From the Revd Guy Harrison
Sir, — The Revd Eva McIntyre’s article (Comment, 22 February) makes a cogently argued plea for mental-health training and information in order to keep clergy safe. While I endorse her rallying call, and support any effort to educate and inform, I am concerned that her attempt to highlight the need to protect parish clergy may run the danger of encouraging the further stigmatisation of people with mental illness.
It is important to re-state the facts. You are more likely to be attacked by someone abusing alcohol or drugs than by someone with a mental illness. Of 873 murders in 2002, only five per cent were attributable to mental illness — a figure that has remained constant for 30 years.
The way in which the media covers such issues has a direct impact on people’s lives: 60 per cent of people with mental-health problems blame media coverage for the discrimination they experience in their daily lives.
Yes, there are people whose illness is bound up with their delusions about God and who may become fixated on clergy. Yes, we do need to develop strategies for managing and preventing violence and aggression. Nevertheless, if someone is “psychotic”, “paranoid schizophrenic”, or has a “personality disorder”, that does not necessarily mean that he or she is dangerous, to clergy or anyone else.
In fact, people who are psychotic are far more likely to pose a danger to themselves, and therefore need our support and understanding.
GUY HARRISON
6 Milton Manor Drive
Little Milton
Oxford OX44 7PT |
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