Your report of Sarah Hughes’s acknowledgment that mental health organisations have sometimes “softened the truth” about the relationship between serious mental illness and violence marks an important change in the public debate (Mental health groups have ‘failed to acknowledge’ risk of violence, says Mind chief, 5 September).
There is some historical irony here. Mind grew from the National Association for Mental Health, an organisation in which psychiatrists and other mental health professionals played an important part. From the 1970s onwards, Mind increasingly defined itself as an independent campaigning organisation and, at times, a vigorous critic of psychiatric practice and authority.
