A cost-benefit analysis should be seen not as a mechanism for deciding mechanically on the allocation of funds and resources among programs but as a structure for weighing advantages and disadvantages (that is, for organizing knowledge). Considering all the forms of benefits and costs that we were able to derive in monetary terms, the experimental program provided both additional benefits and a...

In the last issue of 'Mental Health' David Boorer examined the need for a code of practice for staff working in psychiatric hospitals and assessed the consultative and preparatory work to be done, if such a code were to be of practical value. The code, renamed guidelines', has now been drawn up and is printed here in the form in which it has been submitted to the organisations involved in its d...

Waking up in a mental hospital isn’t something you plan for. It’s not what I see that astonishes me— I’ve sat through enough loony bin films to have some idea what to expect—but who I am. There have been moments in recent months when I have hardly recognized the desolate woman inhabiting my body and brain; but sooner or later the familiar self would always reappear, sporting her labels—historia...

Microcredit typically refers to petty collateral-free credits given to groups of poor members in the society for their socioeconomic emancipation. It is claimed to be an effective tool for enhancing income of the poor primarily through creation of selfemployment opportunities for them in a variety of small economic activities. However, in this survey of microcredit borrowers in Bangladesh it is...

A performance-based funding system like the United Kingdom's 'Research Excellence Framework' (REF) symbolizes the re-rationalization of higher education according to neoliberal ideology and New Public Management technologies. The REF is also significant for disclosing the kinds of behaviour that characterize universities' response to government demands for research auditability. In this paper, ...

The author analyses how debate over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has tended to privilege certain conceptions of psychiatric diagnosis over others, as well as to polarise positions regarding psychiatric diagnosis. The article aims to muddy the black and white tenor of many discussions regarding psychiatric diagnosis by moving away from the preocc...

to Broadcasting House and there underwent extensive questioning. These viewers did not know on arrival what the nature of the meeting would be, though they were aware that the evening would end with a general discussion of programmes. There were approximately 180 viewers in all, meeting in four groups of about 45 each. Once in the test room, group members were told of the purpose of the first h...

deterred on this account from reading this remarkable book which gives an entertaining picture of American mental hospital practice. The style is tortuous and ponderous. When the authors want to say there are both male and female patients they write. "Patient status was no respecter of sex" and describe somebody who volunteered to play the accordion thus, "One visitor who played the accordion d...

THE Northern Ireland Mental Health Act of 1948 was enlightened and progressive when it became law, and it is a measure of the speed of change in recent times that it was outmoded in thirteen years, being repealed and replaced by the Mental Health Act (Northern Ireland) 1961. "But if the purposes of the new Act (the English Act of 1959) are to be achieved, it will be necessary to consider weakne...