I have rewritten a paper I presented at the faculty of forensic psychiatry conference in Singapore last year. Whilst I was researching my book (still available at a reduced rate) I came to realise how widespread was the discrimination against people with psychological injury. I was fascinated and frustrated by the virtue signalling of governments promising the world that they would battle against mental health issues and yet, at the same time, the extent to which governments at all levels discriminate against people with psychological injury. I was also fascinated by the ready acceptance of spurious data in supporting various opinions. Common issues include preventing people with psychological injuries arising as a result of management decisions receiving benefits, preventing people with a psychological injury arising from a physical injury receiving benefits (although almost the reverse applies in New Zealand) and the different thresholds for physical as opposed to psychiatric injury. Some of these changes have no rationale at all. It makes financial sense for the bean counters to only count pure mental harm (a.k.a. primary psychiatric impairment a.k.a. impairment not secondary to physical injury) if impairments from physical and psychological injuries are combined. It makes no sense at all if they are not combined!
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