Loosen chemical straitjacket

Sir — A friend of mine, who recently turned 70, sent me an email beginning with the question: “Where have all the years gone?” It’s a question I found myself asking recently.

A couple of weeks ago, on a trip to Dublin, I visited the newly developed DIT campus in Grangegorman on the site of the former St Brendan’s psychiatric hospital. To be precise, I wanted to see the old church on the campus, still standing, a little removed from the rest of the buildings there.

It was in this unusual location that former chief psychiatrist with the then Eastern Health Board, Professor Ivor Browne, held regular holotropic breathwork sessions with people he felt had experienced various traumas in their childhood and believed they could be helped by this regression-type therapy. It was on July 4, 25 years ago, I stopped taking lithium, which I had been told by the psychiatric profession at the age of 20 that I would be on for the rest of my life. A couple of weeks later, I did my first holotropic breathwork session in this little church.

At this point in my life, I had been struggling with very severe depression and my prescribed lithium was doing nothing to alleviate its symptoms.

Since then, I have had an interest in mental health matters and, more precisely, suicide prevention.

Dan Neville, president of the Irish Association of Suicidology (Sunday Independent, July 1), talks of the importance of people in mental distress speaking out and seeking help. However, as he says, “fully supported services for those suffering from mental health difficulties must be a priority”. This does not mean giving people a diagnosis and a prescription. Alternative therapies, like those which Ivor Browne practised all those years ago, must also be provided. Otherwise we simply provide a chemical straitjacket to people, which metaphorically speaking, can be more inhibiting than the walls of former psychiatric institutions.

Like my friend, I may look back and wonder where all the years have gone, but at least I am here and can look back. Unfortunately for some people, many of whom are very young when they take their lives, will never be able to do this. It is imperative that these people are provided with a full range of psychological and alternative therapies. The little green/pink/blue pills simply don’t work for everybody. Tommy Roddy,

Galway