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Psychiatry in Jeopardy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Kenneth Rawnsley
Kenneth Rawnsley*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Heath Park, Cardiff CF4 4XN
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Extract

Society's attitude to psychiatry has always been ambivalent. When, as a young doctor, I announced my intention to take up this discipline to my then chief, who was a distinguished clinical pathologist, his face turned a deeper shade of purple, and he muttered something about “mumbo-jumbo and guesswork” before stalking off into his den. Much more recently, I broke a lifelong tradition by actually entering into conversation with a stranger on a British railway train. Somehow or another, he extracted from me the information that I was a Professor of Psychological Medicine. “Well, well, he murmured, “and I always thought that was the stuff they put into those huge bottles of red and blue liquid you sometimes see in the windows of the older chemist shops”. That gentle twitting is small beer by comparison with the grave reservations expressed by many individuals and groups.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 145 , Issue 6 , December 1984 , pp. 573 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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