Last week I had a long but rewarding day at HMYOI Polmont, delivering a 2-hour lecture/seminar to separate groups of male and female learners, one in the morning, the other… Read more »

People with learning disability were understood and treated very differently in the past from the present. While attempts were always made to help them, this was against a background of… Read more »

I exhibited part of the Face to Face exhibition at Bang Goes the Borders on Saturday. This long-running and successful science fair is aimed at children aged 5-13, but it… Read more »

Last week Scotland’s First Minister made a major policy speech in which mental health provision featured prominently. To coincide with this announcement, I exhibited ‘Face to Face: Stories from the… Read more »

Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts – Social workers and care in the community, Dr Ruth Allen Social workers have a crucial part to play in improving mental health services… Read more »

In this podcast I talk about my research on the biological basis of schizophrenia using brain imaging and my attempts to understand symptoms such as hallucinations in terms of brain… Read more »

Face to Face: Stories from the Asylum is another strand in our Promoting Mental Health through the Lessons of History Project. Like the podcast series, the exhibition aims to engage… Read more »

Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder with a prevalence of about one in 100 births. Although we assume that this disorder has always been with us, and Rab Houston and I… Read more »

Symptoms of schizophrenia develop in more than 1:200 people, in all cultures, while 2- 4% of the population may experience major depression at some time in their life. Mild and… Read more »

People in both the developed and the developing world are living longer, and in better health, than in any prior point in history. However, mental health professionals, especially psychologists, need… Read more »

Eating Disorders are understandable as a way of coping with uncomfortable feelings. A temporary sense of reward or emotional detachment can occur due to maladaptive eating. The disorders are driven… Read more »

Bipolar disorder is a complex psychiatric disorder of mood and behaviour that has been recognised for thousands of years. It probably affects about 1 in 50 individuals worldwide and is… Read more »

This podcast will help listeners to understand better the finer details pertinent to the topic of substance misuse disorder and dependence. Listeners will be taken through some of the relevant… Read more »

This week, Professor Rab Houston speaks to Gerry Hastie, a mental health nurse. Gerry trained between 1993-96, when nurse training programmes were changing from being delivered by the Local Health… Read more »

In the first podcast of our new series, Professor Rab Houston is in conversation with Dr Miles Mack, past Chair of RCGP Scotland and a GP partner in Dingwall, Scotland…. Read more »

We’re delighted to announce that the next set of History of Psychiatry podcasts begins next Tuesday, March 13.  Series 3, entitled  ‘Understanding Mental Health: conditions, caring, and contexts’, is in a… Read more »

I argued in the last podcast that medical theories in colonial Africa had a strong racial element to them, which buttressed colonialism. In this final podcast of my mini-series I’m… Read more »

If you have listened to my series of podcasts on the history of psychiatry in Britain and Ireland you will know that psychiatric relationships are at least partly about power… Read more »

At the end of the last podcast I explained what was special about colonial psychiatry from the 1880s to the 1960s, compared with mental medicine in the United Kingdom. 1)… Read more »

I have been asked by the Scotland Malawi Mental Health Project to prepare a short series of podcasts to act as a component of the training programme for psychiatrists at… Read more »