Psychiatry: "Adolescence is the weakest link in our healthcare system."

Early intervention in psychiatry aims to intervene as early as possible with adolescents or young adults at risk of developing a mental health disorder – or living with an emerging disorder – in the hope of limiting its progression to chronicity. Underlying this is the prospect of a more fulfilling life.

Patrick McGorry, an Irish-born professor at the University of Melbourne who emigrated to Australia, was the first to conceptualize this practice in the 1980s. Alongside his clinical work, he launched the Orygen Institute in 2002, specializing in research and advocacy concerning the mental health of young people.

I was finishing my psychiatry training and had decided to focus my final research on first psychotic episodes in young people. I quickly realized that they were receiving inadequate care and particularly negative messages from psychiatrists, who assured them they would never recover. This was based on 19th ^- century thinking, when schizophrenia was called "dementia praecox." Yet, even without treatment, the individuals in question did not exhibit dementia.

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