Low mood or clinical depression? Taking a critical approach to psychology | Letters

Readers respond to Lucy Foulkes' article on what we are getting wrong in the conversation around mental health

It is pleasing that Lucy Foulkes' experience (What we're getting wrong in the conversation about mental health, 29 March) of supporting her friend through a relationship breakdown leads her to question the helpfulness of applying psychiatric diagnoses uncritically in this and other situations. Critical approaches to psychiatry, and indeed psychology and psychotherapy, now form a substantial body of work. Most importantly, this includes the experiences of service users who have found themselves to have been treated badly by traditional mental health services.

One example, thankfully gaining visibility, is the cultural insensitivity of models of practice that have been developed in Europe and America, but which are then applied uncritically to people from a wide range of backgrounds. A forthcoming book, Racism in Psychology, edited by Craig Newnes, covers this ground in relation to psychology and psychotherapy practice. I know from many years of experience in mental health services that psychiatry and psychology/psychotherapy can be enormously helpful to people when their needs and wishes are carefully listened to and given the highest priority, rather than the insensitive application of theory.
Dr Sim Roy-Chowdhury
Brentwood, Essex