Soap tackles stigma of schizophrenia

Dr Adrianne Reveley has been a professional adviser to the National Schizophrenia Fellowship for many years. When the BBC soap opera Eastenders decided that a character would have schizophrenia, the charity asked Dr Reveley to help

Advising Eastenders on their schizophrenia story should be highlighted in red ink on my curriculum vitae. Everyone has been impressed. Our cleaner, Evelyn, long since promoted from cleaning my office to cleaning the neurosurgical unit, stopped me to ask if it were true. How did she know? The porters now greet me with a respect previously offered only to the chief executive. My teenage son, Tom, was disbelieving; I must really know my stuff if Eastenders used me as a source.

Of course, the downside is that every jarring nuance of the story and every inaccuracy is laid at my door, and there …