Michael Corry:MICHAEL CORRY, who has died aged 61, was a campaigner for the rights of mental health service users and all those suffering psychological distress. He argued against the over-reliance on drugs in the treatment of psychiatric patients, and described the existing mental health service as a "medication-delivering device".
He was a founder member of the Wellbeing Foundation, established in 2006 to pursue the aim of substituting a rounded, holistic and compassionate approach to mental health for the predominantly pharmaceutical approach of conventional psychiatry.
He was also a long-term campaigner for the abolition of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). In 2008, he led a campaign to introduce a private member’s Bill in the Seanad to prohibit the administration of ECT to patients without their consent.
While the Government did not accept the Bill as proposed, a consultation process is now under way which may lead to ending the practice.
Born in 1948, he was one of eight children of Martin Corry and his wife Kathleen (née Moore) and was educated at De La Salle College, Waterford.
He qualified in medicine from University College Dublin in 1973. He achieved higher qualifications in obstetrics, paediatrics, and worked as a volunteer doctor in Uganda.
He commenced his psychiatric studies in 1978 and trained as a constructivist psychotherapist.
His interest in psychosis and altered states of consciousness arose from his work with Prof Ivor Browne at St Brendan’s Psychiatric Hospital, Dublin.
He developed and directed the resocialisation pilot project sponsored by the EU which focused on the rehabilitation of long-stay institutionalised patients.
As consultant psychiatrist to the Rehabilitation Institute, he championed the cause of integrating the psychiatric patient with the physically disabled, entitling them to the same educational, vocational training programmes. In 1987 he was appointed consultant psychiatrist to Clane Hospital, Co Kildare.
In 1988 he co-founded the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine whose ethos embodies a mind-body-spirit approach to psychological distress. He endeavoured to give psychiatry its true meaning (“psyche” meaning soul, and “iatriea” meaning healing) by seeing each individual as a subjective spiritual being on a personal journey. This position places awareness and choice as central, with the power to change beliefs, behaviours, feelings and ultimately ways of living.
The book Going Mad? Understanding Mental Illness, which he co-wrote with his partner Dr Áine Tubridy, was a product of his ongoing passion to see psychological distress explored in new ways. Drawing on the life-force as mediated through the chakra system, it placed patients at the centre of their own healing, liberating sufferers from seeing their illness as a purely chemical event.
He had his critics. One clinical psychiatrist wrote: “We have outgrown the banshees, ghosts and leprechauns of our childhood. Let us not replace them with clairvoyance, psychic visions and mystical energy systems.”
But others saw Corry as a compassionate healer appreciated by thousands of patients.
Having given evidence to the Residential Institutions Redress Board on three occasions, he described it as “a place of secrecy, exclusion and bewilderment”. He claimed it contravened the most basic of human and civil rights.
He worked with members of An Garda Síochána for 20 years, and became aware of bullying in the force. In a letter to the Garda Representative Association he wrote of how it was “saddening to sit in front of fine men and women who have had their will and spirit systematically broken down by serial predatorial bullies”.
He was critical of the state of Ireland’s psychiatric institutions, as detailed in the annual reports of the Inspector of Mental Health Services. He wrote that it was “shameful to think that the most vulnerable human beings in our community are treated as sub-human, warehoused in sordid environments best described as human zoos”.
In 2004 he began contributing a series of articles on depression to The Irish Times. His outspoken views did not endear him to many of his professional colleagues.
“Who wants to be treated as an outsider, to be labelled a rebel, a troublemaker, or a whistle-blower?” he wrote.
“Who wants their misgivings about the lack of psychotherapy, the excessive use of medication, the increasingly powerful influence of the drug companies, the dangers of electroconvulsive therapy, the unconstitutionality of involuntary detention, and the need for open discourse to be met with strident opposition, and libel actions from colleagues?
Last year he drew criticism following an appearance on the Late Late Show, when he said side-effects from anti-depressants could tip somebody into suicidal and homicidal behaviour.
His interests included art, music and travel, and he also enjoyed sailing and horse-riding. A keen gardener, he was a contributor to the eco-magazine Source.
His friend and associate Basil Miller remembers him as “a rare being, loveable, inspiring and thoughtful, a loving warrior and gentle rebel”.
He is survived by his partner Áine, his children Louise, Amelia and Julian and their mother Anne, his former wife.
Dr Michael Corry: born May 5th, 1948; died February 22nd, 2010