ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises a few thoughts about clinical practice in psychiatry and related mental health fields. C. Nunn, in a paper entitled ‘Diseases of consciousness’, touches on a particularly difficult area of the clinical versus social debate, suggesting that this category should include conditions like some allergic disorders, myalgic encephalomyelitis and anorexia nervosa, because of what he identifies as their significant psychological and socio-cultural elements. Distinguishing the whole of mental life from mental state systems and disorders – or whole consciousness and its constituents from mental disorder – could be a feasible and useful exercise. ‘Nidotherapy’ is a new ‘whole of life’ approach described by Peter Tyrer and his colleagues at Imperial College in London. It is a development of social approaches to psychiatric care and refers to detailed, collaborative attempts to change the environment rather than the patient.
