Brendan Kelly: Psychiatry cannot provide neat solutions on suicide

In the 1800s and early 1900s, Irish asylums were used as convenient solutions to all kinds of social problems. Asylum doctors were complicit in this, along with families and broader society. In retrospect, it is clear that asylum doctors should have objected to many such admissions on the grounds that treating the mentally ill is the core focus of psychiatry; and providing convenient but inappropriate solutions to society’s broader problems is not.

Today, society is, arguably, again looking to psychiatrists to provide a convenient solution to another complex social issue. Against this backdrop we need to look clearly at what psychiatry can and cannot offer, if only to avoid the mistakes of the past.

The facts outlined in this article do not map readily on to the current debate’s spurious division into “pro-life” and “pro-choice” arguments. Nor do they provide a neat solution to the dilemmas facing our legislators. But, then, the facts seldom do. (Irish Times) >