PsychWatch Australia is the latest self-proclaimed watchdog examining psychiatric practice through a series of blogs, with input from doctors, researchers and patients with lived experience of mental illness. Is it going to be another anti-psychiatry forum? Specialist Update speaks with the man behind the forum — Dr Martin Whitely (PhD), a researcher, mental health campaigner and former state MP.

Specialist Update: Why did you set up PsychWatch?

Dr Whitely: There has been too little robust debate around the direction of mental health policy in Australia. It has been dominated by a few high-profile individuals and that’s not healthy.

It is hardly controversial to suggest that professors Patrick McGorry and Ian Hickie, and to a lesser extent other thought leaders, have had a significant impact on the direction on mental health policy and practice in Australia.