Other blogs

With the number of visitors coming to this blog, I thought it would be something of a public service to point visitors to some other blogs.

Phil Hickey, based in the USA, runs ‘Behaviorism and Mental Health’, which offers a critical, psychosocial, perspective on mental health. I believe Phil’s views to be very similar to my own – but he certainly puts me to shame with the regularity and comprehensiveness of his posts.

Phil is a retired clinical psychologist, with a breadth of experience in the UK as well as the US.

You might also like ‘Discursive of Tunbridge Wells’ which is again from a perspective very similar to my own. What makes ‘Discursive’ attractive is the very lively and rich interaction between visitors to the site – making it as much a discussion forum as a blog.

‘Discursive’ is hosted by the Salomons Centre for Applied Psychology in Tunbridge Wells, England., which runs training courses in clinical psychology (as well as other things).

‘Mad in America’ was started by the journalist and writer Robert Whitaker (author of the book ‘Mad in America’). It has a very wide and experienced set of bloggers. As the site itself says (accurately in my opinion): “The bloggers on this site include people with lived experience, peer specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, program managers, social activists, attorneys, and journalists. While their opinions naturally vary, they share a belief that our current system of psychiatric care needs to be vastly improved, and, many would argue, transformed.”

There are many blogs on mental health issues. I’m not sure whether the correct etiquette in these circumstances is to  promote your own site, to offer links to sites of which you approve (and which are more or less the same as your own) or to introduce people to a representative breadth of contrasting opinion. I don’t think it’s necessary to offer strict balance – a site you disagree with for every site you like. But I do think alternative perspectives – positive, helpful, wise, humane, intelligent, perspectives – are worthwhile.

So I’d advise looking at Michael Brown’s ‘Mental Health Cop’. Michael is an Inspector in the West Midlands Police, currently seconded to the  National College of Policing to lead on mental health issues.