'New mental health approach needed'

Troubles partially to blame for mental illness

One in ten people in Northern Ireland suffers from a mental illness, a leading psychologist has said.

Dr Raman Kapur is to tell a conference, to be attended by more than 100 senior health professionals from the UK and Ireland, that a new approach is needed to deal with the growing numbers of people suffering from mental disorders.

The director of Threshold, one of Northern Ireland's leading voluntary providers of mental healthcare, said increasing pressures on health budgets also made it important to look again at the way mentally ill people were being treated.

The organisation continues to provide support and training to the Trauma and Recovery Team which is treating the victims of the 1998 Omagh bomb, in which 29 people died and hundreds were injured.

Dr Kapur believes the Troubles, abuse and other sociological issues could be responsible for the unusually high level of those suffering from mental illness.

He says it is vital to know whether one approach is more successful than another and why.

Taboo subject

"We need to develop an evidence based approach to psychological therapies which allows us to identify what is working well, and build on it," he said in advance of Friday's conference.

"Mental health is all too often a taboo subject. For the individual from the isolation of mental illness, to being accepted by the community, is often a difficult one," said Dr Kapur, a Course Director in Psychotherapy at Queen's University in Belfast.

"However, with the right approach and support it can be made."

Threshold is based in Belfast and specialises in providing therapeutic communities to combat mental health disorders.

Evidence from a survey conducted by the organisation in 1997 suggested that after 18 months with Threshold, people with mental health difficulties showed improvement in therapeutic communities.

"This is part of our ongoing research programme, but the messages is clear," said Dr Kapur. "If you don't evaulate therapies we will not be able to understand what works and does not."

Two internationally renowned psychologists, Professor Glenys Parry, the Director of Research and Development at Sheffield NHS Trust, and Dr Michael Barkham of Leeds University, will be among those to address the conference.

Entitled "The Way Forward - an evidence based approach to the psychological therapies", the event will be held in Stakis Hotel in Templepatrick, not far from Belfast.