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"Mental health professionals across all professions - psychiatry, psychology, social work, etc. - should be more aware that this loss of self identity is a very real component of some people's mental illness and subsequent treatment. It should be addressed as a regular component of mental health treatment, especially when the loss is acutely felt. Because across all of healthcare, we are quick to dehumanize patients and focus only on the treatment of symptoms. Maybe it's a way some professionals seek to keep their patients at arm's length - not to become too emotionally connected to them. But in doing so, it also sends a (perhaps unintentional) message to the patient - you are only a constellation of symptoms to me. That's all we'll focus on, that's all we'll treat. As professionals and clinicians, we can do better. We should do better to not turn someone in emotional pain into a simple diagnosis or label. If we think of Linda as simply "Oh, the bipolar woman in room 213," we've lost our humanity and our focus."

In a bold and unprecedented move for any professional body, the UK Division of Clinical Psychology, a sub-division of the British Psychological Society, will issue a Position Statement tomorrow which calls for the end of the unevidenced biomedical model implied by psychiatric diagnosis. (Editor's note: MIA will link to statement here as soon as it is made available) The key message of the statement is: "The DCP is of the view that it is timely and appropriate to affirm publicly that the current classification system as outlined in DSM and ICD, in respect of the functional psychiatric diagnoses, has significant conceptual and empirical limitations. Consequently, there is a need for a paradigm shift in relation to the experiences that these diagnoses refer to, towards a conceptual system not based on a 'disease' model." In brief, the argument is that the so-called 'functional' diagnoses - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, ADHD and so on - are not scientifically valid categories and are often damaging in practice. The statement argues that we already have alternatives, such as psychological formulation, and that there is a need to work in partnership with service users and professional groups, including psychiatrists, in order to develop these further. The full statement can be read here.