can be. Humankind has the unique characteristic of striving to free us from the shackles of nature, and enhancing ourselves to be fitter, happier, more productive. How many of you are reading this with glasses on? Who has been for a run today? Who drinks coffee in the morning?

Social work needs

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 12 2008
  • Ray Jones
The government might with some credibility claim that in recent years it has taken action to improve the status, and the quality, of social work and social workers. It has made social work a graduate profession and restricted the title of "social worker" to those with a professional qualification in social work.

Mistakes are made, but NHS is getting better

  • The Guardian, Friday December 12 2008
  • Michael White
Some 2,940 people were killed on Britain's roads last year, around 500 fewer than died as a result of medical error in the safety of an English hospital, ambulance or GP's care, according to official figures from the Healthcare commission yesterday. More alarmist estimates put the real figure at up to 10 times higher.

Don't demonise those on benefits

  • The Guardian, Friday December 12 2008
You reported that Labour backbenchers had given a "cautious welcome" to the measures outlined by James Purnell in his welfare reform bill (Reports, December 11). This is not the mood among left MPs and grassroots Labour members and supporters who remain profoundly appalled at these proposals.

Courting controversy

  • The Guardian, Friday December 12 2008
  • Afua Hirsch
Debbie Purdy's arrival at the royal courts of justice is always greeted by a media scrum. Photographers swarm, cameras flash, and, from her wheelchair, Purdy tells of her battle to die at a time of her own choosing,after years with multiple sclerosis.

High school tears out 'inappropriate' pages from set text

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday December 11 2008
  • Alison Flood
An American school has torn out pages containing sexual content from the novel Girl, Interrupted after judging them to be inappropriate for its students. The pages removed from the bestselling memoir by Susanna Kaysen, which tells of her time in a psychiatric hospital

Main points of the Healthcare Commission report

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday December 11 2008
" There are more resources than ever before available to the NHS. UK funding stood at £104bn in 2007-08 and has risen to 7.3% of GDP, compared with 5.4% 10 years ago. " More staff are also employed by the health service. A total of 1.3 million people now work for the NHS, up by 26% from 1997-08, and there are now 65.7 GPs per 100,000 people (57.6 a decade ago).

Mother accused of murdering sons must stay at hospital

  • The Guardian, Thursday December 11 2008
  • Helen Carter
A mother accused of murdering her two sons appeared in court yesterday. Jael Mullings, 21, was taken into the dock accompanied by four members of staff from a psychiatric hospital when she appeared at Manchester city magistrates court.

Silent victims given a voice

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday December 10 2008
  • Terry Philpot
Women whose partners sexually abuse children are usually invisible even to the agencies whose job it is to deal with abuse police, social workers, therapists, and health service staff. Their needs are frequently dismissed or overlooked, and services for them are mostly non-existent.

James Purnell accused of introducing US 'workfare' with benefits reform

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday December 10 2008
  • Andrew Sparrow and agencies
James Purnell was accused of introducing a version of the American "workfare" today after he published plans to ensure that most benefit claimants are preparing for employment.

Service with a smile

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 10 2008
  • Jocelyn Cornwell
Scarcely a day goes by without a nurse or other health professional lamenting that care standards have slipped to an all-time low in our hospitals. Most of us know from our own experiences that while care is often fantastic, it is sometimes impersonal and lacks compassion.

Redemption songs

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 10 2008
  • Mark Gould
When Billy Bragg received a letter from Malcolm Dudley, a drugs and alcohol worker at Guys Marsh prison, in Dorset, telling him he wanted to start guitar classes but didn't have any guitars the men could practise with between classes, the singer-songwriter wanted to help. Bragg was looking for a way to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer

Chinese petitioners forced into mental asylums, claims report

  • The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008
  • Tania Branigan, Beijing
Local officials in China have been accused of using forcible psychiatric treatment to silence critics, it emerged yesterday, amid reports that at least 18 people bringing complaints against authorities were held in a mental hospital in Shandong province against their will.

Psychiatric treatment used to 'silence' Chinese critics

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday December 8 2008
  • Tania Branigan in Beijing
Local officials in China appear to be increasingly using forcible psychiatric treatment to silence critics, a leading expert said today amid claims that at least 18 complainants were held in a mental hospital in Shandong province against their will.

'Not enough support' for mentally ill people to work

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday December 8 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
The government needs to take urgent action to make sure support and training is available to get more people with mental illness into work, say campaigners in a new report today. The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (SCMH) and the College of Occupational Therapists have published a joint paper arguing that the government risks "writing off" people with mental health

No freedom and treated like a child - how Britney's dad took control

  • The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
  • Paul Harris in New York
The year did not begin well for Britney Spears, the one-time princess of pop. On 3 January, after not sleeping for four days, and at the end of a period of intense personal turmoil, the police were called to her Malibu home.

Week Ending 7th December

Men lack confidence in boardroom and bedroom

  • The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
  • Amelia Hill, social affairs correspondent
Men used to have the upper hand when it came to confidence in the boardroom, bedroom and the bar. But, according to new research, men are struggling with a crisis of confidence, with almost half confessing that they feel anxious most of the time - particularly at work and especially around women.

Drug offers new Alzheimer's hope

  • The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
  • Robin McKie, science editor
A drug commonly used to control epilepsy could soon have a new role as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Researchers have found that sodium valproate, marketed in Britain as Epilim, stimulates the body's natural defences against the disease.

No freedom and treated like a child - how Britney's dad took control

  • The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
  • Paul Harris in New York
The year did not begin well for Britney Spears, the one-time princess of pop. On 3 January, after not sleeping for four days, and at the end of a period of intense personal turmoil, the police were called to her Malibu home.

Parents' anxieties ignored over age summer-born pupils start school

  • The Observer, Sunday December 7 2008
  • Tracy McVeigh and Amelia Hill
Children who are born in the summer months should not be allowed to defer starting primary school, although they should have the option to begin part-time, a major report has concluded. It follows concerns among parents, academics and ministers that allowing children to start school too young has far-reaching effects on confidence and learning.

Mind over matter

  • The Guardian, Saturday December 6 2008
  • Carrie Dunn
If you break your arm before you're about to sit your final exams, you'd expect sympathy and assistance from your university. Maybe they'll organise a special exam sitting for you, or provide you with an amanuensis. If you're diagnosed with a form of mental illness, such accommodating behaviour is significantly less likely.

Giving birth left me in a psychiatric unit

  • The Guardian, Saturday December 6 2008
  • Louise Nazeraj
After 22 painful hours of labour, I gave birth to Isabelle on September 7 2006. She was healthy and perfect, to my and my husband's delight. Over the next 48 hours I beamed with pride at my newborn child who fed constantly and slept well, although I couldn't seem to sleep myself.

Scientists can be sexy

  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday December 6 2008
  • Adam Rutherford
"Understanding oral sex" is the title of a paper in the current issue of Sexual Health, an Australian academic science journal I was flicking through today, purely for research purposes, you understand. "President George W Bush has & had a major influence on the way in which we discuss and research oral sex" the article confidently states in its opening paragraph.

'If I'm killed, let that bullet destroy every closet door'

  • The Guardian, Saturday December 6 2008
  • John Patterson
The killer, a 32-year-old Vietnam veteran, ex-cop and, until his recent resignation, elected city supervisor, entered San Francisco city hall through a ground-floor window. He was carrying his police-issue revolver, so needed to bypass the building's metal detectors.

Spread a little happiness

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008
  • Open thread
Earlier this week we learnt that the smell of fear is real, with scientists claiming that people can unconsciously detect stress from the aroma of a chemical pheromone released in someone's sweat. Today, we find out that happiness is catching.

New deal for dads

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008
  • Yvonne Roberts
Unmarried fathers have reasons to celebrate. The welfare reform bill, announced in the Queen's speech, proposes new requirements for the birth registration of children. Each year, 45,000 children are registered with only one parent's name on the birth certificate.

Barriers to work for mentally ill people still in place

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008
  • Clare Allan
Tragicomic timing apart, the government's welfare-to-work benefit changes present a catastrophic missed opportunity. It is not that change isn't needed. It has been apparent for many years that the way in which benefits are awarded for those with mental health problems is in many respects counter-productive.

Tough times for the third sector

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday December 5 2008
It's hard to predict the impact of the recession on the third sector. In policy terms, the sector is thriving, having achieved many of the changes it campaigned for, particularly in relation to children, young people, carers and disabled people.

How happiness can be catching

  • The Guardian, Friday December 5 2008
  • Sarah Boseley, health editor
Happiness is catching, new research has confirmed, and depends on how cheerful about life your friends feel. Happiness is spread through social networks and exists in clusters of close friends and neighbours, according to a study published today in the British Medical Journal.

Cheap alcohol ban will hit wine drinkers most

  • The Guardian, Thursday December 4 2008
  • Alan Travis and John Carvel
Wine drinkers will be hit hardest by a proposal to ban cut-price alcohol promotions in supermarkets and off-licences, according to government-commissioned research published yesterday. The Sheffield University study says a ban on discounts of more than 30%,

Meet Pablo, the dog that returned from the dead to warn young against cocaine

  • The Guardian, Thursday December 4 2008
  • Alan Travis, home affairs editor
A £1m TV and online anti-cocaine advertising campaign featuring "Pablo the drug mule dog" is to be launched by the government today. The campaign advertisements, voiced by comedian David Mitchell, are targeted at 15- to 18-year-olds to make them more aware of the risks and harms of cocaine use.

Care gaps affect mentally ill children

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 3 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
The charity sector for children and young people with mental health problems is "small and under-resourced" relative to the scale of the problem and, despite charities filling gaps in statutory provision, 40% of those with a mental disorder do not get any treatment, according to a report by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC).

Time to tackle poverty

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday December 3 2008
  • Sasha Abramsky
As President-elect Obama shapes his administration, it strikes me that of all the challenges confronting America, three are particularly critical. The first is tackling international terrorism effectively.

George Lee

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 3 2008
  • Ashutosh Khandekar
George Lee, who has died aged 94, dedicated his long working life to the pursuit of radical ideas that shaped society for the better in the 20th century: pacificism, multiculturalism and social welfare.

Being 'mentally ill' does not make you incompetent

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 3 2008
  • Clare Allan
Why is it that despite great mountains of evidence to the contrary, there is such an overwhelming, pervasive belief, even among professionals, that mental health problems and general competence are mutually exclusive? Or to put it another way, why is it that so many competent people are seen as invulnerable?

People who are losing their past still deserve a future

  • The Guardian, Wednesday December 3 2008
  • Anne Karpf
To most people the very mention of Alzheimer's induces a state of hopelessness. We make nervous jokes about "senior moments", or express don't-know-how-you-manage sympathy to carers. Those with Alzheimer's themselves, meanwhile, are often talked of as if they've already slipped the bonds of humanity: they're ex-persons.

Our empty outrage over Baby P

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 2 2008
  • Angela Neustatter
So we are witnessing collective celebration over the rolled heads in Haringey's childcare services. Hang out the bunting, Sun readers pat yourselves on the back for what you achieved with your petition signatures and, hey, with luck they'll get lynched as well.

Britney Spears is back: but would you want to swap places?

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday December 1 2008
  • Gareth McLean
Britney, lest you hadn't noticed, is back-back-back. After being away-away-away and encountering a few local difficulties in her personal life, she appeared on The X-Factor and took the show's audience to a series high of 12.8m.

Week Ending 30th November

Death threats, intimidation and attacks, the price of being a 'grass'

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 29 2008
  • Sandra Laville
The pictures in the hall of a smiling toddler and a fashionable teenage boy are the only evidence that Sally and her son ever lived as a normal family.

Mentally conflicted

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 27 2008
  • David Cox
How do you regard mentally ill people? Search your soul, and the answer's unlikely to be positive. For understandable reasons, those afflicted with disorders of the mind rather than the body have rarely been cherished by their fellows, and probably never will be.

Race bias in mental health admissions

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 27 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
People from black minority ethnic (BME) groups are three times more likely than average to be admitted as inpatients in mental health units, says a report released today by the Healthcare Commission.

It is our duty to save kids from cannabis

  • The Guardian, Thursday November 27 2008
It was with deep dismay that I read the letter from Dr Evan Harris MP et al (November 25) urging the government to postpone plans to reclassify cannabis. The writers say that the level of cannabis use has fallen in recent years, but among young teenagers drug use continues to rise, and the choice of 14- to 15-year-olds is still cannabis.

Government to replace sick notes with 'fit notes'

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 26 2008
  • John Carvel, social affairs editor
The government is to scrap the sick note that GPs have used for 60 years to sign people off work. Alan Johnson, the health secretary, and James Purnell, the work and pensions secretary, said yesterday sick notes will be replaced in England by electronic "fit notes"

Damage to Baby P could have turned him into a yob, says Barnardo's boss

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 26 2008
  • Owen Bowcott
Baby P might have become a "feral, parasitic yob" had he lived into adolescence, the chief executive of the children's charity Barnardo's will warn tonight.

'Only a matter of time ...'

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 26 2008
  • Anonymous
It's Friday. I drop my own child off at school early, so I can arrive at a foster carer's home on time at 8.20am to collect a child in care and transport him to school.

SocietyGuardian journalist wins award for ground-breaking report

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 26 2008
  • Clare Horton
SocietyGuardian reporter Mary O'Hara has won an award for a ground-breaking multimedia package about mental health issues. O'Hara was last night presented with the Mental Health Media print award for the Fit for purpose investigation, which looked at the subject of mental health in the workplace.

Scientists attack plan to upgrade cannabis

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 25 2008
  • Ian Sample, science correspondent
Government plans to overrule its own drug advisers and reclassify cannabis as a more dangerous substance are attacked by leading scientists and MPs in a letter to the Guardian today. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, intends to move cannabis from class C to class B, where it will sit alongside amphetamines, such as speed, and barbiturates.

Food for thought

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008
  • Linda Jackson
Prison food is usually synonymous with gruel and unhealthy eating. So it is surprising to discover that a project at an inner-city Victorian prison is not only championing fresh green salads and homemade cooking but also producing its own fruit and veg.

A clean sweep

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008
Barely six months ago, two-year-old Brandon Davis became the victim of methadone poisoning in a death that shocked the community and made headlines across the nation. The toddler from Walkers Heath, Birmingham died after taking the heroin substitute, which is often dispensed as a sweet green syrup.

This cannabis policy will fail

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 25 2008
  • Molly Meacher
The Home Secretary is upgrading cannabis from Class C to Class B, with harsher penalties. This is extraordinary considering that a year earlier she asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs what to do.

Shock tactics

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 25 2008
  • Kate Hilpern
Rawnie Chapman-Kitchin, 15, was aghast when her teacher compared abortion to Nazism, saying that in time history would view both with the same revulsion.

Porn addicts, sex offenders, rapists, paedophiles...

  • The Observer, Sunday November 23 2008
  • Simon Garfield
Seventy-five years ago, a middle-aged woman walked into a London clinic to receive help with her violent temper. She'd attacked her employer and was judged to be worthy of psychological examination.

Baby P's legacy must be better status for children's social workers

  • The Guardian, Sunday November 23 2008
  • Anthony Douglas
The appalling life and death of Baby P has touched a national nerve in a way that the deaths of other babies killed by their parents or carers did not, even though their plight was equally shocking.

'A heart that hurts is a heart that works. I will beat my anorexia'

  • The Observer, Sunday November 23 2008
  • David Smith
Juliana Hatfield carved her niche in indie rock in the early Nineties and now has a successful career spanning 10 albums. But for much of her life the singer-songwriter from Boston has been pursued by the twin demons of anorexia and depression.

Week Ending 23rd November

Baby P's legacy must be better status for children's social workers

  • The Guardian, Sunday November 23 2008
  • Anthony Douglas
The appalling life and death of Baby P has touched a national nerve in a way that the deaths of other babies killed by their parents or carers did not, even though their plight was equally shocking.

'A heart that hurts is a heart that works. I will beat my anorexia'

  • The Observer, Sunday November 23 2008
  • David Smith
Juliana Hatfield carved her niche in indie rock in the early Nineties and now has a successful career spanning 10 albums. But for much of her life the singer-songwriter from Boston has been pursued by the twin demons of anorexia and depression.

Porn addicts, sex offenders, rapists, paedophiles...

  • The Observer, Sunday November 23 2008
  • Simon Garfield
Seventy-five years ago, a middle-aged woman walked into a London clinic to receive help with her violent temper. She'd attacked her employer and was judged to be worthy of psychological examination.

From the edge

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 22 2008
  • Anita Sethi
When classical Indian epistemologists questioned why a rope might be mistaken for a snake, philosophers argued that such flawed perception was due to "half-knowledge" rather than full ignorance.

The BNP next door

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 22 2008
  • Jon Henley
It's a fascinating document. Row after row of names, addresses, telephone numbers, emails. Column upon column of personal, professional and biographical detail - career, education, family, hobbies.

Escaped murder suspect rearrested

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday November 21 2008
  • Matthew Weaver
A suspected murderer who has been on the run for three days after escaping from a psychiatric hospital was rearrested today. John Claydon, who is accused of killing 22-year-old Ben Foster in Bath in April, escaped from Springfield hospital in south London on Tuesday.

Another view: Mental health expert Paul Farmer on How Mad Are You?

  • The Guardian, Thursday November 20 2008
  • Paul Arendt
How Mad Are You? is a reality TV-style experiment that asks a group of psychiatrists to pick five people with mental health problems from a group of 10 volunteers. Thankfully, it doesn't feel too much like The X Factor. Much of the population doesn't understand the realities of mentalhealth, and the show conveys a lot of useful information sensitively.

Vulnerable inmates failed by system

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
People with learning difficulties face "personal, systemic and routine" discrimination across the criminal justice system, from arrest to release from prison, and are more likely to be victims of miscarriages of justice, according to a new report. Vulnerable people face a litany of problems on encountering the system

War veteran's award for speaking out

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Mark Gould
Cliff Holland, a former Manchester copper, still cuts an impressive figure at 77. But he carries a burden that has contributed to years of illness: a promise to the Queen Mother and another to a grieving mother to remember the soldiers who died around him in Malaya 56 years ago. The images of close-range death and killing won't go away.

Reaching Olympic heights

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Debbie Andalo
What they said about Hackney "There have been a lot of bad stories about the place, but I can't see it." Gwyn Prosser, MP for Dover. Named as London's first "Bright Ideas Borough" by Tim Campbell, a winner in the BBC show The Apprentice and chief executive of the Bright Ideas Trust.

How TV show turned the spotlight on stigma

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Paul Corry
It might have started off looking like a genteel Big Brother, but the BBC's two-part Horizon special How Mad Are You? had a rather more interesting question at its heart than everyone's favourite love-to-hate reality show. Big Brother broke a small patch of ground when it featured a token person with mental illness - Pete Bennett, who had Tourette's syndrome.

What shall we do with grandad?

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Nesrine Malik
The indignity of a lonely end is one of the greatest human dreads. Who does not shudder at spine-chilling tales of pensioners whose stinking bodies are only discovered when police break down the door? Different cultures have differing attitudes to the treatment of the elderly but it is not necessarily the most protective that provide the most succour.

Studies show stress can reshape the brain

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • McClatchy newspapers
Scientists have discovered how stress - in the form of emotional, mental or physical tension - physically reshapes the brain and causes long-lasting harm to humans and animals. "Stress causes neurons (brain cells) to shrink or grow," said Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York

Murder suspect escapes from London mental health unit

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Angela Balakrishnan and agencies
A suspected murderer, who escaped from a London mental health unit last night, is being hunted by police today. Scotland Yard is warning the public to not approach John Claydon, who is accused of a murder in Bath in April this year.

Yesterday in parliament

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Press Association
November 18 session Baby PA cross-party group of MPs added their weight to demands for an independent public inquiry following the death of Baby P.

Flaws, flak and falling morale

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 19 2008
  • Interviews by Carlene Thomas-Bailey, Ella Marshall and Anna Bawden
'We spend up to three years training, and then do filing' I am not sure the framework is wrong. People appeared to be working in a multi-agency way, but somehow the operation of it failed. Too often, cases get driven by the legal department.

Misunderstandings in child protection

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 18 2008
I am not sure whether it is hypocrisy, ignorance or indifference that allows a large proportion of the British public to scream indignation at the death of Baby P on the one hand, while at the same time victimising the next generation

Timeline: Baby P dossier

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008
  • Press Association
A dossier outlining the life of Baby P and the involvement of health and social workers was today published for the first time. The records, reportedly compiled by prosecution lawyers for the trial of his abusers, runs from the day he was born to the day he died.

Vines cancel live shows over frontman's illness

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008
  • Dan Martin
Australian rockers the Vines have cancelled their live commitments due to a deterioration in their frontman's mental health. In a disarmingly frank website post, the band confirmed that they were withdrawing from live and festival appearances indefinitely.

Government to unveil new laws to protect vulnerable children

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008
  • Press Association
No government reforms can "make good the evil" that happened to Baby P, the children's secretary, Ed Balls, said today. He was speaking on GMTV this morning as the government prepares to put forward legislation to protect vulnerable children.

Making progress on children's mental health

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 18 2008
Sometimes I think children and young people's mental health and psychological wellbeing has come a long way. At other times I despair at how much further we have to go. Perhaps that's because my mental health, like everyone else's, fluctuates and that influences how I look at things.

We should not stigmatise care

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday November 17 2008
  • Mike Stein
In the professional, political and media response to the tragic death of Baby P, the "failures of the care system" have been cited as a reason as to why social workers may persist with supporting families, even when there may be considerable risks to the welfare of the child.

Week Ending 16th November

Why children are left to die beyond help's reach

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Jamie Doward, Gaby Hinsliff, Tracy McVeigh and Mark Townsend
For much of last week, Britain's radio phone-in shows were dominated by a single, tragic subject: the short and brutalised life of the child who will forever be known as Baby P. Amid the cacophony of anger, one comment stood out.

Danger all ways

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Havana Marking
As the effects of the credit crunch kick in, spare a thought for the 13 million illegal drug takers in the UK. If you can't give them any sympathy, have some for the drug agencies, mental-health organisations and police forces bracing themselves for a new wave of drug-related problems.

Senior judge faces fresh investigation by watchdog

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Office for Judicial Complaints (OJC) has launched an investigation after it emerged that one of the country's most senior judges wrote a character reference on official stationery for a barrister accused of perverting the course of justice.

What I saw left me a victim of violence, unable to sleep at night

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
A senior paediatrician who has specialised in child protection for 30 years describes the difficulties faced by professionals When I started working in child protection in the early Seventies, a seven-year-old girl called Maria Colwell was beaten to death by her stepfather, despite a series of warnings to social services.

I'm a lobotomy, get me out of here

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Kathryn Flett
What she watched:Horizon: How mad are you? BBC2The Commander ITV1Lead Balloon BBC1Outnumbered BBC1Apparitions BBC1 It's entirely possible to imagine that had it not lurked underneath the venerable and trustworthy Horizon umbrella, How Mad Are You?

The counsellor

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Carl Wilkinson
Simon Leigh is an addiction counsellor accredited by the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals who also gives talks in schools on drugs (www.addictiontherapy.org.uk) Sometimes it's scary just how much children know at such a young age.

Is this the answer?

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Elizabeth Day
Michelle Kerry does not want her eight-year-old son to see her taking drugs. Each morning, she gets up at 5.30 and quietly goes to the kitchen to drink 10ml of concentrated liquid methadone.

Public favours harder line on drugs

  • The Observer, Sunday November 16 2008
  • Denis Campbell and Gaby Hinsliff
Britons have become more hardline in their attitudes towards drugs and the people who use them, a major poll commissioned by The Observer has revealed.

Eight in 10 seriously harmed children 'missed' by agencies

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 15 2008
  • Robert Booth
More than 80% of children who are killed or seriously injured as a result of abuse or neglect are missed by the national child protection register, the Guardian can reveal.

Our first step towards understanding the death of this child should be not to blame social workers but to face the mother's experience of childhood

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 15 2008
  • Anne Karpf
Tuesday was Remembrance Day but alongside the commemoration of fallen soldiers came another roll-call: Maria Colwell, Jasmine Beckford, Victoria Climbié - all children killed by a parent, step-parent or guardian - and the newest addition, Baby P, identified by a single, lonely consonant.

Doctor alerted police to 'distressed' mother hours before child killings

  • The Guardian, Friday November 14 2008
  • Helen Carter and Sandra Laville
The family of a baby and his two-year-old brother who were stabbed to death at home expressed their complete devastation yesterday at the loss of their "beautiful, innocent" children.

Making every child matter after Baby P

  • The Guardian, Friday November 14 2008
Doubtless the government review following the death of Baby P while on the Haringey child protection register (Urgent inquiry into childcare ordered, November 13) will produce another swath of guidance, regulations and accompanying documentation, such managerialist strategies being perhaps at the core of why such tragedies happen.

The failure of child protection

  • The Guardian, Thursday November 13 2008
Every child death is a tragedy, but it is time that the media and government stopped demanding inquiries and wanting answers (50 injuries, 60 visits - failures that led to the death of Baby P, November 12). The brutal fact is that there are no answers.

Police visited baby and toddler's house hours before bodies found

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 13 2008
  • James Sturcke and agencies
A woman held on suspicion of murdering her young sons was sectioned under the Mental Health Act today, as it emerged that police had visited the children's home hours before their killing.

Mend broken homes to end tragedy

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 13 2008
  • Iain Duncan Smith
Like every parent I was utterly repulsed by the images of Baby P, the 17-month-old who suffered horrendous levels of abuse and injuries at the hands of his mother and her boyfriend.

Mother held after brothers are found dead

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 13 2008
  • James Sturcke and agencies
An urgent review was launched by social services chiefs today after two young brothers were found dead in their Manchester home hours after police had visited the property. Four-month-old Delayno Mullings-Sewell and two-year-old Romario were discovered at the house

Last night's TV

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 12 2008
  • Sam Wollaston
What's this then: How Mad Are You? (BBC2). I see. So you've got five people who have a mental illness and five people who don't. And they all get banged up together in this big old castle for a few days (hopefully, the castle will help to bring out the madness in them) and given these tasks to do.

Rebranding dementia? This way madness lies

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 12 2008
  • Christopher Manthorp
Punk rock, bootleg gin, deranged senses and, of course, Jesus have been the principal influences on my life. Jim Jackson, recently retired after 15 years as chief executive of Alzheimer Scotland

Too easy a target

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday November 12 2008
  • Angela Neustatter
I, like many, on hearing about the savage brutality inflicted on utterly defenceless Baby P, would like to see the two men and the mother found guilty of causing this agonising death put in the stocks and subjected to primitive punishment by the public.

What else can an informatics officer do?

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 12 2008
  • Debbie Andalo
1 Mike's lack of public sector knowledge would not be a problem if he was thinking of joining a local authority as an informatics officer, where he is likely to earn £25,000-£35,000. His ability to analyse data and explain his findings coherently are more important than knowing how social services operate.

Keeping tabs on student life

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 12 2008
It is not only non-British students who should be concerned about the surveillance systems being set up by universities to monitor attendance and submission of work. This year the University of Kent has vastly extended its student database, which does just that.

All in the Mind, by Alastair Campbell

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • John Crace
Friday Professor Martin Sturrock felt a rising sense of panic as he sat in his office waiting for his first patient. Was writing down all he knew about mental illness really going to make an interesting book?

Watch this

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Gareth McLean
All Over the Shop 7.30pm, BBC2 This cut-price, half-hearted rip-off of Mary Queen of Shops is presented by Geoff Burch, a man who gesticulates so wildly he often looks as if he's playing an invisible accordion. With the recession looming, his advice, such as it is, to struggling retailers in Bristol seems akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

The new Gulf war syndrome

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Nora Eisenberg
What does a war injury look like? In the case of Iraq, we tend to picture veterans bravely getting on with their lives with the help of steel legs or computerised limbs. Trauma injuries are certainly the most visible of health problems the ones that grab our attention.

College students leave economy £28bn better off

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Peter Kingston
The millions of students who have been through the nation's colleges since 1993 collectively left the economy £28 billion richer last year.

All in the family - scientists discover gene for cocaine addiction

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Ian Sample, science correspondent
It has become commonplace for people who are overweight to attribute their waistline to their DNA. Now, celebrities caught snorting cocaine might also be able to blame their parents.

How booze affects the young

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Cherrill Hicks
A child under 10 undergoes hospital treatment for alcohol-related problems once every three days in England, according to government figures released on Sunday.

China recognises internet addiction as new disease

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 11 2008
  • Rachel Williams
"Feeling tense and angry because you cannot get online?" asks the state-run China Daily. Powerless to stop scouring eBay for second-hand bargains you don't really need?

Week Ending 9th November

Inside the sick world of the spin doctor

  • The Observer, Sunday November 9 2008
  • Derek Draper
As someone who works both as a psychotherapist and a Labour party adviser, I was either going to love this book or have two good reasons to hate it. Alastair Campbell has drawn on the two worlds I know well to tell his tale of Martin Sturrock, a troubled psychiatrist, and his half-dozen struggling patients.

Never mind pensioners, just be nice to Fido and Tiddles

  • The Observer, Sunday November 9 2008
  • Catherine Bennett
How often should you feed a pensioner? Little and often? A lot, twice a day? Or once a week? Recent work in hospitals has shown that an immobile pensioner may survive on almost nothing for months at a time.

A vicious circle

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 8 2008
  • Sophie Robehmed
Getting a job will be a difficult enough task for the class of 09. However, some among the lucky ones who do will face an even tougher challenge: handling the office bullies who like to target fresh-faced, bright, and often fast-tracked, graduates upon their arrival in the workplace.

Whose life is it anyway? How safety first culture takes risk out of adventure sports

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 8 2008
  • Steven Morris
The idea is to test the body and mind against the harshest of conditions, to give everything in the attempt to cross the finishing line but also to have the guts to call it a day when the going gets too tough. However, at a time when adventure sports are booming, enthusiasts say they face an even tougher test of their resolve

Barack Obama lit up my bonfire night

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday November 7 2008
  • Bridget Fox
On Tuesday night, like millions of others, I was with friends watching the US election results - hope, anxiety, then elation as the numbers came in. We'll always remember this 5th of November. Obama's victory is the embodiment of the American dream.

A page has been turned

  • The Guardian, Thursday November 6 2008
  • Rebecca Walker in Kula, Hawaii
I can finally stop for a second. And breathe. The election wasn't stolen. Our candidate is alive. We showed up, changed the world, and plan to get up tomorrow and do it again.

It was finally time to scream

  • The Guardian, Thursday November 6 2008
  • Emma Brockes
There came a point, during the earliest hours of yesterday morning, when talking was no longer adequate.

Lean machines

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday November 6 2008
  • Siobhan O'Neill
When it comes to eating at work, the culinary offer is not always easy to stomach. On one hand there are canteens that dole out stodge and chips with everything, and on the other there are eateries that prepare healthy alternatives

Mental illness cases in British forces neared 4,000 last year

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008
  • Matthew Taylor
Almost 4,000 new cases of mental illness were diagnosed among the UK's armed forces last year, with those returning from Iraq or Afghanistan the most likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The lingua franca of health is less than reassuring

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008
  • Simon Hoggart
Remembrance Sunday is almost here. I counted the poppies in the Commons. All but one of the Tories wore them - the exception being John Bercow, but he is married to a Guardian reader, so that doesn't count.

Thanks Iceland, Sarah Palin and VW. You're a ray of light

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008
  • Clare Allan
I am feeling extremely depressed. Things had been going very well - in retrospect, perhaps a little too well. My writing appeared to be writing itself, my dog appeared to be walking herself, my life appeared to be living itself

The reality of misdiagnosis

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
With contestants lined up on the lawn of a grand house and looking as if they mean business, the opening sequence of Horizon: How Mad Are You? could be mistaken for The Apprentice.

In place of fear

  • The Guardian, Wednesday November 5 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
For someone responsible for reforming one of the most entrenched problems in the mentalhealth system, discrimination against people from black and minority ethnic communities (BME), Melba Wilson is undaunted. "I'm an optimist, but I'm also a pragmatist. I don't have rose-tinted glasses. I know exactly what needs to be done to make things happen.

Lack of conviction in prison education system

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 4 2008
  • Andrew Mourant
The prison education system is in disarray, according to a damning report by a group of MPs. The findings of the House of Commons public accounts committee (PAC) claim little has been done for inmates who struggle with basic numeracy and literacy. Often their needs are not assessed and any progress they do make goes unrecorded.

One month of ... Daily 10-minute meditations

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 4 2008
  • Deborah Agulnik
In my seemingly never-ending search for a less stressful lifestyle, a friend tells me that a 10-minute meditation session each day is all you need for peace of mind. This seems too good to be true; is meditation really that easy?

A healthy outlook in hospital schools

  • The Guardian, Tuesday November 4 2008
  • Lucy Tobin
The classroom has walls covered in artwork, computers dotted around and a model of a historical warrior. But a second glance at the warrior's armour reveals that it's constructed out of bedpans.

Hope for human rights

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday November 4 2008
  • Kate Allen
When it comes to human rights, the legacy of the Bush years is inevitably going to be dominated by the fall-out from the so-called "war on terror". And, just as inevitably, I'm afraid, this legacy is going to be overwhelmingly negative.

Fears over new drug orders for mental health patients

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday November 3 2008
  • Mark Gould
Campaigners have expressed concern about the potential misuse of new powers for the compulsory treatment of people with mental illness that come into force in England today.

Cross-party attempt to fight extradition of British hacker

  • The Guardian, Monday November 3 2008
  • Duncan Campbell
Senior politicians from all parties are urging the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, to halt the extradition of the computer hacker Gary McKinnon unless she receives a guarantee from the US that he will be allowed to serve any sentence imposed in Britain

Common drug may slow brain disease

  • The Guardian, Monday November 3 2008
  • Ian Sample, science correspondent
British doctors are to launch a major clinical trial to investigate whether a common anti-depression drug could be a cheap and effective treatment for the devastating condition motor neurone disease.

Mental illness, the law and rudeness

  • The Guardian, Monday November 3 2008
Psychiatric units are experiencing major problems with implementation of the NHS smoking ban. Although this was implemented in other parts of the NHS last year, there was a delay until July 1 this year for psychiatric units in recognition that they would face specific difficulties.

From Goma to Gaza, Mr Miliband

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 2 2008
  • Victoria Brittain
David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner were quick to fly to Kinshasa and Kigali this weekend to be seen to be responding to the sudden visibility of the long-running horrible humanitarian crisis of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Postnatal depression 'in the genes'

  • The Observer, Sunday November 2 2008
  • Amelia Hill, social affairs correspondent
The most severe form of postnatal depression, which affects one in 500 new mothers and has been linked to suicide and infanticide, could be genetic, according to new research.

Has Homer turned blue?

  • The Observer, Sunday November 2 2008
  • Euan Ferguson
Matt Groening is his usual delightful geek-gone-right self when it comes to overarching plaudits for The Simpsons. It's now the longest-running prime-time animated series ever, the longest-running comedy series in America, frequently acclaimed as the most favouritest programme in history and the like; but its creator admits only to one record:

Letters

  • The Guardian, Saturday November 1 2008
In the psychiatrist's chair I know that Alastair Campbell went to some lengths in researching his novel about a psychiatrist, because as well as drawing on his own well-documented history, he sent advance copies to a number of mental health experts and practitioners;

Man addicted to water dies by drinking from hosepipe

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 31 2008
  • Angela Balakrishnan
A care home has come under attack for failing to look after a man addicted to drinking water who died after gorging on a hosepipe. Andrew Else was an "aquaholic" for 30 years, an inquest into his death heard. Yesterday his brother, Stephen, said he should not have been left alone near free-flowing water.

Thursday miscellany: Obama's evil hypnosis trickery

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 30 2008
  • Oliver Burkeman
"This document contains over 60 pages of evidence and analysis proving Barack Obama's use of a little-known and highly deceptive and manipulative form of 'hack' hypnosis on millions of unaware Americans...

New skills service for prisoners 'has failed'

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 30 2008
  • Press Association
Prisoners are not being provided with opportunities to take qualifications and improve their basic skills, the chair of a cross-party group on MPs claimed today.

Follow Cuba's emissions standard

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 30 2008
  • Richard Wilkinson
The difference between before and after New Labour is that time has been wasted and the world is nearer the brink of environmental disaster.

Personal budgets may prove a burden

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
  • David Brindle
Not whether, but how. That was how former care services minister Ivan Lewis once described the purpose of the official evaluation of the 13 individual budget pilot schemes enabling older people and those with disabilities and mental health problems to buy care and support services of their choice with money from different funding streams.

Sensitive Archers plot wins plaudits

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
  • Chris Arnot
If fans of The Archers harboured any doubts that Peggy Woolley would stand by her man, they were firmly squashed in yesterday's edition. The formidable matriarch crisply informed her daughter, Jennifer, that husband Jack would be sprung from The Willows nursing home as soon as possible, despite his steadily deteriorating dementia.

Hang-gliders of the mind

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 29 2008
  • Sue Blackmore
Why is that whenever we hear about illegal drugs people are said to be "experimenting" with them or "abusing" them never "enjoying" or even just "using" them? You'd think that all illegal drugs are devoid of any positive benefits or valid uses which is, I guess, what those who favour prohibition like to believe.

Getting the kids in shape

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
  • Zoe Williams
The late Sir Richard Doll, who discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer, was ruminating some years ago on Desert Island Discs about how to stop children smoking. He said: "Find out what the tobacco industry supports and don't do it, and find out what they object to and do it.

Local resilience is the key to wellbeing

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 29 2008
  • Josh-Ryan Collins
In the name of "modernisation", the government has insisted on competitive commissioning, a narrow focus on financial efficiency savings, and investment through the private finance initiative (PFI) that builds up long-term debts.

Welfare reform: a painful process

  • The Guardian, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Michael White
Talk of welfare reform usually triggers strong emotions and yesterday's revamp of incapacity benefit (IB), a tough policy legacy from the Thatcher era, is no exception. Ministers are routinely accused by campaigners and academics of failing to understand the deep-seated problems of chronically ill, disabled or mentally unstable people.

Straw man

  • The Guardian, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Editorial
There must be more than one Jack Straw at large in the cabinet. The thoughtful Mr Straw wrote the forward to a recent collection of essays on penal reform, a book which not only called for a massive cut in the prison population, but included that call in its title.

Victims of domestic violence left out of social exclusion agenda

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Anita Pati
Women's groups have reacted angrily to a government admission that victims of domestic and sexual violence have been omitted from its social exclusion agenda.

Jack Straw's attack on penal reform groups is ill-placed

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Erwin James
Whoever wrote Jack Straw's speech in which he launched a vicious attack on penal reform groups this week levelled an outrageous slur on the work and efforts of the good people in this country who for decades have been campaigning tirelessly, and with little thanks, for a safe and effective prison system that works in all our best interests.

Children worry more about careers than bullying - study

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Polly Curtis
Children enter their teens worrying about their future careers and the quality of their teachers far more than bullying or their own safety, according to a government survey of 150,000 10- to 15-year olds.

Empathy meets suspicion in welfare reforms

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Lawrence Kay
Recent welfare reforms have been driven by suspicion and empathy, not least those made to the incapacity benefit system. Many of the 2.6 million people who claim incapacity benefit (IB) are thought to have disabilities that rightly mean they should get looked after by the state, but lots of them are also suspected of being capable of work.

Mental health sufferers hard hit by new benefit rules, charities warn

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Mary Babalola
The government's new benefit rules will have a negative impact on people with mental health problems, charities fear. From yesterday, a new employment and support allowance (ESA) replaced incapacity benefit.

The pram in the cell

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 28 2008
  • Juliet Lyon
Yesterday Jack Straw declared reclaiming the "unfashionable" concepts of punishment and reform would not herald a Victorian approach to crime. Yet, with the publication this week of figures showing the number of babies born in prison is soaring, you don't need to read Little Dorrit to feel there's already something very Dickensian about our prison system.

Becoming an adult doesn't mean removing the safety net

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 27 2008
  • Raina Sheridan
It is a well-documented fact that young adults who have left the care system struggle to reach the same levels of educational attainment as their peers. In England only 13% gained five GCSEs grades A*-C in 2007, compared with 62% of the whole population, while less than 5% go on to university.

Week Ending 26th October

Hacker is 'too sick' to survive US extradition

  • The Observer, Sunday October 26 2008
  • Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Home Secretary has backed the extradition of a UFO-obsessed computer hacker, despite hearing expert argument that it would be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Anger grows over Katona 'train wreck' TV interview

  • The Observer, Sunday October 26 2008
  • Caroline Davies and Amelia Hill
Kerry Katona's car-crash television interview last week has prompted claims of double standards over the way society treats female celebrities compared with their male counterparts.

Just good friends?

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday October 26 2008
  • Julian Baggini
"In these uncertain economic times, it is important to remember just how greatly friends can contribute to your general wellbeing and happiness." This earth-shattering conclusion has been reached by Dr Richard Tunney, a psychologist at the University of Nottingham two millennia after Aristotle declared, somewhat more pithily: "The happy man needs friends."

Before the fall

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008
  • Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy
To the jury in Greece, John Hogan was insane. They concluded that the self-employed tiler from south Bristol was not guilty of murder, having been overcome by an "earthquake" of psychosis when he leapt from a hotel balcony, four floors up, with his two children.

Feel the fear

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008
  • Adam Phillips
All in the Mind, Alastair Campbell's first novel, is about a psychiatrist, "one of the country's top shrinks", on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Professor Sturrock is "stressed", feels "a rising sense of panic", and wonders whether he is "facing a weekend of angst and insomnia".

Streets ahead

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008
  • Enzo DiMatteo, associate editor, Now Magazine, Toronto
Back in Victorian times, the foot of this lost stretch on the southern edge of Little Portugal was the end of the line for the working class immigrants riding the early morning trolley to low-paying jobs in this former meatpacking district.

Don't expect to find a banker down at bankruptcy court

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008
  • Polly Toynbee
As recession bites hard, a more despondent, down-at heel group of people than the debtors at the bankruptcy courts in the Strand would be hard to find. Waiting for their papers were mothers with fractious children, weary old men, an Italian singer, a lorry driver, a decorator, a former City trader, and scores more, all with their stories to tell.

Becks and I are extra-terrestrial friends

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 25 2008
  • Russell Brand
Other than with my own fragile mental health, I've never been one for much of a gamble. I went into a bookmaker's once in Kentish Town, to meet a man, (I believe it was to buy a laughably small quantity of drugs) and I must say I found the décor, ambience and sneering rather depressing.

Disgraced Raj Persaud quits as consultant at leading hospital

  • The Guardian, Friday October 24 2008
  • James Sturcke and Martin Wainwright
The disgraced celebrity psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud has left his job at a leading hospital four months after being convicted of dishonesty by a disciplinary tribunal. Persaud, who has lost media commissions after admitting plagiarism at a General Medical Council hearing in June

A life of purity and dignity

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 24 2008
  • Xiao Qiang
On June 4 1990, a year after the Beijing massacre, a young man stood in Tiananmen Square ? which was full of armed soldiers and police ? with a small white flower pinned to his black outfit, a traditional sign of mourning in China. His name was Hu Jia, and he was a high school student in Beijing.

Obesity drug withdrawn over depression link

  • The Guardian, Friday October 24 2008
  • Agencies
Sales and prescriptions of a weight-loss drug were suspended yesterday after European health authorities said the benefits no longer outweighed the risks. The European Medicines Agency said obese people taking Acomplia were roughly twice as likely to develop psychiatric disorders, such as depression, anxiety and aggression, than those taking a placebo.

Five steps to happiness

  • The Guardian, Thursday October 23 2008
  • Lucy Mangan
Don't worry. You can be happy. All you have to do, according to government thinktank Foresight, is follow its five-a-day programme of social and personal activities, and mental health and wellbeing shall be yours.

The case for flexible working

  • The Guardian, Thursday October 23 2008
The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the TUC are wrong to condemn Peter Mandelson, the business secretary, for looking again at the government's proposals to expand the right to request flexible working (Mandelson under fire over flexible working proposals, October 22).

A slippery slope

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Arlene Judith Klotzko
In the aftermath of the tragic suicide at Dignitas in Switzerland of Daniel James, the 23-year-old British man paralysed in a rugby accident, Mary Warnock made an elegantly reasoned argument for legalising assisted suicide.

Syd Barrett: life and times

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008 

A tribute concert to celebrate the life of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett is providing inspiration for musicians affected by mental health

We must spot learning problems earlier, says thinktank

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Anthea Lipsett
Spotting and treating learning difficulties early is vital for children's mental wellbeing, a government report has found. Children's wellbeing is a key issue for the government and the schools minister, Baroness Delyth Morgan, recently outlined plans to measure schools on their efforts to promote it.

Helper with a heart of gold

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Susannah Peter
If you needed to be cared for in your own home, you would probably want someone like Joyce Roberts to look after you. At the age of 68, she has put in 33 years as a home care assistant or home help with Flintshire county council - and she has no intention of stopping just yet.

Firm action needed to remove stigma

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Sally Reynolds
The way we do business needs to change. The world economy is in turmoil, companies are folding, and large-scale job losses are increasing. Governments and businesses alike must be open to new ideas, changing environments and adapting markets.

Experts call for campaign to boost nation's mental health

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Ian Sample
A "five-a-day"-style campaign to boost the mental health of the nation is needed to combat rising rates of depression, anxiety and drug abuse, government advisers say today. Ministers are being urged to consider the proposal following a two-year report into the country's mental wellbeing by the government's horizon-scanning think tank Foresight.

The Floyd effect

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
When Simon Gunton began putting together a tribute to Syd Barrett, the enigmatic musician and original member of Pink Floyd who died in 2006, he says he could "never have imagined" the effect it would have on the mentalhealth service users he was working with.

Changes for the better?

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Ruth Winchester
There comes a time in any long sea voyage when the land behind is a distant memory and the destination has yet to appear on the horizon, and you wonder if you will ever again set foot on dry land. Welcome to children's services, five years into their voyage in search of a new world.

Denial of the right to die is sheer religious primitivism

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Simon Jenkins
The Crown Prosecution Service is considering, yet again, whether to prosecute and possibly imprison otherwise law-abiding Britons for helping their loved ones to die.

Ins and outs

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
Angela Coulter is stepping down as chief executive of the Picker Institute, the research charity which analyses users' experiences in the healthcare service.

Opportunity knocking

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Mark Gould
The silence of the nondescript landings in Bacton Tower, a 14-storey former council block, is broken by the sound of letterboxes snapping shut as leaflets flutter on to doormats.

Q&A: Welfare-to-work benefit changes

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Sara Gaines
What changes are planned? The government wants to see 80% of adults in work and plans radical welfare reform to get there. Today the consultation closes on its green paper, No One Written Off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility.

A bigger voice for mental health

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
Two of the country's most influential mental health charities are to merge, it was confirmed today. Mental Health Media (MHM), which focuses on encouraging positive representations of mental illness in the media, and Mind, the largest charity in the sector, say the move will help create a more effective voice for mental health service users.

Education potential of older people 'untapped'

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 22 2008
  • Peter Kingston
The nation needs to invest much more in the ability of older people to make best use of their brains, according to a new report from a government thinktank. Foresight, the government unit charged with thinking strategically for the future, said it was vital to exploit the "mental capital" of mature adults.

'Without her I would not have my son'

  • The Guardian, Tuesday October 21 2008
  • Helen Carter
Inside the rainbow nurturing room at Woodlands primary in Birkenhead, the walls are covered with photographs of the children, busy at work and smiling. There's a large paper rainbow at the centre. "Mrs Skillen gives me stickers," reads one of the messages in a child's handwriting.

NHS issues warning as anti-superbug gel blamed for death

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 21 2008
  • Mark Gould
Hospitals have been issued with a safety warning following hundreds of cases of misuse of alcohol-based antibacterial gel - including one suspected death. As the Guardian reported in August the NHS is witnessing rising numbers of cases of patients with drink or drugs problems stealing the £10-a-litre gel and mixing it with orange juice

Best care in the NHS

  • The Guardian, Monday October 20 2008
Your reporting of the Healthcare Commission's annual health check (October 16) was generally excellent. However, one vital fact was missing: this is the second year running that mental health trusts have been rated as one of the best-performing parts of the NHS.

Sex guidance and condoms help scouts to be prepared

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 20 2008
  • John Carvel, David Batty and agencies
Scouts will for the first time will be given sexual health advice and may be issued with condoms under new guidelines issued by the Scout Association (PDF).

Government to crack down on blue badge parking cheats

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 20 2008
  • Deborah Summers and agencies
Drivers who abuse the disabled parking badge system will be targeted in a £55m scheme to improve facilities for those who really need them.

Week Ending 19th October

'Nervous breakdown' discharges up by 30pc among UK armed forces

  • The Observer, Sunday October 19 2008
  • Mark Townsend
The number of British military personnel discharged from the armed forces following a 'nervous breakdown' has risen by 30 per cent since the start of the Afghan war. More than 1,300 have been medically discharged since 2001 when operations first began against the Taliban, new figures reveal.

Work

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008
  • Steven Poole
Work, by Lars Svendsen (Acumen, £9.99) Work? Are you serious? "Contrary to popular claims," Svendsen writes, "we actually work less than ever before, and the work we do is even beneficial for our physical and mental health." But that "even" is a sign of forcing, an admission that the existence of some healthy jobs cannot be used to generalise all contemporary work.

Have I done enough?

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008
  • Ros Coward
It's Mum's birthday and I'm not spending it with her. I'm away. In Amsterdam, in fact. This is the first time for many years that I haven't been with her on her birthday. I ring before leaving to say sorry that I won't be with her to celebrate her 84th birthday.

Real and imagined terrors

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008
  • Joanna Briscoe
Susan Hill is arguably too versatile for her own good. As a writer of general fiction, crime novels, children's books and successful ghost stories such as The Woman in Black, her name is solidly well known, but she evades categorisation in a market that prefers its brands clearly defined.

This column will change your life

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 18 2008
  • Oliver Burkeman
One piece of nonsense I'm always encountering in self-help books is the claim that the human mind "can't tell the difference" between a real experience and a vividly imagined one. This usually crops up in the context of visualisation techniques.

Yet again mental health services go ignored

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 16 2008
  • Paul Corry
The Healthcare Commission has clearly sworn an oath to tell some of the whole truth and nothing but some of the whole truth in its annual review of NHS performance released today. The annual health check says the NHS is performing better than ever.

Full list: NHS trusts in England named as unhygienic

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 16 2008
The Healthcare Commission today publishes its annual ratings of NHS services. This year it has revealed that 114 of the 391 NHS trusts did not satisfactorily comply with hygiene standards in 2007-08.

Your local doctor isn't the bogeyman

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 16 2008
  • Ann Robinson
Let's look at the good news in the Healthcare Commission report out today, which surveys the performance ratings of 391 NHS organisations. Forty-two of the trusts which control hospitals, scored extremely well for both quality of care and financial management.

Nicky Reilly: From BFG to failed suicide bomber

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • Steven Morris
Two days before the attack on the Giraffe restaurant, in Exeter, Mohammed Rashid Saeed-Alim - Nicky Reilly, to most friends and family - was to be found poring over the Qur'an at the Islamic Cultural and Community Centre in Plymouth.

Public inquiry

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • Interview by Carlene Thomas-Bailey
What is Air Football? It's a football programme with built-in, wrap-around lifestyle support for people with drug abuse, alcohol abuse and mental health problems, as well as people at risk of offending. How does playing football help them? It teaches teamwork, responsibility, coordination and strength.

Safe journey

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • Debbie Andalo
Jane Reid's world started to crumble around her five years ago, when she had the first of a series of nervous breakdowns triggered by her husband's secret debts. Failed suicide attempts meant she was in and out of psychiatric hospital, which led to her losing her job as a shop assistant.

Forget Sats: lesson one is a basic emotional education

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • Mark Johnson
Our schools curriculum is designed by the middle classes, delivered by them, and is successful primarily for the middle classes. I know that being middle class isn't automatically a passport to a loving, stable background, with parents who take an interest in your education, but it certainly helps.

We have a constant hunger for more but curbing our desires might make us happier

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • Oliver James
Although not exactly scared witless, the people questioned have grasped one fundamental implication of the credit crunch: to prioritise meeting real needs over confected wants. This shows up in what they've cut back on.

A positive spin on mental health issues

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 15 2008
  • David Brindle
Whatever you think of Alastair Campbell, and opinions do tend to polarise, he is greatly to be commended for coming out about his depression. Cracking Up, the TV programme he made about it that was broadcast on BBC2 last Sunday, was an honest and open account of his first traumatic breakdown, his subsequent recurrent bouts of illness and his continuing search for the cause

Guillaume Depardieu

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 14 2008
  • Ronald Bergan
In the annals of show business, there have been a number of fraught relationships between famous fathers and less famous sons that had tragic consequences - the sons of John Barrymore, Bing Crosby and Marlon Brando all suffered pitiful destinies

Recession depression

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 14 2008
  • Paul Corry
Life inside the square mile has been tough recently; we have heard that traders and bankers are suffering real mental distress. City workers are flocking to private clinics for emerging mental health problems and addictions. They do have my sympathy. But those outside the City aren't immune to "recession depression".

News in brief

  • The Guardian, Tuesday October 14 2008
Personal details of up to 1.7m on missing MoD disk A computer hard drive reported missing last week by an IT firm contracted to the Ministry of Defence may contain personal information on 1.7 million people who inquired about joining the armed forces, MPs were told yesterday.

Tory candidate avoids jail for running 'vile' hate campaign

  • The Guardian, Tuesday October 14 2008
  • David Pallister
The Conservative party was urged yesterday to conduct an inquiry into a hate campaign carried out by one of its former parliamentary candidates against his Liberal Democrat opponents. Ian Oakley, 31, who was selected in the Labour-held seat of Watford in 2006, was sentenced yesterday to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months.

BBC mental health season to feature Michael Portillo and Terry Pratchett

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 13 2008
  • Tara Conlan
A trio of BBC2 documentaries about mental health will see Michael Portillo examine youth suicide, Terry Pratchett discuss Alzheimer's disease and Meera Syal look at self-harm. The trio are making the programmes as part of Headroom, the BBC's two-year mental health and wellbeing campaign.

New penalties for cannabis users announced

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 13 2008
  • Hélène Mulholland and agencies
Cannabis users face new penalties when the drug is upgraded to class B from January next year, the home secretary said today. Jacqui Smith said that those caught with cannabis for a second time would be fined £80 and after three strikes would be arrested.

Dying for guidance

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday October 13 2008
  • Yvonne Roberts
Sometimes, heroes come in the most unprepossessing of guises. Last year, Sydney Norton, 86, of New Cross, south London, smothered Betty, his wife of 57 years, while she was being treated as a patient in Lewisham Hospital. Betty had suffered a stroke in 2000 and more recently had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

'Free drinks for women' offers may be banned

  • The Guardian, Monday October 13 2008
  • Sam Jones and Robert Booth
Bars could be banned from offering free alcohol to women and restaurants may be obliged to serve wine in glasses with marked measures under new proposals being considered by the government, it emerged yesterday.

Week Ending 12th October

No cure for Alzheimer's

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday October 12 2008
  • Jeremy Kuper
I want to talk about dementia an incurable and terminal condition. The author Terry Pratchett, who is himself suffering from Alzheimer's, a form of dementia, is doing just that. He is heading up a campaign by the Alzheimer's Society to tackle the stigma associated with the illness.

'As our ancestors hide in our DNA, so do their stories'

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 11 2008
  • Interview by Nicholas Wroe
Despite being the grandson of a betting man, Sebastian Barry would not have backed himself to be shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize. His previous novel, A Long Long Way, was shortlisted in 2005 and his agent explained to him how rare it was for lightning to strike consecutive books.

Anatomy lessons

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 11 2008
  • Justine Jordan
The four connected "lobes" of Will Self's latest book, two novellas and two short stories, all feature our largest internal organ: battleground for toxins, creator of bile. Despite being the grandson of a betting man, Sebastian Barry would not have backed himself to be shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize.

Mother charged with murder of her children

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 10 2008
  • Press Association
A mother was charged today with the murder of her son and daughter, who were stabbed to death at their home, police said. Sasikala Navaneethan, 36, is accused of killing five-year-old Shanjayan and four-year-old Sharani.

Walk to improve mental health

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 10 2008
  • Sara Gaines
A mass walk is planned today to show how exercise can boost wellbeing, as part of a scheme one charity called "the most ambitious health movement of our time". The London walk marks World Mental Health Day and is part of a campaign, Time to Change, that aims to boost wellbeing and challenge mental health discrimination.

Let's work to achieve therapy for all on World Mental Health Day

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 10 2008
  • Aislinn Enright
At Turning Point, we feel that the effects of the current financial crisis are likely to affect lots of people - and often those people (unlike those in the Square Mile) will not have the funds to pay for therapy. In fact, a third of people who go to their GP have mental health issues in their lives but often they are receiving inappropriate treatment.

UK can't rest on its laurels when it comes to mental health services

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 10 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
In the midst of economic armageddon, it's nice to get some good news. A report from the World Healthmental health services among the best in Europe  music to the ears of ministers at the Department of Health. Organisation has placed England's

Mentally ill employees to get support at work

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 9 2008
  • Sara Gaines
The government is to pilot a project to support people with mental health problems to help them stay in work. The work and pensions secretary, James Purnell, said yesterday the scheme had been developed with mental health charity Mind and would be piloted in London this autumn to test demand and monitor the effects.

How effective is St John's Wort?

  • The Guardian, Thursday October 9 2008
  • Peta Bee
Feeling blue? According to Dr Klaus Linde from the Centre for Complementary Medicine in Munich, a supplement of St John's Wort should improve your mood. In his review of 29 studies on the yellow-flowering hedgerow plant, also known as hypericum perforatum, Linde has shown it to be as effective as drugs such as Prozac in treating depression.

Volunteering is at the heart of the future NHS

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 9 2008
  • Mike Locke
The health service has been built over the centuries by people voluntarily giving their time and labour to looking after others in sickness and in health. Many now well-established services were developed through voluntary action.

Foxx and Darabont set to join forces for Law Abiding Citizen

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 9 2008
  • Ben Child and agencies
Jamie Foxx looks set to play a devastated husband and father who takes revenge on the killer of his wife and daughter in the psychological thriller Law Abiding Citizen.

Schools to be judged on how they boost wellbeing

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 9 2008
  • Anthea Lipsett
The new children's minister, Baroness Delyth Morgan, has proposed that all schools are judged on their contribution to the wellbeing of pupils. Morgan launched a consultation today on a proposed set of indicators to "recognise and reward" schools for their efforts towards pupils' wellbeing.

Hard times

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008
Voluntary sector The demand for the vital frontline services of thousands of small charities and community groups struggling to cope with increasing overhead costs will surge as people lose their jobs, mentalhealth problems increase and homes are repossessed.

Stress levels soar in the square mile

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008
  • Annie Kelly
An independent mental health hospital located near London's banking district has identified a new disorder sweeping through the devastated ranks of City bankers and hedge fund managers. The clinic says it is seeing more and more cases of "square mile syndrome"

The all-seeing state is about to end privacy as we know it

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 8 2008
  • Jenni Russell
You might suppose that the economic tornado hitting Britain would cause the government to focus its energy and resources very tightly on the political projects that are of undoubted value. This is not, after all, the moment to be wasting either political or financial capital.

'I endured years of being punched in the head'

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 8 2008
  • John Carvel
Rebecca Boden, now 50, is a professor of critical management at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff. As a successful academic, with a settled family life, she is probably one of the last people you would expect to be keeping a dark secret about her childhood.

How the financial crisis will affect the voluntary sector

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 8 2008
Charities have weathered recessions before but what we are facing now throws up very new challenges. On the one hand, charities have a buffer as the sector as a whole receives 50% from government contracts and this income is unlikely to change.

How the financial crisis will affect welfare to work policy

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 8 2008
This is going to mean mass unemployment in excess of two million, if not three million people over the next 12-18 months. You need to be damn sure you have a decent welfare to work trampoline, rather than safety net, not just to catch people but bounce people from benefits back to employment.

TV ad campaign aims to boost mental health

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 7 2008
  • Sara Gaines
England's first mental health promotion TV campaign is launched today to show how lifestyle choices can boost wellbeing. A commercial is to run five times a day for five days in the Anglia region, in a campaign to show how healthy eating, exercise and maintaining friendships are linked to mental health.

TV ad campaign aims to boost mental health

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 7 2008
  • Sara Gaines
England's first mental health promotion TV campaign is launched today to show how lifestyle choices can boost wellbeing. A commercial is to run five times a day for five days in the Anglia region, in a campaign to show how healthy eating, exercise and maintaining friendships are linked to mental health.

The criminal justice system is in crisis

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 7 2008
  • Harry Fletcher
The criminal justice system is in crisis. The police, probation, prisons and the courts are all facing cuts to budgets, increasing workloads, inadequate pay deals and creeping civilisation and privatisation.

At least it's not the sack

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 7 2008
  • David Brindle
Government reshuffles are strange affairs. No matter how well you've performed in your ministerial job, judged on any objective criteria, you need to keep your metaphorical bag packed in anticipation of the dreaded phone call. Ivan Lewis's bag had been packed for some time.

Week Ending 5th October

Yes, I've got glasses. No, it's nothing to do with Sarah Palin

  • The Observer, Sunday October 5 2008
  • Victoria Coren
Did you know that people are allowed to print slogans next to the roadside, advising people to buy things? Underneath those big pictures you see sometimes, there are alluring sentences, telling us that various products will improve our life in some way.

Superpowers for parents: becoming your child's emotional coach

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 4 2008
  • Sally Williams
The thing about Dr Stephen Briers, a child psychologist, is that he really wants us to become child psychologists too. "It's not a mystical art," he says. "A lot of people could have a stab at it."

Decline and fall

  • The Guardian, Saturday October 4 2008
  • Tristram Hunt
One of the more challenging chapters in Noel Annan's self-congratulatory history of 20th-century intellectual life, Our Age (1990), is entitled, "Was Our Age Responsible for England's Decline?"

Blair's legacy

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday October 3 2008
  • Hugh Muir
Sir Ian Blair and I had lunch two weeks before he took the helm at Scotland Yard. He was relaxed the commissioner designate and as we now know, he had been thinking long and hard about what he would do when finally he achieved his life's ambition.

Film about depression wins international awards

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 2 2008
  • Sara Gaines
A film about depression by a first-time director has won a clutch of awards at film festivals, and praise from the Samaritans charity. Mike Rymer made Sick, a 15-minute short, after discovering that one in four people in the UK experience mental illness during their lives.

Beyond experimentation

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 2 2008
  • Duncan Campbell
Whoever wins the American presidential election next month, there will be a dope smoker in the White House next year. Both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin have admitted that, in their youth, they smoked marijuana.

Report urges regulated market for cannabis to replace prohibition

  • The Guardian, Thursday October 2 2008
  • Duncan Campbell
A report on cannabis prepared for next year's UN drug policy review will suggest that a "regulated market" would cause less harm than the current international prohibition. The report, which is likely to reopen the debate about cannabis laws, suggests that controls such as taxation, minimum age requirements and labelling could be explored.

A case of rough and uneven justice

  • The Guardian, Thursday October 2 2008
A father jumps with his two children from a hotel balcony in Crete, killing one child. He is acquitted of murder. A mother drowns her daughter in the bath and is sentenced to life in prison, with a recommendation that she serve at least 15 years, despite a history of mental illness.

Sensational media infects even the most unlikely places

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 1 2008
  • Clare Allan
A friend of mine worked for several years as a journalist on Radio 4's Today programme. I remember her reporting back after her first few shifts. At the time, I was still at the day hospital, sitting day after day in my vinyl-covered chair, drinking tea and smoking.

IVF expert accused of dismissing sick patient

  • The Guardian, Wednesday October 1 2008
  • Sarah Boseley, health editor
One of the UK's most successful fertility doctors failed to investigate when a patient arrived at his Harley Street clinic in tears and complaining of vomiting, telling her husband she had a "mental block" about treatment, a disciplinary hearing heard yesterday.

Top Tory apologises for Prescott bulimia joke

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 1 2008
  • Press Association
A Tory frontbencher was forced to apologise today after expressing pride that he might have contributed to John Prescott's bulimia. The shadow local government secretary, Eric Pickles, admitted he had been "silly" to mock the former deputy prime minister's condition at a party fringe event last night.

Crisis exposes twin Tory weaknesses: bad experience in the past and inexperience today

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 1 2008
  • Bridget Fox
If a week is a long time in politics, then a day is a long time in finance. Business news used to be dry, but that's all changed. Reading the financial headlines now feels like an armchair rollercoaster - not so much green shoots as green faces.

NHS continues to fail mentally ill children

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 1 2008
  • David Batty and agencies
Mentally ill children in England are still being failed by the NHS, with many inappropriately placed on adult psychiatric wards, the children's commissioner said today.

Big increase in single rooms in hospitals pledged

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 30 2008
  • Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
Plans to almost double the number of single rooms in hospitals were unveiled by the Conservatives at their conference in Birmingham yesterday. Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said the Conservatives aimed to increase the number of single rooms in wards by 45,000 in the party's first term in government to nearly 100,000.

What the doctor ordered

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 30 2008
  • Jackie Ashley
Take a good bedside manner, a sugar-coated prescription, plenty of medical staff on hand, and what do you have? Yes, the New Cameron Nirvana, where there will be, apparently, no more superbugs, happy doctors and nurses, single rooms instead of crowded mixed wards and patient choice beyond belief.

Search for a slogan

  • The Guardian, Monday September 29 2008
  • Ravi Somaiya
How difficult is it to write an advertising slogan? Oxfam will be hoping not that difficult, given that the charity is about to launch a campaign allowing the public to put their own words on huge 6 metre by 3 metre digital billboards around London. Miscalculations will be difficult to hide

Giving birth made me psychotic

  • The Guardian, Monday September 29 2008
  • Rachel Brand
Dave and I met at university and married in 2000. We always planned to have children, and two years ago we found a little house in a moorland village near the sea, perfect for a family.

Week Ending 28th September

Nobody has a duty to die

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 28 2008
  • Sarah Wootton
Talking about decisions at the end of life is fraught with difficulties. Death and dying are taboo subjects, and most people avoid discussing them until necessity intervenes. This is a problem. At present around half a million people die in England each year.

Fears of the fallen high-fliers

  • The Observer, Sunday September 28 2008
  • David Freud
'We're going to fire them in groups of 10,' my boss and mentor at the investment bank told me. 'There are too many to do individually. We've had specialists in all day to train us how to handle it.' 'What on Earth do you need training for?

Tory report aims to restore military covenant

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 28 2008
  • Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
The Conservative party has been given a 10-point plan to restore the "military covenant" between the army and the rest of the British public. Delivering its final report to the Conservative conference in Birmingham today

Eyewitness to the evil that men do

  • The Observer, Sunday September 28 2008
  • Linda Grant
The liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 by the British provided the first newsreel and radio coverage of the concentration camps. The images of emaciated bodies and piles of corpses being bulldozed into mass graves have provided a frozen picture of horror and of hell.

The mental strife behind tragedy of a child's death

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 27 2008
  • Helen Pidd
Everyone in court agreed that Joanne Hill had suffered from serious mentalhealth problems for almost half her life, even the prosecution, who argued that she had known exactly what she was doing when she drowned four-year-old Naomi in the bath last year.

Film preview: Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival, Scotland

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 27 2008
  • Andrea Hubert
The relationship between mental health and artistic ability is a complicated one, and films that present illnesses like depression or OCD as an everyday part of the social experience have probably been more influential in opening up discussion than any other medium.

I was a prisoner in my own home

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 27 2008
  • Melissa Murphy
For six months, I didn't step foot outside my home. I'd sit and watch the world go by from my window. Looking at people outside, it seemed so simple. No one was scared, nobody looked anxious. So why was leaving the house so terrifying for me? It hadn't always been like this.

'Pledge broken' on child mental health patients

  • The Guardian, Friday September 26 2008
  • John Carvel, social affairs editor
The government has broken a promise to stop accommodating children on adult psychiatric wards, the Conservatives said yesterday after using the Freedom of Information Act to gain evidence from NHS trusts.

Break the silence

  • The Guardian, Thursday September 25 2008
  • Hanna Backman
Ask people what they associate with Finland, and they will say high rates of depresson, alcoholism and suicide, brought on by the long, gloomy winters. Although we Finns recognise some truth in this characterisation, we tend to laugh it off.

Anti-depressant drug may affect fertility, says study

  • The Guardian, Thursday September 25 2008
  • Ian Sample, science correspondent
Antidepressant drugs taken by tens of thousands of British men may damage sperm quality and harm fertility, researchers at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York have found. The doctors examined the effects of paroxetine (Seroxat) on men taking the drug over five weeks.

Children still treated on adult psychiatric wards, claim Conservatives

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 25 2008
  • Pauline Eiferman and agencies
An estimated 750 children across England are still being treated on adult wards for mental health problems, the Conservatives revealed today. The news comes two years after health minister Ivan Lewis condemned the practice, pledging it would be eliminated by November 2008.

Nice advice lacks nerve

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 25 2008
  • Sami Timimi
Nice has announced new guidelines on the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in children. In my view, though the new advice has taken some steps in the right direction, it suffers from a failure of nerve. Perhaps the guideline development group was unable to accept the challenge the evidence poses to currently accepted practice.

Ending it all

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • Kate Hilpern
'It sounds ridiculous, but he was a doting father," says John Mayhew of his former employee David Cass. This weekend, Cass smothered to death his children, three-year-old Ellie and one-year-old Isobel, before killing himself. Brian Philcox, who on Fathers' Day killed his two children aged seven and three and then himself, attracted similar comments.

A different type of doctor

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
What is the best way to equip doctors for the demands of the 21st-century NHS? Most medical training happens in acute hospitals, where doctors learn on the wards, in operating theatres and casualty departments. Yet hospitals are not where the most common modern clinical conditions - depression, chronic disease, back pain - are treated or prevented.

Doctors urged to stop use of Ritalin for under-fives

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • Sarah Boseley, health editor
Ritalin, the controversial drug used to calm down hyperactive children, should not be routinely prescribed by doctors and never given to the under-fives, experts say today. They also advise that it should be given to older children only if other help has not worked.

Arts activities aid people with mental health needs

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • Sarah Morrison
People with mental health needs receive significant benefits from taking part in arts activities, research has shown. The study, carried out by Anglia Ruskin University

Depressive makes leap of creative faith

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • James Morrison
It might have been scripted by Woody Allen. On a clear winter evening in 2007, Jude Redmond left his family a self-deprecating suicide note, bought two bottles of wine in a "buy-one-get-one-free" promotion, drank them watching the sun set from a 90-ft high clifftop near Brighton, then threw himself off.

Necessity is the mother of reinvention

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 24 2008
Under the clouds of recession, the social in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is in danger of being erased as companies pare down to the bare minimum. Many worthy causes will suffer, but should we blame businesses for putting profits first when facing substantial losses and redundancies?

Mother drowned disabled daughter in bath

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • Helen Carter
A mother who drowned her disabled daughter in a bath after drinking wine was convicted of murder yesterday and sentenced to life in prison. Joanne Hill, 32, from Connah's Quay, Flintshire, north Wales, admitted killing four-year-old Naomi by drowning her in November last year.

Help women to quit street prostitution

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
It would seem that Jacqui Smith has the right idea but the wrong policy to address street prostitution (Total ban for sex soliciting and kerb-crawling, September 22). Although research indicates that male kerb crawlers can be deterred, toughening up the laws on kerb crawling will probably make little difference.

Sticky situations

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 24 2008
  • David Ward
The first thing you have to ask a man who has based his novel on his experience as a debt adviser is obvious: "How good are you with money?" David Gaffney, whose book, Never, Never, is published tomorrow, looks a bit sheepish. "The irony is that when I was working in counselling, my own credit was not absolutely brilliant," he admits.

Prison by numbers

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 23 2008
  • Jon Collins
New prison population projections, published by the Ministry of Justice but quality-assured by the UK Statistics Authority, estimate that by June 2015 between 83,400 and 95,800 people will be in prison in England and Wales. If nothing else, these figures show just how imprecise a science predicting the prison population is.

Ministers treat nurses 'like airline cabin crew'

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday September 22 2008
  • Sara Gaines
The government is undermining nurses' efforts to care for their patients with compassion and treating them like "airline cabin crew", a university professor said today. Paul Wainwright, professor of nursing at Kingston University, said a recent exhortion to nurses to smile more showed a lack of respect.

Bolder and wiser

  • The Guardian, Monday September 22 2008
  • Jude Rogers
Will Young raises his eyebrows conspiratorially. He's talking about his new album and he knows he isn't supposed to say this sort of thing. "I was dreading doing it," he says. "I've had a few dark nights. I'm a bit worried about the title, too. You know, Let It Go. It sounds a bit like a self-help book. With me, Dr Young!"

Focus on the work, not the writer's life

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday September 22 2008
  • Shirley Dent
Suicide is indeed a savage god. As Al Alvarez writes, "Once a man decides to take his own life he enters a shut off, impregnable, but wholly convincing world." And in many ways that "wholly convincing world" remains necessarily shut off from the rest of us, impregnable and impenetrable. The loneliness of suicide is stark.

Boiling point

  • The Guardian, Monday September 22 2008
  • Lorraine Candy
Ask anyone to keep count of the number of times they get angry in one day and my guess is the figure would head towards double digits pretty quickly. If you're a woman with a stressful full-time job, three children under six, a diabetic Airedale terrier, a pregnant nanny, a partner who also works full-time and a staff of 35

Week Ending 21st September

The Browser

  • The Observer, Sunday September 21 2008
Campbell's mental soup The Browser is counting the days until he can pounce on Alastair Campbell's debut novel, All in the Mind, out in early November. Chronicling the struggles of a psychiatrist, it was described by Stephen Fry as 'brilliant. I have rarely read a book where the agonies and insecurities of mental trauma have been so well chronicled.'

Actually, it does just grow on trees...

  • The Observer, Sunday September 21 2008
  • Rachel Cooke
Funny things happen when you drop Richard Mabey's name. Some people, admittedly, will tell you how much they enjoyed his more recent books: Nature Cure, which describes his recovery from a serious bout of depression and landscape's role in the process; and Beechcombings, which traces the noble history of the beech tree in Europe.

Dignity and hope: too much to ask for?

  • The Observer, Sunday September 21 2008
  • Nick Fraser
Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, how well have the original objectives of this 'Magna Carta of all men everywhere' fared? In a world gripped by a 'war on terror' and with conflict erupting on almost every continent, what hope is there for extending respect, freedom and rights to everyone?

Army recruit found hanged at barracks

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 21 2008
  • Press Association
An army recruit was today found hanged at an army camp just a mile away from Deepcut barracks, police said. The 29-year-old man, who has not been named, died despite attempts by paramedics to resuscitate him just before 8am.

'Plain old untrendy troubles and emotions'

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 20 2008
  • David Foster Wallace
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

For good neighbours, live in a quiet, car-free street

  • The Guardian, Friday September 19 2008
  • John Vidal, environment editor
Mrs A lives in Dovercourt Road in north Bristol and considers five people on her street as friends. But Mrs B, who is roughly the same age and lives round the corner in a very similar house in Muller Street, has only one friend.

Mental health patient accused of stabbing woman 17 times

  • The Guardian, Friday September 19 2008
  • Rachel Williams
A man accused of stabbing a young woman about 17 times in a random attack at a seaside supermarket is a mental health patient, it emerged yesterday. Samuel Reid-Wentworth, 21, was remanded in custody after being charged with the attempted murder of Lucy Yates at the Somerfield store in Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Back from the grave

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday September 19 2008
  • Sue Blackmore
I was surprised to hear on the news that Sam Parnia has been awarded a big grant to find out whether the human spirit leaves the body at death whether consciousness can survive when the brain is no longer working.

Political briefing: New message, bad timing?

  • The Guardian, Thursday September 18 2008
  • Michael White
Lib Dem party conferences rarely make front pages unless they vote to legalise cannabis or abolish the Queen. So this week's bloodshed on Wall Street and Downing Street merely guaranteed their modest place on media news schedules.

Gascoigne arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 18 2008
  • Les Roopanarine
Paul Gascoigne has been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage. Police have declined to identify Gascoigne by name, but have confirmed that a 41-year-old man, understood to be the former England midfielder, was taken into custody this morning.

Pupils to get lessons in fighting depression

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 18 2008
  • Anthea Lipsett
Thousands of pupils at schools across the UK are to learn how to fend off depression through classes in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). More than 7,000 students will take part in a trial of a "positive thinking" programme led by the University of Bath and aimed at preventing teenagers developing problems with depression.

Mary Leigh

  • The Guardian, Thursday September 18 2008
  • Christina Leigh-Baker
In 1966 my father, Kenneth Leigh, died suddenly - an immense trauma for my mother, Mary Leigh, and our family.

EastEnders paedophile storyline draws 200 complaints

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 18 2008
  • Leigh Holmwood
More than 200 complaints have been made about an EastEnders storyline in which a paedophile grooms his 15-year-old stepdaughter.

Government in 'conspiracy of silence' over mental health, say Lib Dems

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Helene Mulholland and agencies
The Liberal Democrats today condemned the "conspiracy of silence" over poor mental health care in the NHS. The Lib Dem health spokesman, Norman Lamb, told delegates at the party conference in Bournemouth that the parlous conditions found on many psychiatric wards would never be tolerated in general hospital wards. Delegates backed a motion pledging to end mixed-sex wards

Medical emergencies facing rural Uganda

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Madeleine Bunting
Dr Emmanuel Ootala is the minister for primary healthcare and is a confident man, as he leans back in his sofa sofa government has reached Uganda in his smart, air-conditioned office in Kampala. "This government has prioritised human development, such as health and education, because it believes a healthy nation is a wealthy nation.

Mental scars are the real price of flood damage

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Andrew Cozens
If the role of a local authority is to give community leadership, then having to deal with emergency situations is a real test - and this must include elected members as well as council officials. Councils already have well-rehearsed plans to respond to civil emergencies.

Clampdown on websites promoting suicide

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Rachel Stevenson and agencies
The government is cracking down on so-called suicide websites by tightening the law to prohibit the promotion of suicide online. The move follows growing concern over the role of the internet in dozens of teenage deaths, the Ministry of Justice said today.

Penny Wade

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Penny Lee
Few people can have done so much to transform other people's lives as Penny Wade, who has died aged 78. As a founder member of the National Childbirth Trust, she promulgated the new thinking that altered women's experience of pregnancy and motherhood.

Academy gives Frank Bruno a new focus

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Sachin Nakrani
Iconic though he may be it was still remarkable to see Frank Bruno captivate a group of children in the manner he did yesterday. No older than 17, their memories of the former world heavyweight champion, who retired from boxing in 1996, would be flickering at best, but they all listened to him in awe;

'Conflict of interest' dogs scrutiny role

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Saba Salman
It is a case of joined-up working that is, some say, perhaps a little too joined up. Birmingham council has hired, controversially, a social enterprise that provides health services to the community, and was spawned by a primary care trust (PCT), to manage one of England's largest independent NHS scrutiny organisations.

Lib Dems vow to improve mental healthcare

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Staff and agencies
The Liberal Democrats today pledged to end mixed sex wards in mental health

 hospitals as they branded the state of much psychiatric inpatient care "intolerable". Their annual conference also called for a ban on youngsters being forced to receive treatment alongside adults.

Simon Thomas

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Bernard Ratigan
The consultant clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist Simon Thomas, who has died of cancer aged 45, worked in the NHS specialist psychotherapy department in Temple House, Derby, and as consultant clinical psychologist in HIV and sexual health at Derby Royal Infirmary.

Strengths of shared ownership

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Chloe Stothart
After years of living in institutions or in supported housing for people with learning disabilities, Alan Brown* decided he wanted his own place. Brown, who has a mild learning disability, tried to join a housing association waiting list but was a low priority, as he does not have children. He spoke to private landlords but could not find anything suitable.

Road to recovery

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 17 2008
  • Chloe Stothart
Tucked away up a side street in south-west London is a new development in social networking. At first glance, the people drawing, working on computers, and making sandwiches look like a typical community club; but the Saturday Club is a social group with a difference.

PCC raps Daily Sport for glamorising suicide

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 16 2008
  • Jemima Kiss
The Press Complaints Commission has censured the Daily Sport for a "gratuitous article that glamorised suicide" after the tabloid published a "Top yourself tourism" list. The Daily Sport published a list of the UK's "top 10 suicide hotspots" using information released by the British transport police

Week Ending 14th September

Smarting can make you smarter

  • guardian.co.uk, Saturday September 13 2008
  • Mark Vernon
September 11 has become at date on which it is natural to think about suffering. But can suffering be part of wellbeing? In real life, it is not just that people face suffering that would always ideally be ameliorated, overcome or banished though that is certainly the case in many situations.

Everything is connected

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 13 2008
  • Tim Parks
Global warming, global terrorism, food crises, water crises, oil conflicts, culture wars - "civilisation" seems to be accelerating towards self-destruction. These are circumstances in which art and artists tend to get political or, alternatively, resign themselves to insignificance.

How to ... be sensible

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 13 2008
  • Guy Browning
When asked to rate how sensible they are, sensible people usually mark themselves a seven or eight out of 10. Nine or 10 wouldn't be sensible. Sensibility is quite a fragile thing. You can't have a competition to see who is the most sensible.

Family matters: Trescothick revels in life beyond England

  • The Guardian, Friday September 12 2008
  • David Hopps
As Marcus Trescothick gazed upon his beloved Taunton, he did not resemble a man whose life is as good as over. He looked content, fulfilled and at the very least like he has negotiated a truce with the depressive illness that has ended his England career.

Doing what they always do

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday September 12 2008
  • Louis Appleby
I love the Today programme. Throughout my adult life it has provided my wakeup call  I mean that literally, not in the usual journalistic sense. I think of it as a guardian of public accountability, skewering interviewees who are evasive or self-important.

Marriages made in hell

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday September 12 2008
  • Nadeem Badshah
When you hear the term "forced marriage" you probably picture a British Asian girl sent on a visit to the sub-continent under false pretences, then married to a local man and threatened with violence if she refuses. While this harrowing scenario may represent the majority of cases, there are other victims whose voices have yet to be heard.

Gurkha veterans' toughest battle - for the right to live in Britain

  • The Guardian, Friday September 12 2008
  • Audrey Gillan in Nepal
Gyanendra Rai gazes at the smoke as it curls upwards from the funeral pyre and thins out over the rooftops of Pashuputi Nath, the world's most sacred Hindu temple. Rai thought of this place when artillery shrapnel chewed into the side of his back and right shoulder while he was fighting for the British army in the Falkland Islands

Family matters: Trescothick revels in life beyond England

  • The Guardian, Friday September 12 2008
  • David Hopps
As Marcus Trescothick gazed upon his beloved Taunton, he did not resemble a man whose life is as good as over. He looked content, fulfilled and at the very least like he has negotiated a truce with the depressive illness that has ended his England career.

Doing what they always do

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday September 12 2008
  • Louis Appleby
I love the Today programme. Throughout my adult life it has provided my wakeup call ? I mean that literally, not in the usual journalistic sense. I think of it as a guardian of public accountability, skewering interviewees who are evasive or self-important.

Marriages made in hell

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday September 12 2008
  • Nadeem Badshah
When you hear the term "forced marriage" you probably picture a British Asian girl sent on a visit to the sub-continent under false pretences, then married to a local man and threatened with violence if she refuses. While this harrowing scenario may represent the majority of cases, there are other victims whose voices have yet to be heard.

Portraits of a divided self

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 11 2008
There are 14 names alongside paintings at an exhibition opening this week at the Novas Gallery in central London, but the collection is in fact the work of one woman. The woman in question, Kim Noble, has dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

Children left home alone as mother visits Afghanistan

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 11 2008
  • David Batty and agencies
A woman has been arrested after her three children were found home alone in West Yorkshire while she was in Afghanistan. Simten Sezgun, of Leeds, was arrested at Heathrow airport on Tuesday evening and taken back to West Yorkshire for questioning.

Cognitive therapy  from the shop floor

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 11 2008
  • DH Cohen
Perhaps the mailbag at Psychologies magazine is bursting with letters extolling the virtues of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). The mailbag at my mentalhealth service isn't  it's filled with increasing numbers of complaints.

Local knowledge is priceless

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Ben Hughes
Experience over many years shows that small-scale community organisations can be immensely effective in the delivery of essential, practical services: services related to homelessness, counselling, legal and other forms of advice, neighbourhood security, mental health provision and a whole host of community support programmes.

Injuries from brutal abuse of baby missed, jury told

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Sam Jones
A 17-month-old boy who had been subjected to months of abuse was seen two days before his death by a consultant paediatrician who failed to spot that he had a broken back and eight fractured ribs, a court heard yesterday.

Total success

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Arj Singh
Angela Harrison has a long history of serious mental health issues, and she had particular difficulties after one of her four children was born. She described her daughter as being "extremely disruptive", from as early as eight months old. But when she sought treatment for her mental health problems, Harrison says she was rarely seen as a mother.

'Ladies here work for an absolute pittance'

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Phoebe Greenwood
Deep in the basement of a community centre in Greenwich, south London, two of three part-time staff at Mosac are hard at work. Their three-day working week is spent running the only organisation in the UK supporting the parents and carers of abused children.

Playing a dangerous game with data

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • David Cronin
Thanks to a collapsed ceiling in its Strasbourg chamber, the European parliament will have to stay in Brussels for its plenary session later this month. Yet it would be fanciful to imagine that the respite offered to MEPs from their exhausting high-carbon commute will make them more clear-headed than normal when crafting legislation.

Jeremy Kyle Show 'undermines anti-poverty efforts', says thinktank

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Andrew Sparrow, senior political correspondent
Television programmes such as the Jeremy Kyle Show undermine support for government anti-poverty programmes by presenting the less well-off as "undeserving" objects of derision, a thinktank said today.

Revealed: the truth about brothels

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Julie Bindel
When Frank rang a brothel in Enfield, he could hear a baby crying in the background. When Alan called one in Southwark, he could make out the sound of a child asking for his tea.

Small is beautiful

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Caspar van Vark
When Croydon primary care trust put out a competitive tender for a black and minority ethnic (BME) mental health project, it seemed almost inevitable that the work would be won by a large national organisation.

Why the drugs never meant for dementia don't work

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Christopher Manthorp
In the days when I trained as a psychiatric nurse, many of us regarded helping ourselves to some of the more interesting contents of the medicine cabinet as a right. This may have changed nowadays - but I doubt it. It's a job with few perks.

Whatever works

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Maureen Rice
Darian Leader, writing in yesterday's Guardian, is scathing about the growth in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which is, he says, "cheap, shows results on paper and chimes with a common sense, problem-solving view of the world"  like that's a bad thing.

A drink to your health? Maybe not

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Cathy Pryor
"I have discovered," Oscar Wilde announced towards the end of his life, "that alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effects of drunkenness." This line is less funny when you remember that Wilde's fondness for absinthe may have contributed to his early death.

Can anyone as famous as OJ Simpson, surely known to every member of the jury, ever get a fair trial?

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Marcel Berlins
In 1971, Bobby Seale, co-founder of the radical Black Panther movement, was charged with ordering the murder of a former colleague who was considered to have betrayed the Panthers. At his trial, 1,035 potential jurors were rejected by either the prosecution or the defence before the final 12 (the majority white) were selected.

Call for happiness lessons as teenage depression increases

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 10 2008
  • Carlene Thomas-Bailey
The number of teenagers showing signs of depression has risen dramatically over the last 50 years, a mental health expert has revealed. The average age for the first signs of depression is now 14 and 1/2, whereas it was almost 30 half a century ago.

Man who raped schoolgirl after fleeing hospital sent to Broadmoor

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 9 2008
  • Peter Walker
A mentally ill man who raped a schoolgirl after escaping from a low-security psychiatric hospital had previously been allowed to amass a collection of pornographic and horror DVDs, a court heard yesterday.

A quick fix for the soul

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 9 2008
  • Darian Leader
A woman convinced that she emits an unpleasant smell is persuaded to travel around on public transport with a portion of fish and chips to monitor how people react to her. This will allow her to assess the "evidence"

Just how troubled is Britney?

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 9 2008
  • Caroline Sullivan
Britney Spears managed to get to the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday, collect all three awards for which she was nominated (for her album Blackout) including video of the year - and not ruin the occasion, as she did last year by reeling through a song in an apparent daze.

UK computer games industry calls for PEGI ratings system

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday September 8 2008
  • Jemima Kiss
The computer games industry has again called for the UK government to choose PEGI, the voluntary Pan-European Games Information ratings, instead of a proposed hybrid system, as it seeks to implement the findings of this year's Byron report on the safety of children online.

Strike threat by prison officers after data is lost

  • The Guardian, Monday September 8 2008
  • Damien Francis
Prison officers yesterday threatened strike action after it emerged that a computer disc containing the personal details of 5,000 justice staff had been lost by a government contractor. Staff fear their personal security has been put at risk, and unions warned that some employees may have to be relocated.

Week Ending 7th September

Can Nacro still reform from the inside?

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday September 7 2008
  • Richard Garside
The news earlier this week that penal reform charity Nacro is teaming up with private security company Group 4 Securicor (G4S) in a bid to build and run two new 600-bed prisons, has taken many in the criminal justice reform lobby by surprise.

When reality bites, it leaves deep scars

  • The Observer, Sunday September 7 2008
  • Carole Cadwalladr
Feckless fathers, wife-beaters, the clinically depressed, junkies... come on down, it's the Jeremy Kyle Show. ITV1's daytime show is an explosive spectacle of anger, vitriol and confrontation. Its makers say it's cathartic - its critics liken it to 'bear-baiting'.

Pupils suffer 'school phobia' as term starts

  • The Observer, Sunday September 7 2008
  • Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter
For tens of thousands of English and Welsh schoolchildren the start of the new school term this month will be so traumatic that it will make them ill. Doctors and psychologists are seeing a 'significant' increase in the numbers of children suffering from a condition dubbed 'school phobia'

The government should not look to Jeremy Kyle for answers

  • The Observer, Sunday September 7 2008
  • Editorial
What is wrong with The Jeremy Kyle Show? Unhappy families are paraded before a studio audience and derided for reprobate behaviour by a pugnacious presenter. If the only criteria for evaluating broadcasts is whether or not they entertain people, there is nothing to be said against ITV1's
popular daytime show.

Shannon's mother charged with kidnap

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 6 2008
  • Martin Wainwright
The mother of Shannon Matthews, the schoolgirl whose disappearance for 24 days led to a nationwide hunt in February, was charged yesterday with kidnapping and falsely imprisoning her daughter.

Boy, eight, freed from detention centre after legal challenge

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 6 2008
  • Helen Pidd
An eight-year-old Iranian boy locked up at Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre since July 15 has been released after solicitors began High Court proceedings against the Home Office, challenging the legality of his detention.

A mistake that can ruin your life

  • The Guardian, Saturday September 6 2008
  • Miles Brignall
For more than 40 years, John Peters led a financially blameless life with a perfect credit history. But today he, his wife and their two young children face the prospect of being evicted from their home because O2 wrongly told credit reference agencies he hadn't paid his mobile phone bill.

In it to win it

  • The Guardian, Friday September 5 2008
  • Emine Saner
Lucy Shuker, 28, tennis player In just five years, Lucy Shuker has become the British number one women's wheelchair tennis player. "Of all the girls going to the Olympics, probably none of them has the level of disability that I have. They have a lot more of their body that works.

Allow councils to run local jails, says Cherie Booth commission

  • The Guardian, Friday September 5 2008
  • Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The "hysterical rhetoric" of national politicians trying to satisfy the "public clamour for prison-based punitiveness" is criticised today by an inquiry chaired by Cherie Booth QC. The interim report from the Commission on English Prisons Today says local prisons should be handed over to be run by local authorities

Call to listen to mentally ill youth

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday September 4 2008
  • Sarah Morrison
Mental health professionals who do not involve young people in their treatment are to be "shamed" in a new charity campaign. According to children's mentalhealth charity YoungMinds, 97% of mental health professionals, parents and young people believe children should have a say in their treatment.

Beer pong and its discontents

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Alexander Belenky
This year, Dartmouth College celebrated the 30th anniversary of National Lampoon's Animal House, the classic tale of bacchanalia based on the school's Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. While college still retains the aura of youthful indulgence and excess, toga parties have gone out of style, and student alcohol abuse is a problem that schools are taking ever more seriously.

Storm protection

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Alison Benjamin
To many, Ryan Robson may be an unlikely champion of social care. He is a private equity boss, founder and managing director of Sovereign Capital, which buys and sells companies that deliver public services. So how did he come to head a Conservative-backed working group on looked-after children?

A mindless oversight

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Mary O'Hara
As the UK cements its place at the top of the European league table for incarceration rates, the government's arguments in favour of building "Titan" prisons to (among other things) relieve the strain on existing overcrowded jails must be thoroughly scrutinised.

Mad pride and prejudices

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Catherine Jackson
Andrew Roberts well remembers the morning, back in March 1973, when Radio 4's Today programme broadcast an interview with him about the formation of a union for mental patients. "It took them three hours to decide if it was safe to let a mental patient into Broadcasting House," he says

Pathway or punishment?

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Annie Kelly
Two years ago Abigail Delaney was a civil servant with the Home Office, living in her own house with her young daughter and saving every month. She had always liked a drink, but when her relationship with her partner broke down, so did her control over alcohol.

The hidden offenders

  • The Guardian, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Philippa Ibbotson
A couple of weeks ago, Gary Glitter (real name Paul Francis Gadd) was deported from Vietnam after serving a two-and-half year prison sentence for sexually abusing young girls. He had fled Britain nine years earlier, after a two-month sentence for the possession of more than 4,000 images of child pornography.

Inquiry to call for big fostering recruitment drive

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Alison Benjamin
An inquiry into looked-after children, chaired by the owner of a leading fostering agency, will call next week for an increase in the number of foster carers. The Conservative-backed working group led by Ryan Robson, head of private equity firm Sovereign Capital, which owns the National Fostering Agency

A crusade for dignity

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday September 3 2008
  • Andrew Roberts
The idea of a Mental Patients Union was first developed by a small group of mental patients and supporters back in December 1972. A pamphlet was produced  which came to be known as the Fish Pamphlet (it had a picture of a fish struggling on a hook on the cover)  that was strongly Marxist in its analysis. Its argument was that psychiatry was a form of social control

When schools are in the front line

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 2 2008
  • Carol Davis
When schoolchildren are suffering from bereavement or family problems, who can they turn to in school? And if they approach their teacher or school nurse, how helpful is the response? A project being launched this month will aim to help children suffering from problems that could affect their mental health.

Health: Depression in schoolchildren linked to low birth weights

  • The Guardian, Tuesday September 2 2008
  • Ian Sample, science correspondent
Children are more likely to experience psychiatric difficulties during their school years if they are underweight at birth, scientists have found.

Immigration: High court to rule on incarceration of boy, eight, in detention centre

  • The Guardian, Monday September 1 2008
  • Helen Pidd
Lawyers acting on behalf of an eight-year-old boy detained in an immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire are to challenge the legality of his incarceration this week in the high court. The Iranian boy, known for legal reasons as Child M, has been locked up in Yarl's Wood, the UK's main immigration removal centre for women and families, since July 15.

A duty of care  to prisoners or victims?

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday September 1 2008
  • David Wilson
Moving prisoners to open conditions and then granting them home leave in the community is always fraught with challenges and difficulties, especially when prisons are overcrowded


Week Ending 31st August

Prepare for the worst as recession threat grows

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
Families coming under increasing strain due to rising food and petrol costs and soaring mortgage repayments may fear that a full-scale recession could leave them in dire financial straits. Predictions of further economic woes abound.

Escape from self-help hell

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Stephanie Merritt
Ever since humankind learnt to read and write, we have nursed a hunger for books that tell us how to live. The original advice and self-improvement books, the sacred texts of the major religions, may not have claimed to offer instant happiness, nor to make us richer, thinner and younger-looking, but they did at least furnish us with a set of rules for a good life.

We have a duty to care for soldiers after conflict

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Editorial
Although most youngsters join the army to fight under the British flag, many are also presumably seduced by claims that a military career will equip them with skills for later civilian life. In fact, experience in the army is condemning thousands of young men to trauma, emotional problems, substance abuse and prison.

Landlords in limbo as councils tell tenants to ignore notices to quit

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
Local authorities are infuriating private landlords by advising tenants served with notice to quit to cling on until they are forcibly ejected by bailiffs or taken to court. In what is known as 'gatekeeping'

Record numbers of ex-soldiers in UK jails as combat trauma blamed

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Jamie Doward
The number of soldiers who end up in prison for violent offences has increased dramatically in the past four years, according to a report that has raised concerns about the mental health of military personnel returning from war zones.

Squaddie who killed twice after Ulster nightmare

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Aly Renwick
Jimmy Johnson, who served with the Royal Tank Regiment, was so affected by his experiences in Northern Ireland that he went on to commit murder. Jimmy Johnson served two tours of duty with the Royal Tank Regiment in Northern Ireland in the early Seventies.

Depressed, stressed: teachers in crisis

  • The Observer, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Amelia Hill
Increased pay, reduced workloads and long holidays - our schools are excellent places to work, insists the government. So why, amid reports of depression, breakdown and suicide, is teaching now rated one of the most stressful occupations in the country?

Margaret Thatcher, dementia and society

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday August 31 2008
  • Jeremy Kuper
Carol Thatcher's recent revelation that her mother has been suffering from dementia for at least eight years comes as no surprise. Many people were already aware of Baroness Thatcher's failing mental capacity, and that she had had a series of minor strokes, which are often associated with the disease.

Study finds bullies are the bullied too

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 29 2008
  • Dan Bloom
The stereotypical image of a school bully as tough and self-confident needs revising, according to research that found the vast majority of bullies are victims themselves. A study conducted by researchers at the Institute of Education in London found that less than 1% of primary school children are "true bullies"

Launch of controversial child database delayed

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 28 2008
  • Anil Dawar
The launch of a controversial new government database containing details of every child in the country is to be delayed for technical reasons, it was revealed today. ContactPoint, a £224m computer system carrying personal information about all under-18s, was due to come online in April this year.


Titan prisons are not the solution

 

·         The Guardian, Thursday August 28 2008

The government's proposals to build three Titan prisons (Supersize prisons will not solve jail crisis, watchdog warns Straw, August 27) would cement this country's position as the prison capital of western Europe, while squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

 

Cannabis: police seizures show drop in drug's strength

 

·         guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 28 2008

·         Paul Owen

The potency of cannabis gathered in police seizures has dropped, new official data reveals, casting doubt on one of the government's key arguments for reclassifying the drug from class C to class B.

 

Pam Hughes

 

·         The Guardian, Wednesday August 27 2008

·         Ralph Taylor

The Sussex coast and landscape were inspirational for my wife, Pam Hughes, who has died aged 66, and out of her love for them she was able to write poetry of quite startling insight and originality. Pam had also been a social worker specialising in mental health

 

Couple arrested in Jersey child abuse inquiry will not face charges

 

·         guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 27 2008

·         Rachel Stevenson and agencies

A couple arrested by Jersey police as part of an inquiry into decades of alleged child abuse on the island will not face charges because of a lack of evidence, Jersey's attorney general has said. The 70-year-old man and 69-year-old woman were questioned in June over claims that they attacked foster children in their care in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Call to strengthen ombudsman powers

 

·         The Guardian, Wednesday August 27 2008

·         David Brindle

A stand-off between the local government ombudsman and Trafford council in Manchester is exposing the limits of the ombudsman's powers and prompting calls for rulings to be made enforceable.

 

Grand Challenge: Children on the front line of weapons development

 

·         guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 27 2008

·         Noel Sharkey

Can we justify child participation in the UK military machine? The involvement of children as young as 12 in the development of technology for the Ministry of Defence's recent Grand Challenge could be seen as taking us down a slippery slope leading to an ethically dangerous exploitation of children for warfare.

 

Lost in the tunnels of bureaucracy

 

·         guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 26 2008

·         Anita Pati

I first saw Chandra* last week lying on a bench outside the church, squinting into the morning sun. He didn't look accustomed to sleeping rough. His towel and clothes were folded neatly inside his carrier bag home and he'd kept himself clean. He smiled easily, laughed readily. With limited English, he told me he was "OK".

Week Ending 24th August

It's easy to demonise paedophiles. But it's not the answer

  • The Observer, Sunday August 24 2008
  • Stan Ruszczynski
Is Gary Glitter to be considered a monster? Is he deluded? Or is he damaged? If he is a monster, immune to the feelings of his victims, he is dangerous and in need of strict management. If he is deluded, he is in need of psychological treatment.

Poverty is UK's hidden child killer

  • The Observer, Sunday August 24 2008
  • Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
An 'epidemic of poverty' in Britain is having a dramatic impact on the survival rates and health chances of children from poor families, an influential coalition will warn this week in a major report that casts doubt on government efforts to close the inequality gap.

Because they're worth it

  • The Observer, Sunday August 24 2008
  • Stephanie Merritt
In a brightly painted room in Camberwell, south London, two 11-year-old girls are lying with their eyes closed, receiving a head massage. The expressions on their faces suggest they are about to drift happily off to sleep as Penny, the masseuse, continues her slow, rhythmic strokes.

Babies are new target, Met warns as paedophile threat spirals

  • The Observer, Sunday August 24 2008
  • Mark Townsend, crime correspondent
Paedophiles are increasingly targeting babies and children too young to speak in an orchestrated strategy to avoid being caught, police have revealed. The disturbing revelation came as Scotland Yard warned that the threat facing society from child abuse is far graver than previously assumed, with 'huge' numbers of paedophiles scouring the internet for potential victims.

Brought to mind

  • The Guardian, Saturday August 23 2008
  • Patrick McGrath
Bedlam is a social history of madness in England that loosely follows the 750-plus years of the Bethlem hospital. It depicts the dramatic shifts and reversals in the treatment of mentally ill people from the middle ages to the present, and also charts changing popular attitudes toward this often demonised and much abused minority of the population.

Hunt is on for Glitter as disgraced former rocker gives scrum of pursuers the slip

  • The Guardian, Saturday August 23 2008
  • Sam Jones and Damien Francis
There was one conspicuous absence from the tanned and tired procession of voyagers who filed through the arrivals hall of Heathrow's Terminal 3 yesterday morning. Between the crowds of sombrero-wearing, surfboard-wielding travellers, Paul Francis Gadd, better known as Gary Glitter, was nowhere to be seen.

Safe passage through a digital world

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • Julie Nightingale
Parents face a dilemma when it comes to their children's use of the internet. On the one hand, there are the perceived dangers, whether that means risk of contact with predatory adults operating online, "cyber bullying", inadvertent exposure to violent or sexual content or targeting by advertisers.

Ministers aim to block high court appeals by failed asylum seekers

  • The Guardian, Friday August 22 2008
  • Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Ministers have moved to stop failed asylum seekers appealing to the high court against deportation. A Home Office consultation paper published yesterday proposes "streamlining" the asylum appeals process by blocking access to high court judicial reviews for some failed asylum seekers.

Gary Glitter arrives back in Britain

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • James Orr, Sam Jones and agencies
The convicted paedophile Gary Glitter touched down in Britain this morning, having spent three days in international limbo after being barred from entering Thailand and Hong Kong while trying to avoid returning to the UK.

Child safety plea

  • The Guardian, Friday August 22 2008
Further to your report on Gary Glitter's release from jail in Vietnam (Glitter evades deportation by refusing to board flight - UK police escort admits he has no legal jurisdiction, August 20), we welcome the Home Office's announcement of new measures to monitor British sex offenders who commit crimes abroad.

Are children safer?

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • Jeremy Sare
We have probably all had our fill of witnessing the excruciating spectacle of Paul Gadd/Gary Glitter playing musical planes to avoid returning to London for a life of running from tabloid newshounds.

Personal data on thousands of prisoners is lost

  • The Guardian, Friday August 22 2008
  • Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
A memory stick containing sensitive personal data of thousands of persistent offenders has gone missing, the government admitted yesterday, in the latest of a series of data security blunders.

Former head of Jersey inquiry attacks island's legal system

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • James Orr and agencies
The former head of the Jersey child abuse investigation today launched a scathing attack on the island's legal system, claiming victims held authorities "in contempt". Lenny Harper retired from his role as deputy chief officer of Jersey police this month after leading one of Britain's biggest child abuse inquiries for two years.

Tropic Thunder sets back a movement

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • David Tolleson
"My new haircut makes me look like such a retard," wailed the teenage girl at our local shopping mall. I didn't know her, or her gaggle of friends who tried to assure her that, in fact, she didn't look like a "retard". But her statement - and their responses - took me aback.

Yarl's Wood child detainees suffering emotional damage, report says

  • guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008
  • Anil Dawar
Children who spend a long time at the Yarl's Wood detention centre are being emotionally damaged, an official report published today has concluded. The report, by the prisons inspector, Anne Owers, raised "serious concerns" about the lack of specialist healthcare for youngsters at the detention centre for immigrants.

I can't cope with my child's diagnosis

  • The Guardian, Thursday August 21 2008
About four months ago, our three-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare degenerative condition. This was a complete shock - our only concern at that point was a little delay in her language development - but a particularly astute paediatrician tested for the disease.

Stop the presses! Roseanne Barr talks sense (for a moment)

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 21 2008
  • Hadley Freeman
This blog has never held back from hating on Angelina bloody Jolie. Really, though, it's a hatred borne out of grief. Angelina, what happened to the brother snogging, blood drinking, owner of a Velcro room enabling her to shag Billy Bob Thornton on the ceiling gal that we once knew and loved?

The rise of Miliband brings at last the prospect of an atheist prime minister

  • The Guardian, Thursday August 21 2008
  • AC Grayling
When Labour cabinet members were asked about their religious allegiances last December, following Tony Blair's official conversion to Roman Catholicism, it turned out that more than half of them are not believers. The least equivocal about their atheism were the health secretary, Alan Johnson, and foreign secretary David Miliband.

Afghans speak out against sexual violence

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 20 2008
  • Nushin Arbabzadah
Please note, this article contains links to video footage which some readers may find distressing. "The moment I saw the blood-stained sandal, I knew that my child was dead," said Abdul Khalid. Khalid, from Takhar province in northern Afghanistan, was talking about the day he discovered his eight-year-old daughter's body. The girl had been kidnapped, raped and then killed.

Gary Glitter refused entry to Hong Kong after Bangkok standoff

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 20 2008
  • Sadie Gray, Jenny Percival and agencies
The convicted paedophile Gary Glitter was refused entry to Hong Kong tonight after flying there from Thailand, the Foreign Office confirmed. Glitter had flown to the Chinese territory after refusing to board a flight to London following his deportation from Vietnam.

Paedophile who had 241,000 child porn images is jailed indefinitely

  • The Guardian, Tuesday August 19 2008
  • Lee Glendinning and Alex Berry
A paedophile who acted as a "librarian" for a global internet child abuse ring was handed an indefinite jail term yesterday after one of the biggest undercover police investigations into online child abuse.

Why teenagers get right up your nose

  • The Guardian, Tuesday August 19 2008
  • Marc Abrahams
As the 21st century arrived, two distinguished psychiatrists offered mankind proof, written proof - in a study called A Preliminary Survey of Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample - that most teenagers pick their noses.

The reality of abortion

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 19 2008
  • Melissa McEwan
In what comes as a surprise to approximately no one with basic critical thinking skills, the American Psychological Association task force on mental health and abortion has found that "there is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women".

Tropic Thunder and the R-word

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 19 2008
  • Peter Berns
Countless thousands of disability rights advocates across the United States have marshalled in force in recent days to protest the new, $90m DreamWorks production Tropic Thunder.

Psychedelic drugs could heal thousands

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 19 2008
  • Andrew Feldmár
There is a horrible sense of meaninglessness and chaos that comes from the extreme loneliness of being cut off. Trauma, whether sustained in the family, or in the military during combat, renders millions feeling unsafe, insecure, mistrustful, and in the end isolated, lonely and desperate.

Britain accused of turning a blind eye to child sex tourism

  • The Guardian, Monday August 18 2008
  • Paul Lewis
British paedophiles are gaining access to children abroad because foreign orphanages and schools cannot conduct UK criminal record checks, a report warned yesterday. The study said the government had "turned a blind eye" to child sex offenders who travel or work abroad

Week Ending 17th August

Moors murderer Ian Brady bemoans detention treatment

  • guardian.co.uk, Sunday August 17 2008
  • Jenny Percival and agencies
The Moors murderer Ian Brady has complained about low wages and poor treatment at the top-security hospital where he is held, in a wide-ranging letter in which he also claims that people do not feel safe walking the streets.

Welcome to the era of anxiety

  • The Observer, Sunday August 17 2008
  • Harriet Green
Not so very long ago, a woman was lying in bed with her husband and talking. Somehow she didn't notice that he was transcribing her monologue; he recognised the tragicomic potential of her stream of anxious thoughts.

Nobody cared when they were alive or mourned when they died alone

  • The Observer, Sunday August 17 2008
  • Elizabeth Day
Sandra Drummond left few possessions when she died. Police found in her bedroom a pot of Vaseline, a hot water bottle, a stuffed koala, a roll of Sellotape and a child's snow globe. It wasn't much to show for 44 years. But these scattered items were the only clues to her identity.

Vietnam to deport Glitter after jail term for child abuse

  • The Guardian, Friday August 15 2008
  • Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent
The seventies rock star and convicted child abuser Gary Glitter is to be deported to Britain next week as soon as he is released from jail in Vietnam after serving almost three years.

NHS: Drug linked admissions to mental hospitals double in 10 years

  • The Guardian, Friday August 15 2008
  • John Carvel, social affairs editor
The number of people admitted to hospital in England with mental illnesses linked to use of illegal drugs has doubled over the past decade, official figures revealed yesterday.

Gary Glitter to be deported back to UK next week

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 14 2008
  • Mark Tran and agencies
Gary Glitter, the former glam rock star and convicted child molester, will be deported back to Britain after his release from a Vietnamese prison next week, his lawyer said today.

'My body is wrong'

  • The Guardian, Thursday August 14 2008
  • Viv Groskop
'She was our first child," recalls Sarah (not her real name), a mother of two who lives in the south of England. "But from age three we knew something was wrong. She was very introverted, isolated. When she started school at four she came home and said she was a freak. It seemed a strange word for a four-year-old to use. She was always quite a sad little person.

'Is drinking too much really that big a deal?'

  • The Guardian, Thursday August 14 2008
When I'm feeling ill, I tell my mum and she looks after me or calls the doctor. Who should I tell at university if I'm not well? There may be specific GP practices where you can register, or even a practice on the campus. If you are ill, make an appointment with the GP or ring your practice to ask for advice.

Illegal drugs: NHS reports rapid rise in young users being hospitalised

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 14 2008
  • Staff and agencies
The number of under-25s admitted to hospital with mental and behavioural problems linked to illegal drug use has risen by 18% in a decade, figures showed today. In the decade from 1996, drugs-linked hospital admissions among children under 16 rose 48% from 272 to 402 and there was a 17% jump among those aged 16 to 24 from 5,964 to 6,983, according to the NHS information

Parents to be charged with murder of seven-year-old girl

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 13 2008
  • Jenny Percival
The mother and stepfather of a seven-year-old girl who allegedly starved to death are to be charged with her murder, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today.

Family affairs

  • The Guardian, Wednesday August 13 2008
  • Chris Arnot
The almost permanent smile on Gaynor Arnold's face fades for a moment and a look of bemusement takes over, like a small cloud temporarily obscuring the sun. "Why are people surprised that I'm a social worker who writes novels?"

An Olympian obsession

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 13 2008
  • Bidisha
It makes for compelling solo viewing: the grunting exertion, the obsession with endurance and technique, the skimpy clothes, the pumping limbs, the grimacing. No, I don't meant the joys of late-night adult channels, I mean the Beijing Olympics.

The joy of simply faffing around

  • The Guardian, Wednesday August 13 2008
  • Tom Hodgkinson
A new report says that we waste three hours a day faffing around, doing nothing in particular, pootling, dawdling, pottering, hanging about. The survey was carried out by the Learning and Skills Council, who, not surprisingly, argued we should instead use those three hours to Learn some Skills. I beg to differ.

Guantánamo war court back in session to hear case of Canadian Omar Khadr

  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday August 13 2008
  • McClatchy newspapers
With one conviction by military jury on the books, the war court gavels back into session today with pre-trial hearings in the case of the next war-on-terror captive up for trial - Canadian Omar Khadr. Khadr, 21, is accused of the grenade killing of a US special forces soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002. He was 15.

Barbara Young: 'Talking softly and carrying a big stick'

  • guardian.co.uk, Tuesday August 12 2008
  • John Carvel, social affairs editor
Next April sees the demise of the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the Mental Health Act Commission (MHAC)  three inspectorates that have earned respect from patients and service users for their robust independence from government.

Clinical trials test potential of hallucinogenic drugs to help patients with terminal illnesses

  • The Guardian, Tuesday August 12 2008
  • James Randerson
Scientists are exploring the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to treat a range of ailments from depression to cluster headaches and obsessive compulsive disorder. The first clinical trial using LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland in June.

New ways of doing

  • The Guardian, Monday August 11 2008
  • Yvonne Roberts
Lord Darzi, following his review of the NHS, is so enamoured of its powers that he's set aside a £50m annual budget to encourage its spread. Governments in Singapore, Denmark and China have also invested generously. Social innovation seems to be the new Klondike.

The cruellest wait

  • guardian.co.uk, Monday August 11 2008
  • Juliet Lyon
The Conservatives are planning to "get tough with the bail system". But shadow justice minister Nick Herbert's view that bail is too easily granted is contradicted by the shocking fact that each year in England and Wales many thousands of innocent people are remanded in prison. Thousands more are held for offences too minor for a jail term.

Living with OCD

  • The Guardian, Monday August 11 2008
  • Huw Davies
People often talk about how hard it is to write. The words don't come, they say. Their mind goes blank. It's frustrating. People talk less often about how hard it is to literally write something.

Week Ending 10th August

Pop review: Brian Wilson, That Lucky Old Sun

  • The Observer, Sunday August 10 2008
  • Neil Spencer
(EMI) Wilson's recovery from mental adversity to creative health is cause for celebration, but that doesn't make Lucky Old Sun a work commensurate with Smile.

Doctor, doctor

  • The Guardian, Saturday August 9 2008
  • Dr Tom Smith
I am a 17-year-old student on a gap year and was wondering what are the risks, if any, of occasional use of MDMA? MDMA, or ecstasy, is methylenedioxymethamphetamine. It was used by the German army in the first world war in an attempt to calm soldiers' fears before they went into battle.

Are you happy?

  • The Guardian, Saturday August 9 2008
  • Craig Taylor
I left the police force in 1996, feeling disillusioned with the system. It was like constantly putting the lid on a dustbin, then having someone kick it over. Nothing made me feel worthwhile. Now I search for pets. I come across a lot of Sockses, Felixes, even a Mr Fluffy.

Face to faith

  • The Guardian, Saturday August 9 2008
  • Dr Bernard Ratigan
The Lambeth conference has come and gone. Some bishops never even came and some who came were very angry that "the gay issue" had monopolised the media coverage. Some bishops wanted to distance their churches from being labelled soft on homosexuality, as they feared it would make their situations back home (even) more difficult.

Now she has her pit bull cloned. But once she manacled a Mormon for sex

  • The Guardian, Friday August 8 2008
  • Ian Cobain
Utter the name Joyce McKinney to Britons of a certain age, and you are inevitably rewarded with the briefest flash of incomprehension, followed by a gasp as their memories take them tumbling back to the dark days of early autumn, 1977.

Stigmatised by my own family

  • The Guardian, Thursday August 7 2008
I experienced a nervous breakdown 20 years ago. Despite recovering from that, then going on to achieve academically and build a good marriage, my family remain wary of me. My sister is bringing up her child to refer to me as "crazy". She even considers it funny to do so.

Nice has got this prescription wrong

  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday August 7 2008
  • Peter Johnson
Britain spends the highest amount per capita on cancer research of any country in Europe. We have the largest number of cancer patients taking part in clinical trials of anywhere in the world. But when it comes to applying the results of our research to routine treatment by giving cancer patients access to new drugs, Britain is lagging behind.

Stigma goes far more than skin deep

  • The Guardian, Wednesday August 6 2008
  • Clare Allan
In a survey of more than 3,000 mental health service users, conducted recently by the charity Rethink, 87% reported the negative impact of stigma on their lives.

Director quit ahead of critical report </