Headspace prescibes antipsychotics to young people who are not psychotic, as has McGorry himself. That fact that he is now under pressure from the media seems to have changed his stance, but I doubt it has changed his opinion.

If patients should always be in control of these decisions then why does he want forced treatment laws extended and not reduced.

The reality is that there is NO evidence that these drugs have ANY antipsychotic properties in them. You can hardly design a pill when you have no idea of what you are wanting it to do. What they do is to tranquilise people to the point that they can barely move, think, feel, etc. Just becuase someone stops saying they are psychotic does not mean that they are, anymore than a psychiatrist saying that they are.

Any mental illness is simply a figment of some persons imagination. Sure people can be in acute distress, but the fact is the number of people who are misdagnosed beggers belief. People find in a person what they want to find.

As for really helping people, the healing homes in Sweden and Open Dialouge Therapy in Western Lapland in Finland are the best examples of what can be done. We also know from The Soteria House research that people can totally recover withou the use of any medication or therapy at all – they just need time, space and support. But imagine thinking that we do not need medication for something, that is just way too scary a concept.

Further there is NO research that says that people need to be kept on medication for life and yet I know of many people who have been told that by McGorry himself. Again I am yet to see any research that supports that, as all the good quality research that I have seen shows that people do best when they wean themselves OFF medication. The world health organisation has TWICE done research that has shown that people who do not take medication have a much better chance of recovery.

Medication is not wrong, what is wong is people being told they have broken brains without any research and being told that these medications can cure some brain adnormality, and that they need to take them for life. It is also wrong and always will be wrong to force anyone to take any medication against their will and to offer them nothing but medication.

Headspace offers a maximum of 12 counselling sessions for a young person and that will change to 6 next year, and they actively discourage over 6 sessions at the moment. Young people as young as 12 are being told that if they are not fixed in 6 sessions they will need to take medication for life and that is just total and utter crap.