This paper examines the experience and motivation of junior doctors who successfully published in the Psychiatric Bulletin and The British Journal of Psychiatry, over a four month period. Most articles took over a year from first involvement to successful publication, although this varied according to the type of article. While having published is recognised to increase the likelihood of appointment to registrar and senior registrar posts, interest in the subject is frequently cited as a more important reason to publish among authors than enhancement of their curriculum vitae.

This paper aims to give a very brief outline of the vast subject of hypnosis in the context of psychiatry. The word hypnosis, which was derived from Hypnos meaning the God of sleep, has long been associated with magical practices, superstition, witchcraft, occult and many other esoteric practices. The forerunner of hypnosis was the theory of animal magnetism proposed by Franz Anton Mesmer in the 1770s. He began to experiment with magnetic metals and gradually elaborated the theory of animal magnetism. According to Mesmer, a magnetic fluid spread throughout the entire universe and its disturbed balance in the human body resulted in illness. He claimed that a beneficial magnetic fluid could be transmitted from one subject to another by ‘passes’. Braid (1843) refuted the fluidist theory, since according to him hypnosis could be induced by visual fixation. He believed the condition to be a form of sleep and called the technique neurypnology, later to become hypnology and hypnosis. Liebeault (1866) for the first time used verbal suggestion to induce hypnosis. Bernheim stated that “There is no such thing as hypnotism, there is only suggestibility”, and concluded that suggestibility was the process by which the brain “accepts the idea and transforms it into action”.

This article presents three case studies of patients that a child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) have supported and its purpose is to encourage discussion of two key learning points. The first of these is the utility of developmental trauma as an approach for children with mental health presentations. The second centres on the importance of multi-agency working when working with young people, principally those within the UK's local authority care system (‘looked after children’), who have had traumatic experiences in order to enhance positive outcomes. We also want to encourage consideration of the implications of developmental trauma for current core CAMHS therapeutic models in an attempt to reach beyond the often held narrative that the trauma formulation implies there is ‘just trauma, no mental illness’.

Deception is commonplace and a discipline such as psychiatry, so often reliant upon subjective accounts, may be susceptible to its effects (especially in the fields of military, liaison, medico-legal and forensic practice). However, psychiatric trainees receive little formal teaching on the subject of medical deceit. Here, I review some recent books on deception, emphasising those works that cast tangential light upon everyday psychiatric practice. Useful sources of reference include those concerning the philosophy of deceit, the recent rise of political lying and the clinical problem of feigned illness. A clinically helpful distinction emerges: that between truth (accuracy) and truthfulness (sincerity).

There is growing interest in this country in developing training programmes suitable for overseas psychiatrists. The motive is partly one of self-interest. The implementation of current Government policy means that many departments will look to overseas visitors to fill their registrar positions in excess of their career registrar allocation.

The Richmond Fellowship has for almost 30 years been a leading mental health organisation delivering half way house care and rehabilitation to people needing to overcome the secondary social effects of mental breakdown. It has developed the half way house therapeutic community principally as a short term institution with a programme which stresses social relations and self management, and as such has been beneficial to many thousands of people who have quickly re-established themselves into their families and communities.

Guardianship Orders (GOs) are being applied more often in care of people suffering from mental illness (Hughes, 1991) and the elderly may have problems particularly suited to their use. Since many individual psychiatrists have little experience of GOs, we decided to examine our use of them. One of us had been involved in six orders over seven years working as a full-time consultant in the psychiatry of old age.

Health Advisory Service visits to services for the mentally ill in recent months keep throwing up a persistent theme: the apparent failure of the medical staff to provide the impetus that is necessary to develop and manage an effective comprehensive psychiatric service based upon the needs of patients rather than on professional or sectional interests.