Our Necessary Shadow: The Nature and Meaning of Psychiatry. Tom Burns. UK: Penguin Books 2013. ISBN 978-1-846-14465-3

Abstract

Psychiatry is a “special” specialty (comparing with other specialties) in a sense that it raises queries and even
criticisms on its existence and hence diagnosis and interventions.
As a medical specialty, psychiatry heavily adopts medical model in its interpretations and practices. Not
surprisingly, healthcare practitioners (including doctors, nurses and occupational therapists) play a leading role
in this field. From the reviewer’s observation, there are conflicts between healthcare practitioners and social care
practitioners on how to help the needy people. Nevertheless, those unresolved issues have not yet been discussed
or debated openly and sufficiently. The healthcare practitioners and social care practitioners just keep focusing
on their own frame of reference without trying (either deliberately or subconsciously) to understand the
perspectives of the other.