Image: Wellbeingfoundation.com
Sad news. A great campaigner.
This from the Wellbeing Foundation:
We are extremely sad to announce that Dr Michael Corry has died after a short illness.
Dr Corry has been a fearless campaigner for the rights of mental health service users and all those suffering psychological distress; an opponent of bio-psychiatry and its exclusive reliance on psycho-pharmacology; an implacable campaigner for the abolition of ECT as a so-called 'therapy"; and a compassionate healer appreciated by thousands of patients.
His career spanned work as a hospital doctor in Uganda in the Amin era before he qualified as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, work as a public service consultant psychiatrist in St Brendan's Hospital, Dublin, and private practice. His imagination and desire to get things done powered both his work as director of the EU-sponsored Resocialisation Project at St Brendan's in the early 1980s, and being a founder of the privately-funded Clane Hospital in Kildare, where he served as consultant psychiatrist from the early days.
He was one of the founders of the Institute of Psychosocial Medicine in Dun Laoghaire in 1987, which developed from a four-partner practice into an organisation with over 20 practitioners and nationwide renown as a healing centre, and which also provides training courses and encourages research and advocacy.
In 2004, Michael began a series of articles on depression in the Irish Times which led to the establishment of the monthly Depression Dialogues seminars which he moderated with his partner, Dr Aine Tubridy, and to the launch of the depressiondialogues website on Valentine's Day 2005.
In 2006 he, together with a number of mental health campaigners who supported his humanist, existential approach to the treatment of psychological distress, set up The Wellbeing Foundation to pursue the aim of substituting a rounded, holistic and compassionate approach to mental health for the exclusively pharmaceutical, and often dangerous and ineffective, approach of conventional psychiatry.
Most recently, his work in campaigning for an end to electro-shock 'therapy' led to a private members Bill being introduced into the Senate which would bar the forced use of ECT — use without the informed consent of any patient. While the Government did not accept the Bill as proposed, the Minister in charge, John Moloney, has initiated a comprehensive consultation process which we hope will lead to the first steps being taken towards ending this barbaric practice.
That would be a fitting memorial to Michael's memory.
Funeral arrangements:
Dr Corry's funeral will be a humanist ceremony. It will take place at Mount Jerome Crematorium, Harolds Cross, Dublin 6 on Thursday 25 February at 2.30 pm. No flowers, please — instead, donations if desired to the Blackrock Hospice.
Michael will be deeply missed by his beloved partner Áine; his dearly-loved children Louise, Amelia and Julian; their mother Anne, his brothers Martin and John, sisters Ann and Sr. Premula, and his extended family, many friends, colleagues and patients.
Condolences:
The Irish Times allows users to sign a Book of Condolences online:
http://notices.irishtimes.com/3607459
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