Personal experience: Suicide and psychiatric care – a lament

Abstract

A personal bereavement from suicide prompts a critique of current mental healthcare. Fragmentation, lack of long-term attachment to a tenured professional, the dearth of family therapy, and professional ambivalence are identified as weaknesses in current provision. Implicit is the case for change in UK psychiatric services, both structural (need for long-term therapies) and cultural (need for a mentalising rather than protocol-driven, ‘choice’-led ethos).