Update: Inquiry into Schizophrenia Label

ISL has received a fantastic response. With over 300 responses to our survey, around 40 personal testimonies, a focus group in Manchester and supporters on Facebook, the response has been much more than we had anticipated. We also have received support from 41 organisations and 250 individuals, majority of whom have signed up on our website.

We hope to report back to all our supporters in the next few weeks. We are now in the process of preparing our report and will be able to release some headline findings as soon as the ISL panel have had time to see and comment on the outline.

Meanwhile, the Schizophrenia Commission has released its report which was picked up extensively by the media. Commenting on the article by Zoe Williams in the Guardian, Dr Suman Fernando, member of the ISL coordinating group, said:

"Zoe Williams is quite right - the main issue about 'schizophrenia' is that people actually suffer from being given a 'medical' diagnosis when facing problems of living, the discriminations they suffer, the pressures they live under, and so on.  Is it not time to move away from using psychiatric diagnoses at all and so allow doctors and others to treat people with problems as fellow human beings rather than as people with a 'medical condition'?  A current inquiry into the 'schizophrenia' label being conducted by us has so far drawn a large number of responses and provided a host of testimonies which when analysed may provide a way forward. Watch this space! "