Thank heaven for a mental health professional who is prepared to challenge conventional wisdom concerning so-called personality disorders and a health authority which is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. Penelope Campling and the staff of Francis Dixon Lodge ('Suitable cases for treatment?', pages 34-35, 22 January) are to be congratulated.

It has often seemed that the phrases 'personality disorder' and 'behaviour difficulties', which have no foundation in the Mental Health Act, are today's gobbledygook for what the 1983 act calls 'psychopathic disorder'.

Many psychiatrists seem to use them as an excuse for doing nothing: 'not treatable' is the favourite disclaimer. Worse, they are used as an excuse for refusing admissions to hospital. Who wants someone on their ward who is recognisably disruptive and whose treatment is problematic? Those who are responsible for acute psychiatric wards prefer to have patients who are compliant and whose discharge can be contemplated in weeks rather than months.

Worse still, it seems many people who have a personality disorder end up in prison because the psychiatric services are not willing to offer assistance.

Even if the disorders of which Ms Campling writes are not treatable, some means of caring for them needs to be found.

Rev Frank Crowther,

Co-ordinator for member services in North Nottinghamshire,

National Schizophrenia Fellowship.