ABSTRACT
After readmission to Charing Cross Hospital on 18 September 1979 I had essentially turned the corner in my careering headlong flight into oblivion and gently readjusted to everyday reality. In this chapter I will therefore outline the incidents and strategies that were so critical in my (quite rapid) revival and recuperation in hospital (and shortly afterwards) as these may act as useful guides for workers in this field. (In Charing Cross my treatment team (on Ward 3 West) was headed by three psychiatrists (but no psychologists): Steven Hirsch,1 Geetha Oomen and Malcolm Weller.)
Given the spiritual and religious nature of my delusions, it was a great source of comfort to be able to regularly visit the chapel on the ground floor of the hospital. Visits from paraprofessionals such as the chaplain and from Reverend Richard Harries2-who, actually, I had seen on the night before the first suicide attempt (see Chadwick 1992, Chapter 4)—were also of tremendous value. They eased me out of seeing God as potentially vicious and punitive, a common attitude among psychotic people and an attitude that had been planted there by doorstep Jehovah’s Witnesses some fourteen years before as well as by Old Testament readings at school. This dissolution of my image of ‘the savage God’ gave me much peace and (most important of all): hope. This was very critical to my recovery. Indeed, I would say that hope was as important as any pill (see Nunn 1996).
