Fit for purpose  Despite mental health problems, Jonathan Naess
maintained a successful career, and insists others can do so
too. Now he just has to persuade employers throughout the UK
Jonathan Naess Jonathan Naess: "It seems extraordinary that an
issue so important, that has such a big effect on people's
lives, is so far down the political agenda." Photograph: Frank
Baron  One afternoon at work, during an otherwise normal working
week, Jonathan Naess was very publicly sectioned under the
Mental Health Act. It was a humiliating experience. Naess was a
successful corporate financier with a long career in the City
under his belt. "It was pretty lurid because I was actually
taken to an institution dressed in my pinstripe suit," he
recalls.  Naess was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic
depression, as it is more commonly known and placed in a locked
ward in a psychiatric hospital. While hospitalised, two things
happened that prompted him to "come out" as mentally ill to his
employer - a risky decision in t