Update: Severe mental illness and the risk of violence | Letters

The Guardian — Opinion has covered a development concerning “Update: Severe mental illness and the risk of violence | Letters,” with the available account limited to the facts included in the supplied text.

A new willingness to acknowledge the risk that some people with severe mental illnesses may become violent is welcomed by Prof John F Morgan 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, states Mind chief, 5 September ). The report also notes that 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.

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