Ethics and Mental Health
Christopher’s interest in mental health originates in his mother’s depression and suicide. Questions of identity, the pursuit of a good life and a dignified death run throughout his work.
A Life Alone
BBC World Service
“The documentary, A Life Alone, was simply superb, a personal account by the journalist Christopher de Bellaigue of the bond between him and his aunt Diana. He lives in London, she on Canada’s west coast. She is 94; he is half her age. She was weeks old when her mother and father emigrated to Canada, leaving her in England with a nurse. She didn’t meet her parents until she was four. No bonds formed, with parents or siblings. She went to university, made a career, but has spent her life in solitude. When Christopher’s mother, Diana’s sister, committed suicide, he was 13. He accompanied her body back to Canada so she could be buried with her parents. Diana was the only person he could talk to, who could understand his devastation, isolation, loss. Later, she wrote to him. From their loneliness came a bond. It shone out here.”
Gillian Reynolds, radio critic, the Sunday Times
Death on Demand
The Guardian
“The conference centre on the outskirts of Driebergen stood amid tall conifers and beehives. I was offered a beaker of curried pumpkin soup while the session that was underway when I arrived – titled “Guidelines for terminating life on the request of a patient with a psychiatric disorder” – came to an orderly close in the lecture hall. Precisely three minutes behind schedule, the Dutch planned-death establishment debouched for refreshments.”
From “Death on Demand: has euthanasia gone too far?” in the Guardian