Dr Kwame McKenzie of the Institute of Psychiatry contrasts the publicity and the evidence behind drugs that are claimed to make us brighter.

Very few trainees have experience in group psychotherapy. I describe my experience of co-facilitating a group for pre-adolescents who were being bullied. This proved a valuable learning experience as part of a multidisciplinary team, and increased my understanding of how groups function and the particular problems involved in running a group for children.

Beckside Computer Workshop is a small rehabilitation project based in the south of the city of Lincoln. The project aims to provide young people who have a history of schizophrenia with an opportunity to acquire basic keyboard and computing skills and at the same time to improve their ability to operate confidently in new social situations. Some are recruited from a health service funded rehabilitation hostel but most participants are living in the community. Ultimately, it is hoped that some of those taking part will eventually gain meaningful employment.

Sleep disorders are common in psychiatric and non psychiatric consultations. Yet there is very little education and training available to medical trainees in the UK. In this paper we describe our experience in a sleep laboratory during a part time six months attachment. We feel that a basic knowledge and experience in assessment, investigations and treatment of sleep disorders and involvement in academic and research activities in this field should be considered to be a part of the psychiatric training schemes.

The benefits of paediatric experience towards training in child psychiatry are discussed, with emphasis on the differences between hospital and community posts. Proposed reforms to training for hospital doctors are discussed with respect to specialised training in child psychiatry. It is concluded that future training regulations should allow trainee child psychiatrists to benefit from training in hospital and/or community paediatrics.

We have written this paper trom the perspective of a trainer and a trainee who have each participated in the psychological treatments course run for senior registrars training in child psychiatry on the North West Thames Rotation. The course aims to provide senior registrars with an integrated training in the three major psychological therapies: systemic family therapy, cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic therapy. It was hoped that, by the end of the course, trainees would have a good theoretical and clinical grounding in each model at a medium level of expertise.

Higher trainees in child and adolescent psychiatry and their consultant trainers reported high levels of compliance with existing JCHPT guidelines on the structure of direct supervision. There was a consensus about the ideal content of supervision sessions but disparity about whether this is achieved in practice and over issues of responsibility for raising certain topic areas. These findings are discussed and some questions to be addressed by trainee and trainer at the outset of the supervision process are suggested.

Paul Crichton reviews and reviles The Man Who, a ‘theatrical research’ inspired by the work of Oliver Sacks.

Neelam Sisodia and Corinne de Sousa see a message for psychiatry in a film about Asian women

Two years ago, the government set out a strategy for improving health in ways that can be measured. Health of the Nation set down specific targets, including those for reductions in death rates from heart disease, cancer and accidents. For mental health, targets are more difficult to specify. The goal the government set is “to improve significantly the health and social functioning of mentally ill people”.