Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Total Institution | 20090107 | Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years.
The 1950s promised a new deal for the mentally ill, with new drugs and radical legislation. Psychiatrists believed they had the answers, yet seclusion in asylums continued.
The 1950s promised a new deal for the mentally ill, with new drugs and radical legislation Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to today |
| 02 | Altered States | 20090114 | Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years.
The 1960s saw anti-psychiatrists including RD Laing question the notion of insanity, believing madness to be a special state. Claudia visits one of only two remaining NHS residential therapeutic communities, the Cassel Service in Richmond, Surrey, and goes to Bradford to meet the members of Sharing Voices, a community development approach to mental health services.
The 1960s saw anti-psychiatrists including RD Laing question the notion of insanity. Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to today |
| 03 | Community Care? | 20090121 | Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years.
When Enoch Powell launched his 1962 Hospital Plan he believed all the asylums would be closed by 1975. However, it was not until the 1980s that the closures really got under way, with thousands of former inmates beginning new lives in the community. For many this was a new beginning: with genuine care, life in the community was infinitely preferable to the total institutions from which they had emerged. But for those who lacked support and could not cope, homelessness and even prison were the alternative to what had been, for some, genuine asylum.
At the Surrey History Centre, where Woking Mind work with the archivists to examine the history of the local asylums, Claudia meets a former patient of Brookwood asylum for whom squatting in the derelict building was preferable to life in a community that didn't care. She also meets service users in Reigate who, frustrated by the lack of formal support, have set up their own, the Stepping Stones drop-in centre.
The Care in the Community concept dominated the 1980s. Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to today |
| 04 | Happiness in a Pill? | 20090128 | Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years.
Prescriptions for anti-depressants have risen and now one in six of us experiences depression or anxiety. But instead of a pill, some would simply like to talk. Claudia visits Canterbury Christ Church University to meet some of the first trainee mental health advisers who are part of the government's new Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative.
She also asks whether it is the stresses of modern life that cause us to experience depression or anxiety and whether, bombarded by marketing that tells us we can have it all, our expectations of happiness have become unrealistic.
Claudia meets some of the first trainee mental health advisers. Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to today |
| 05 | Which Way Now? | 20090204 | Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to the present day and explores, with the help of listeners' testimonies, how treatment and understanding of mental illness has changed over the past 50 years.
Claudia visits the Wellcome Trust facility at Manchester University, where Professor Bill Deakin, Director of the Neuroscience and Psychiatry Unit, is conducting experiments into new drug therapies for schizophrenia and depression. She also meets Louis Appleby, the government's mental health 'tsar', and Dinesh Bhugra, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, to discuss their views of the future.
Claudia meets leading experts to discuss their views of the future. Claudia Hammond tells the story of mental health care in the UK from the 1950s to today |