What is psychiatric treatment for?

This question is not a philosophical abstraction, nor is the answer self-evident. There are ambiguities embedded in all medical practice concerning the purpose of treatment. They arise from the fact that there are major differences between suffering and symptoms, between disease and illness, and between getting better and feeling well. Few of us can get through life without discovering that the experience of medical treatment is sometimes more unpleasant than the illness itself.

Policy makers and their de facto partners, the media, seem to take the position that mental health services can only be regarded as successful if they eliminate mental illness completely from the public arena. This is incompatible with what is possible and with the values of the mental health community, which is the loose coalition of mental health professionals, voluntary groups, service users and carers who have a continuous interest in mental health. The consensus view within it is that the quality of life of people suffering from mental illness would improve considerably if the rest of the population were to become more tolerant of difference, and more accepting of the fact that there will always be mentally ill people living amongst them. Everyone wishes to avoid serious adverse consequences of mental illness, including suicide, violence and self-neglect. However, policy makers and the mental health community differ over the appropriateness of strict enforcement of flawed and only partially effective treatment technologies.