Rab talks to The Lancet Psychiatry

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Rab Houston tallks about his recent interview with The Lancet Psychiatry


The Lancet PsychiatryEarly in the afternoon of Tuesday 27 June 2017 I had a visit from a tall dark stranger at my house in a leafy part of central Edinburgh. He did not come entirely unknown because he is Niall Boyce, the founding editor of The Lancet Psychiatry, which launched in June 2014 and is the seventh Lancet specialty journal. With global reach and the highest prestige, the journal considers any original research contribution that will potentially lead to change in clinical practice and thought, and informative reviews on any topic connected with psychiatry.

Niall trained in medicine at Oxford University and subsequently on the University College London psychiatry rotation; he was visiting Scotland for the International Congress of The Royal College of Psychiatrists. His interests include suicide research, trauma, old age psychiatry, and social and transcultural aspects of mental health. We had been emailing for quite a while to try to arrange an interview so I could talk about my first series of podcasts on the history of psychiatry in Britain and Ireland since the year 1500, my second one on the experience of madness over the same historic period, and my plans for the future of my project to use historical perspectives to inform, de-mystify, and hopefully de-stigmatize opinion about mental illness among professional and lay people alike.

Niall is a real live-wire: well-read, intelligent, and articulate. As well as a medical training, he has an interest in early modern intellectual and cultural history, so I knew straight away he was one of the good guys! We talked quite a bit before and after the interview about many things psychiatric, historical, and contemporary. It was a most rewarding experience and I hope the podcast on The Lancet Psychiatry website gives a feel for that.

  Listen here to Rab’s interview with Niall:  The future is in the past

 

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