The uptake and utility of a reflective practice group for psychiatry registrars in a state-wide forensic service.

Objectives: It is essential that mental health clinicians have access to reflective processes where they may understand and make sense of emotional responses to patients, teams, and organisations. The authors share their experience of initiating and successfully running a reflective practice group, framed with Balint principles, for psychiatry registrars working in forensic settings across Victoria.

Method: We describe the process of setting up a Balint group for this professional population.

Mental health assessment of rape offenders.

There is an urgent need for development of methods of assessment and management of sex offenders (rapists, child sex offenders, other sexual offenders, and murderers) to mount a society-wide battle against the scourge of sexual offences in India. This paper provides an overview of theories, models, and assessment methods of rapists. It draws upon literature from psychiatry, psychology, criminology, probation, and ethics to provide a framework for understanding reasons behind rape, how mental health issues are implicated, what mental health professionals can do to contribute to crime management, and why this is ethically right and proper.

A New Mental Health Act for India : An Ethics based Approach.

The paper makes the case for a new mental health act for India in view of the deficiencies of the current act. It argues that any new mental health act must be grounded in sound ethical principles, value basic human rights, provide powers to those who treat mental disorders and reflect the values and trends of the modern world. It favours a quasi-legal system with opportunities for independent scrutiny, allows treatment consistent with ethical and legal principles, one that makes way for a more transparent and accountable system.

Alexithymia and illness behaviour among female Indian outpatients with multiple somatic symptoms.

Sixty Indian muslim women outpatients with multiple somatic complaints of nonorganic origin were assessed for alexithymia and abnormal illness behavior using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) and the Illness Behaviour Assessment Schedule (IBAS). Alexithymia represented by TAS scores correlated best with the IBAS variables of communication of affect, somatic illness causal beliefs and denial. Correlation with other IBAS variables was modest to poor.

Psychiatric morbidity of cannabis abuse.

The paper evaluates the hypothesis that cannabis abuse is associated with a broad range of psychiatric disorders in India, an area with relatively high prevalence of cannabis use. Retrospective case-note review of all cases with cannabis related diagnosis over a 11 -year period, for subjects presenting to a tertiary psychiatric hospital in southern India was carried out. Information pertaining to sociodemographic, personal, social, substance-use related, psychiatric and treatment histories, was gathered.