NICE guidelines: now they really are “just guidelines”
Until recently, most of my ADD / ADHD patients who did well on a trial of medication, were then able to obtain further NHS prescriptions from their GP.
My website highlights the 2009 NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) ADHD guidelines, because the guidelines are strongly in favour of diagnosis and treatment choice. When NICE was set up as a state-funded body in 1999 there was a commitment, which was made legally stronger in 2005, that the NHS would be provided with enough money to follow its recommendations.
Last year, the new Government’s Conservative Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, abolished this legal commitment for GP’s to follow NICE guidelines.
Under financial pressure to reduce prescribing, GP’s look at adult ADD / ADHD, and see that no medication is licensed. Unless the GP has direct experience of treatment benefits, this relatively new diagnosis inevitably becomes a target for cost reduction.
The fact is, medication licensing is really about the claims that a pharmaceutical company can make for its product, rather than what clinicians can prescribe (and the NICE guidelines are more relevant to that). But such distinctions make little difference to GP’s, especially when fully licensed ADD / ADHD treatment in children and teenagers is still often opposed by prominent NHS academic psychiatrists.
My own experience is that ADD / ADHD medication, together with counselling and psychotherapy which takes diagnosis properly into account, can improve interpersonal and work functioning enormously. If patients do have to fund diagnosis and treatment themselves, it is likely to be well worth it, as long as they have moderate or severe ADD / ADHD. Treatment could even be cost-effective if the ADD / ADHD is milder: what price can you put on better relationships?
Drafted by 2nd July 2011, published at DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 6th October 2011
Should weight-loss surgery be rolled out widely on the NHS, when effectiveness has been shown for less than 1 in 50?
So many adults become chronically obese, and we are now so aware of childhood obesity, that an overweight person’s history of normal weight and eating, or bulimia, or even anorexia nervosa, can be overlooked. The low cost of calories, and other “obesogenic” factors such as increased screen time and reduced exercise can also lead to therapeutic pessimism, despite nearly one-third of adults having normal weight (1).
Given the apparent failure of appetite suppressants and psychotherapy to treat obesity, a more hands-on surgical approach has gained a lot of ground (2). Reviews of bariatric surgery seem to make a well-founded case for wider use of this treatment: randomised controlled trials (RCT’s), the hallmark of proper testing, have been abundant.
But, despite well-documented cases of obesity remitting and relapsing in response to a range of interventions, sometimes with long intervals (Oprah Winfey, perhaps most famously), there has never been a single- or double-blind trial of bariatric surgery, compared with a true “placebo” which would be “sham” surgery: entering the abdomen under anaesthetic but making no further intervention.
Such genuine placebo-controlled surgical trials have been performed in many disorders where psychological factors have been felt to be significant (3). The RCT’s which give an impression of “a good evidence base” for bariatric surgery are mostly of one form of surgery compared with another, or surgery compared with a perhaps dubious non-medication-based intervention.
And anyway, according to a 2009 UK government-funded and -published meta-analysis, research into bariatric surgery has established its effectiveness for only 1 in 50 people who are at risk of health problems from being overweight: “The evidence base for the clinical effectiveness of bariatric surgery for adults with Class I [BMI30-35] or class II [BMI35-40] obesity is very limited.” (4).
Although I support bariatric surgery, and tried unsuccessfully to have it considered for one of my very obese learning disabled patients, four years ago, it appears to be at risk of being over-promoted for less severe disorders. Just like many other treatments in the history of medicine.
It is possible, in my view, that psychotherapists of all kinds (CBT, psychodynamic, 12-step-orientated) have simply not tried hard enough for a group of patients that attracts negative and even punitive public attention (5). Before proper randomised controlled trials of bariatric surgery, it must make sense to keep looking for non-surgical treatments.
(1) 31.7% of English adults were “normal weight” in 2006. The clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of bariatric (weight loss) surgry for obesity: a systematic review and economic evaluation. Picot et al. Health Technol Assess 2009: 1-190, 215-357. [p3]. Available at http://www.hta.ac.uk/execsumm/summ1341.htm
(2) See my Blog piece “No” to the knife, “Yes” to Ritalin? 6th August 2010: http://drnmblog.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/%e2%80%9cno%e2%80%9d-to-the-knife-%e2%80%9cyes%e2%80%9d-to-ritalin/
(3) Laparoscopic excision of endometriosis: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Abbott et al. Fertil Steril 2004: p878. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15482763
(4) See (1): p157. 67.1% of English adults were either “overweight” or “obese” in 2006, of which 2.2% (1.5% of the whole population) had aBMIabove 40. See (1) p3
(5) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298394/Call-overweight-people-fat-instead-obese-says-health-minister.html
[includes comments from the then Royal College of General Practitioners chairman, Professor Steve Field]
Drafted by 10th June 2011; published at DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 7th October 2011
Maybe there IS a market for nuanced writing about mental health
Manufacturing Depression: the Secret History of a Modern Disease had been in my “to read” pile for a few months. I was in no hurry, assuming from the title that it was a re-hash of the “marketing by pharmaceutical vested interests” arguments of David Healy and others.
But after a patient recommended it, I had a look. The author Gary Greenberg is a psychotherapist, who has episodes of severe depression himself, possibly related to his “inexhaustible penchant for dithering”. He tells a very interesting story, especially about taking part in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of an antidepressant. I will not reveal the ending, but do think the book should come with a bit of a health warning because the lack of black-and-white conclusions may make some readers irritated or even depressed.
Another thing I liked about Manufacturing Depression was Greenberg’s willingness to say that pharmaceutical companies and medication prescribers are not the only vested interests in the mental health “industry”. For example: “…even though I am a psychotherapist, I don’t think the only alternative is what I sell in my office one hour at a time”. And, as what Greenberg calls a “depression doctor” myself, I agree with his view that “Depression is surely an affliction, one that at least in some cases may well have a specific, although still undiscovered, brain pathology – a disease in the usual sense of that word.”.
Quotations from Manufacturing Depression: the Secret History of a Modern Disease (2010, Bloomsbury hardback): pages 365-6, 297-8, 13
The Human Condition
This was the title of a talk by the philosopher and journalist Robert Rowland Smith, at London’s School of Life two days ago.
I have known Robert for a couple of years, during which he has published two books exploring how philosophy is relevant to the everyday dilemmas of modern life: Breakfast with Socrates and Driving with Plato.
The essence of the talk, I think, was that despite regular reminders throughout history of humanity’s less than fully rational nature, we still tend to overestimate our self-control. The constant development of technology not only distracts us from evidence to the contrary, but creates neurotic
dissatisfaction which we tend to worsen by seeking relief in materialism rather than by improving our interpersonal relationships.
I’m not sure that Robert is right in seeing the Western rational “Enlightenment” as perhaps now needing some sort of counter in the form of an Endarkenment”, because I think that contemporary philosophies and psychotherapies, as well as older Romantic Western culture, offer a whole range of ways to explore what Jung called our “shadow aspects”. And some people who are stuck in over-rational ways of life are suffering from biologically-based problems such as depression (1) or autistic spectrum disorders: they may need medication or other treatments to fully take part in philosophical or psychotherapeutic discourse.
It might seem odd that medical technology is sometimes necessary to enable a less technologically-dependent life. But in my view this is just a particular case of science liberating rather than oppressing (2). Philosophy too contains many paradoxes of this kind, such as Wittgenstein’s recommendation that we should simply stop chattering about “things of which nothing can be said”: his non-silence was required first, so that therapeutic silence could follow.
(1) In general the more severe and long-lasting the depression the greater is the need for medication. But some severe depressions may respond well to psychotherapy and/or philosophy, and some mild depressions may respond only to medication.
(2) Of course, technology and science are often used oppressively, or at least with neglect, whether deliberately or by mistake. Antidepressants prescribed after a ten-minute consultation with a GP (rather than a much longer consultation with a GP, psychiatrist or clinical psychologist), including little or no discussion of psychotherapy, amounts to state-sanctioned neglect in my view.
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 15th April 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 7th October 2011
The Gift of ADHD?
Presentation / Debate at SimplyWellBeing adult ADHD group meeting: Hammersmith Irish Cultural Centre, 20th March 2011
“Thanks again to Andrew [Lewis] for inviting me to offer a few comments on whether ADHD can have advantages, or should even be seen as a gift, rather than a disorder.
Just to mention that when I talk about “ADHD”, I mean what I usually write as “ADD / ADHD”, because the distinction is important to many people who do not have significant hyperactivity.
It’s now just over a year since I first met Andrew. In that very first meeting, he suggested I give a talk in this Sunday morning group, on ADHD diagnosis and medication. The fact that I’m back now suggests that he does not entirely regret that impulsive decision.
If we look at impulsivity, rather than the other two aspects of ADHD, inattention and hyperactivity, it’s probably easiest to see the potential advantages. Another word for impulsivity is spontaneity, and many people who are the opposite of impulsive, who never do anything unless they have thought through all the possible consequences, often feel oppressed by their lack of spontaneity. People who lack spontaneity may well have mild Asperger syndrome or autistic spectrum conditions.
One interesting thing about ADHD, which Andrew and I have discussed, is that if you look at perhaps the four most prominent US specialists, the psychiatrists Ed Hallowell and John Ratey say that ADHD often, maybe always (1), has advantages of creativity and originality; while the psychologists Russell Barkley and Thom Browne both tend to say that abilities and talents in an individual are separate from ADHD.
Who is right? Despite what Andrew may be going to say, I think this is logically a very difficult question. I really don’t know the answer, and for the moment I’m not convinced that it really matters, as long as the individual person with ADHD is advised that the self-understanding, and possibly treatment, which goes with the diagnosis, tends to free up previously undeveloped abilities and talents. Both sides of this particular debate agree on that.
Hallowell, Ratey, Barkley and Browne are working and writing in the US, and not the UK. There is a reason, I think, why we should perhaps make sure the psychologists’ views are heard over here, maybe even at the expense of the psychiatrists’, at least for a while. And I am speaking as a psychiatrist myself.
The more you stress the advantages of any disorder or condition, the less serious you tend to make it sound. Even before the current climate of financial savings, which is affecting the NHS, public opinion in the UK was very sceptical about ADHD.
The idea that you need assessment by a professional, for a neurodevelopmental condition that is a hidden gift, could sound like an indulgence to many people. I might be wrong though, because diagnosis of dyslexia has increased substantially over the last couple of decades,
despite similar claims.
The idea that you need treatment for a hidden gift, with ADHD medication which can have side effects, and can sometimes be abused, will probably sound like “enhancement” rather than “treatment” to many sceptics. I am not at all sure that the UK is ready to allow psychological enhancement with Ritalin right now.
Again, I might be wrong, and it could be that concerns of this kind motivate the better development of non-medication-based approaches, as well as medications other than Ritalin.
But for the moment I will stick to talking about treatment of a “disorder” rather than a “diversity” or even a “condition”, and leave it up to my patients to decide whether the gifts that their ADHD has been holding back, are part of their ADHD or not.”
(1) I think they lean towards “always” rather than “often”. But they are not fully explicit on this: see Delivered from Distraction (2005), pages 5 and 14-15
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 20th March 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 6th October 2011
Using the L-word may damage your health
Psychotherapy has been in the news recently, with the announcement that a further 400 million pounds will be made available through the so-called IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) programme.
But although the government has stated the money is “new”, a senior IAPT adviser has been sacked, apparently for saying that is “a lie” (1). Certainly, savings are to be made elsewhere in the NHS mental health budget.
Somewhat lost in the discussion has been a shift away from the idea that IAPT is just about CBT (cognitive-behavioural therapy). In theory, IAPT has for years accepted that Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), and couples therapy, are just as valid for problems such as depression and anxiety.
At a seminar on IAPT eighteen months ago, a regional manager told me that it was proving difficult to recruit therapists for these approaches. That seems to be changing, and the British Psychoanalytic Council’s recent comments appear to be positive about psychodynamic therapies gaining significant funding alongside CBT (2).
In my view that is a good thing. Since the early 1990’s, I have been sceptical of the established NHS wisdom that psychodynamic treatments had been demonstrated to be generally inferior.
(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/02/gp-bonus-spotting-mental-illness
(2) http://www.psychoanalytic-council.org/main/index.php?page=15762&
Finding the positive in Oliver James (part II)
Oliver James (see the previous Blog piece, 4th February) is unpopular with many people and parents affected by ADD / ADHD. Not a big surprise, given his strong view that genes have been over-emphasised, and early parenting neglected, as causes of all the common mental and behavioural disorders. Also his rampant anti-Americanism (1) (it is probably significant that ADD / ADHD diagnosis and treatment, especially for adults, has largely developed in the US).
I think that he is largely wrong on those key issues, but also that his books still contain interesting and sometimes valid points. He is right, for example, to suggest that many people can gain as much “insight” from “work, sport or art”, as from psychotherapy (2).
There is no magic formula to reveal who will, or will not, be helped by psychotherapy. And James even implies that “therapy culture” could make you worse (3), although this is more of a comment on reality television than ordinary professional practice.
His linking of the Positive Psychology movement with materialism and consumerism is doubtful to say the least, because academics like Seligman have constantly stressed the primacy of interpersonal relationships for promoting happiness and preventing depression. I wonder if James was trying to make a somewhat different point about the limits of his own “Affluenza” argument: below a certain level of material provision family and social life become difficult, and psychotherapy of any kind should not collude in denying that.
As for ADD / ADHD, it is disappointing that books written in 2002 and 2007, while recognising that autism may be substantially genetic, do not accept the same might apply to other developmental conditions.
Where I agree with Oliver James most of all, in these books, is the sense that exploration of the past through psychotherapy is an uncertain process, and that objective sources such as accounts from others, or school records, should be sought wherever possible. His recommendation to “Interview your mother or father or a sibling or an adult who was close to the family when you were small” (4) sounds close to a description of the diagnostic history-taking approach used by psychiatrists and clinical psychologists.
Therefore I think it a bit of a regression when he appears to suggest, in Affluenza, that psychotherapy may reliably uncover buried memories from childhood (5). Despite a clear non-endorsement of transference-based reconstruction (6), he fails to offer any warning about the possibility of “false memories”, either overly negative or positive, being created in the psychotherapy process itself.
(1) They F*** you up (2002) paperback: p228 (2) p259 (3) p246 (4) p182
(5) Affluenza (2007) paperback: p442: “…help with directly recalling what went on in my childhood”
(6) p442: Avoid the therapist “…if they fob you off with ‘We will investigate how your past is affecting you through the way you relate to me’”
I only share James’ views about using transference as investigation: the therapeutic technique may be useful for some people, as long as the therapist does not make claims for reliable historical reconstruction.
Thanks to Andrew Lewis and Richard Sherry for comments on these two pieces.
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 18th February 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 9th October 2011
To be
Aware that this Blog has not covered psychotherapy as much as originally intended, I have spent the last ten days catching up with two best-selling books by the psychologist Oliver James: They F*** you up (2002), and Affluenza (2007).
My verdict? Very interesting, lively, recommended. But…
…perhaps the thing that struck me most were certain passages in Affluenza, which develop TFYU’s warning that the UK should not “follow in the footsteps of the most pathological developed nation on earth, the USA…[but should]…emulate the example set by so many of our European neighbours, like Denmark and France”(1).
By 2007, this trans-national analysis has focused on two particular evils: the “American way” of marketing, advertising and consumerism (2) and “the hollow ring of…American positive psychology”, with its “crude deletion of negative thoughts (3).
The basic idea is: “Studies from fourteen countries reveal that people who favour the key Virus values – money, possessions, physical and social appearances, and fame – are at greater risk of emotional distress”(2).
The author provides apparently clear answers: seek “authenticity” in activities and relationships; although beware that some apparently non-consumerist activities may be pursued for inauthentic “people-pleasing” reasons (4).
Conversely, if you “would like to be rich”, this may well be an authentic means to pursue such ends as “not to have to work all the time…[leaving] enough time to hang out with friends and family”(4). Presumably this applies to James himself, who happens to be in the “upper echelons” of society (5)
(although I doubt he would describe himself as “rich”).
To sort these pitfalls out is partly the task of psychotherapy, and I share the author’s approval of cognitive-analytic therapy (CAT), having myself had some experience of practising it in the early nineties, and knowing a senior CAT therapist for many years.
Few would argue that the US is not a world leader in marketing, advertising and consumerism, however I think there is a bit of grit in the oyster of James’ well-marketed argument. He relies on international data recording rates of distress and depression; but these are “soft”, difficult to make non-subjective, and depend on translation between languages and cultures.
The ultimate “hard” data relating to distress and depression are suicide rates, and the statistics have for decades indicated that Danish and French people deliberately end their lives much more often than Americans (6), despite living in cultures of “Being” rather than “Having”.
(1) They F*** you up (2002): paperback p300-301
(2) Affluenza (2007): paperback p12-14 (3) p142 (4) p180-2 (5) p97
(6) http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/country_reports/en/index.html The suicide rate of Denmark has come down markedly since 1990,
and in 2005 was the same as the USA, whose rate has been stable (and not high in international terms) since the mid-1950’s. Oliver James states that
Denmark’s suicide rate is lower than that of Edinburgh (p109), but he gives no reference for this. The French suicide rate has also fallen, however in 2005 it remained 50% higher than that of the USA. The 2005 USA suicide rate for 15-24 year olds is double that of Denmark and 150% that of France: Affluenza mainly discusses older age groups, but it could be predicting sustained shifts in psychology and behaviour.
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 4th February 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 9th October 2011
The British Medical Journal’s measly editorial policies
Over the last three weeks the BMJ has published several articles by the investigative journalist Brian Deer, and an editorial co-written by a leading GMC member, alleging that ex-Doctor Andrew Wakefield’s research linking MMR to autism was a fraud.
Brian Deer, The Sunday Times and Channel Four’s Dispatches should be congratulated. The current BMJ editor is right to say that medicine needs more investigative journalism, and to highlight the need for wider vaccination against measles.
But several problems remain. The neutral observer might well ask how the “good” investigative journalism of Mr Deer is to be reliably distinguished from the “bad” of the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and Private Eye (1). Is it really just the detail, the lengths to which Mr Deer went? I am not convinced that if the Mail’s Melanie Phillips (say) had spent the same amount of time on the story, she would have ended up believing Andrew Wakefield to have been fraudulent, or even deliberately dishonest.
Mr Deer himself seems to recognise the limits of his three BMJ pieces. In a Press Gazette interview last year he indicated that there is no real distinction between scientific journals, newspapers and magazines. He stated in a Guardian Blog (12th January 2011) that the BMJ was part of an “insidious cartel”. What difference does it make, then, that his first BMJ piece was “peer reviewed”, anonymously as usual? Perhaps it would have been more consistent for him to decline such a closed process.
The Lancet’s Richard Horton is alleged to have acted from largely “medical establishment” motives. But in my view there are two significant flaws in the Deer/BMJ account, across the several pieces and editorials. First, it distorts and minimises the history of the “autistic enterocolitis” construct, which developed from a decade or more of speculative but “peer reviewed” research, and not merelyWakefield’s undisclosed legal action.
Second, it ignores the wider context in which the worldwide anti-vaccinationist movement has grown. The British Medical Journal and the Lancet have both played an important role in the current debate, following Vioxx and other cases, about “industry” conflicts of interest and the right balances between openness, promotional claims, and business interests.
However, the BMJ has gone much further, even at the height of the MMR scare in the UK, in promoting scepticism about the “inappropriate domination of the Western view of mental health”, a process in which “doctors and the pharmaceutical industry” irresponsibly push both “Western cultural ideas” and “a rapid growth in the numbers of children diagnosed with conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism” (Timimi, BMJ, 2005).
Two days after Brian Deer’s second article, a Blog piece entitled “How to stop the medical arms race” by a former BMJ editor revealingly set out the default position of the journal (Smith, BMJ, 13th January 2011): select evidence of “technology” and “doctors” leading to worse outcomes, not better. That Richard Smith’s Blog piece was typically urbane and self-deprecating might suggest that here, rather than in the Lancet, lie the real views of the “medical establishment”.
The BMJ has also published many opinion pieces by the “No Free Lunch” campaigner Des Spence which strongly criticise Western medicine. For example: “big pharma use[s] political lobbying to pervert the course of medical justice” (11th March 2009), and “A medicated childhood is blunt, defies reason, and is just bad medicine.” (21st July 2010).
Dr Spence has stated that because of the need to “protect the consumerist patient from themselves”, he and other GP’s suggest “complementary treatment, and even placebos” (4th February 2009). This seems to be a lesser-evil approach, but I have been unable to find any acknowledgement that such GP behaviour, rather than patients’ “health neurosis” (2), could cause the rejection of MMR vaccination (29th July 2009).
Taken together, when some parents, journalists and politicians read views like this, in the light of their own experience of the indifference shown by the “medical establishment” to neurodevelopmental disorders (3), it is not very surprising that they prefer a different version of events: Andrew Wakefield’s continued fight against Western medicine’s vaccine industry, which scored a temporary victory during the fitness to practise (FTP) panel’s 45 days of deliberating in secret (to use Brian Deer’s preferred term, rather than the GMC’s euphemistic in camera). The Wakefield FTP hearing transcript is still not publicly available on the GMC website (4), despite the BMJ’s declaration two weeks ago that it had been published.
Finally, the eminent “evidence-based medicine” expert Professor Trisha Greenhalgh appears to risk inflaming the situation further by repeating a comparison of the MMR sceptics with “flat-earthers” (rapid response, 18th January). This perhaps shows how remote the BMJ is perceived to be from the concerns of ordinary patients, and the “front-line” staff who do not have the luxury of engaging with pro-MMR families only.
If medical journals are really just newspapers with mystique, might it follow that a way out would be for medicine to become an honest trade rather than a dodgy “profession”? No doubt the size of the financial transaction between the BMJ and Brian Deer was small; and it remains open whether the journal’s new policy of modestly remunerating “good” investigative journalism at the expense of “bad”, will have the desired result in respect of the larger dragons of commercialised medicine, which the BMJ appears to see as its mission to slay.
A version of this piece was submitted as a “rapid response” to the last of Brian Deer’s articles, on the day of it’s publication (18th January). Four days later, no “rapid responses” had been published, which will only add to the suspicion that the BMJ is attempting to rig the debate. [The BMJ published an edited version of my “rapid response” in the 12th February print edition:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d809.extract, and a longer online version on 4th February:
http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7001.full/reply#bmj_el_248435 ]
All the BMJ quotations can be searched for at http://www.bmj.com/search.dtl .
(1) I attribute this simplistic good/bad dichotomy to the BMJ. It is not my own view, as it should be clear from the rest of this piece that I consider the BMJ itself to have partly caused what is now denounced. The current Private Eye health editor, Phil Hammond, has said that the magazine should not have reported on the Wakefield/MMR issue in the way that it did.
(2) [“Health neurosis” is a quotation from Dr Spence’s 28th July 2009 article: note added 28th February.] This could be called “blaming the victim”, although Des Spence would perhaps argue that the “neurotic”MMR-sceptic is primarily the victim of Western medicine, rather than some GPs’ well-meant promotion of homeopathy and other alternatives.
(3) The prominent vaccine specialist Paul Offit acknowledges this, in the latest introduction (readable with Amazon’s “look inside”) to his book Autism’s False Prophet’s. [Notes 2 and 3 were incorrectly transposed in original: corrected 28th February]
(4) Searching for “Wakefield transcript” or even just “Wakefield”, on http://www.gmc-uk.org/ .
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 21st January 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 9th October 2011
Raise your glasses
England have today won the Ashes in Australia for the first time since 1986. The media have contrasted the travelling England supporters’ cheerful optimism through the last two dozen years, with the fair-weather Australians, who deserted the stands as this Tour played out.
Like the “Tartan Army” who support the Scotland football team, many of England’s cricket supporters abroad are said to drink heavily and yet stay good-humoured. This “Barmy Army” has attracted the attention of academic sociologists, who suggest that they have created “a new form of English national identity” (1).
“Barmy” of course means “mad” or “insane”. As far as I know, no charity or professional group has censured the “Barmy Army” for the name they have chosen for themselves. To do so would itself be seen as crazed political correctness, which shows the importance of context for language like this (2).
English, (mostly) male sports fans who have been drinking: the more usual image is of football supporters facing off against baton-wielding European riot police (3). Both the Barmy and Tartan Armies show that it is not alcohol itself that inevitably leads to public disorder (4): for that to happen there has to be an advance expectation of hostility and violence. Perhaps the message in the “Barmy” name is that expectations can be changed.
So if toasting England’s Ashes victory tonight, pay attention to context and expectations; before downing those units of fizzy chardonnay, Aussie or otherwise.
(1) Parry M, Malcolm D (2004) England’s Barmy Army: Commercialization, Masculinity and Nationalism. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. March 75-94. I have only read the abstract, at: http://irs.sagepub.com/content/39/1/75.abstract
(2) See ‘ ”Nutters”, “Fruitcakes” and “Loonies” ‘, 30th April 2010: http://drnmblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/30/nutters-fruitcakes-and-loonies/
(3) Documented in Bill Buford (1990) Among the Thugs
(4) A recent article in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation seems rather confused. Despite the title – Governments confront drunken violence –implying a strong causative role for alcohol, the experts quoted appear to differ widely about social factors. Just one example: France is stated to have a growing problem, but the overall consumption of alcohol in France has continuously fallen in recent decades.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930368/pdf/BLT.10.010910.pdf?tool=pmcentrez
Published at www.DrNM.org.uk on 7th January 2011; transferred to DrNMblog.wordpress.com on 9th October 2011
