“Can my brain cure my body?” in which the lovely Dr Michael Mosely carried out an experiment on 100 people from Blackpool with chronic severe back pain. 

 

They were led to believe that they were taking part in a clinical trial whereby half of them would be taking a new miracle pain killer and the other half placebos.  

 

As with such trials none of them would know which they were taking but they believed there was a 50/50 chance they were on the pain killers. 

 

However, there was a twist with this study …. unknown to them, all of them were actually taking placebos! 

This was around the time of Beverley Allitt (the nurse who killed a number of children in her care and remains a long term patient at Rampton Hospital). 

 

There was already huge stigma surrounding mental illness and the press at the time made a great deal of Allitt’s mental health history. As a knee jerk reaction it became very difficult for anyone with a history of mental health problems to train as a nurse. 

 

Having experienced anxiety and for a period of time, clinical depression, I suddenly felt very vulnerable.