Editorial, Issue 54

EDITORIAL The publication of Cormac Gallagher’s translation of Guy Le Gaufey’s acclaimed book Lacan’s Notall: Logical Consistency, Clinical Consequences in four segments, reaches completion in the current issue of The Letter with the appearance of the third chapter, Some Clinical … Continue reading

Cormac Gallagher – Blessed are the Pacemakers – Dementia, Psychosis, and the Psychoanalytical Discourse

THE LETTER 55 & 56 Spring/Summer 2014, pages 1-11 Dementia has been described as the major mental health epidemic of the 21st century.   Yet far from being the living death it was seen as up to the 1980s, revolutionary new … Continue reading

Joanna Moncrieff – Rethinking the Drug Treatment of Psychosis

THE LETTER 55 & 56 Spring/Summer 2014, pages 13-25. This talk challenges the current assumption that psychiatric drugs work by correcting an underlying ‘chemical imbalance,’ or any other brain-based abnormality. An alternative, ‘drug-centred’ model of drug action will be out-lined that … Continue reading

Barry O’Donnell – Terms and Conditions – Psychosis and Psychoanalytic Treatment

THE LETTER 55 & 56 Spring/Summer 2014, pages 27-39. Psychoanalysis is a practice launched by a neurologist, Sigmund Freud, based on the interpretation of dreams, products of every mental life which signify so madly that the normal and the pathological become … Continue reading

Sarah Clarke, Elizabeth Lawlor, Mary Clarke – Reflections on the Challenges of Psychosis

THE LETTER 55 & 56 Spring/Summer 2014, pages 41-52. Recent research does not support the pessimistic view of recovery outcomes in those receiving early intervention for psychosis. However the effectiveness of any intervention depends on the willingness of the patient to … Continue reading