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Each week we'll be posting items on a whole range of topics relating in some way to mental health. We hope to stimulate debate and get you thinking about mental health and Mind's work in a new way.
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Please note that some blog posts may not reflect official Mind policy.
England and Wales:
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5 March 2010
"Mental Health, It's Everyone's Business"Submit entries for Mind Journalist of the Year 2010
Almost a year ago, I rocked up at the Royal Institute of British Architects for the Mind awards with my colleague Kerry Grove. As local journalists working in a particularly unglamorous part of Sutton, it would be fair to say it's not hard to impress us. Usually we regard it as a bit of a treat to pop to the greasy spoon over the road for a bacon sandwich - or on an extra special occasion, we'll splash out on a Sainsbury's sandwich.
So it was a bit of a surprise to be greeted by a sweeping staircase, concert pianist and about 300 very well turned-out people. Even more amazing was that we won Mind Journalist of the Year against all the brilliant national journalists there that night. The event unfolded like some strange dream - from the moment I heard my name called to the late hour I called my family with the news.
I can't begin to say how much of a boost that night gave me and my colleagues in our office. In a year where local journalism had been ravaged to its bare bones by the recession, that award made me dare to hope that journalism did still matter - that it was worth fighting for.
The award was in recognition of articles written for our newsgroup's campaign, "Mental Health, It's Everyone's Business". We published fortnightly features which aimed to destroy the myths surrounding mental illness, something we learnt much from ourselves. The articles explored a range of illnesses including body dysmorphic disorder, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Through interviews with experts and case studies, we were able to create concise, fact-based articles which we felt raised awareness of mental illness while showing the local community where they could go to for help.
One year on, so much has changed. I'm now a senior reporter and health correspondent at the Wandsworth Guardian, and I've been working on some really exciting side projects too. We still go to the greasy spoon, but now we're indulging in the Sainsbury's splashes more regularly.
Our campaign is finished, but we're keeping the spirit alive. These days, I'm finding more and more people in the community coming to us with their mental health stories - people who perhaps would have been too scared to approach us before. It's meant those people now have a voice, and we've been able to hold local services to account more effectively.
I jumped at the chance to write about mental health because it had always frustrated me how little I myself had known about it as a youngster. Several people I cared about developed a mental illness, and yet no-one realised until it was very advanced because they didn't recognise the symptoms.
Just ten years later I've noticed such a huge difference in awareness about mental health - and that's partially down to all the amazing journalism which has appeared in that time. I'm very much looking forward to being on the judging panel for the next Mind awards and reading all the fantastic articles submitted this year.
If you're a journalist, why not submit your work, or the work of another journalist, for entry into this year's awards? And if you're a member of the public, let us know if there's an article that you think represents excellence in the coverage of mental health issues.
Eleanor Harding
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24 February 2010
Eating disorders are not a lifestyle choiceA guest post by Ilona Burton, who blogs in the Independent Minds community and campaigns for greater awareness of eating disorders.
At the age of just seven, my new year’s resolution was to lose weight. I began to hide food, throw it away, stuff it in my mouth and spit it out, and give it away to other people. Not a particularly conscious decision, not the result of bullying or a reaction to an obvious trigger – just something that very gradually, inexplicably became habitual and horribly addictive, an illness that ended up affecting over three quarters of my life.Contrary to popular belief, the development of my eating disorder, as with the majority of sufferers, was not a vain attempt to lose weight in order to resemble skinny models or celebrities. This was a time when the Spice Girls were a picture of health, nobody knew who Nicole Richie or her stylist Rachel Zoe (later blamed for the size zero epidemic) were, and I was shopping at Tammy Girl, completely unaware of size zero, size 6 or any fad diets.
Anorexia slowly became what I perceived to be the larger part of my identity, it was just what I did, what I was, who I was. During high school, despite worries raised by my friends to teachers that were passed on to my parents, I did everything I could to deny these allegations that I was ill or in danger, and as I wasn’t on death’s door, even my GP passed me off – the same story with too many other people in my position.
Not surprisingly, the situation worsened while I was at sixth form. Skipping lunch was a non-issue to me by then as it had become so normal, so I moved on to skip as many other meals I could, ever the inventive, creative excuse-giver – my intake became lower and lower, and consequently, so did my weight. Clothes hanging from my pelvic bones, I would walk an hour or so to college and back come rain or shine and despite worries and concerns from loved ones, there was little anyone could do at this stage that would stop me from being wrapped up in my anorexic behaviours.
University time – freedom, independence, but for me, a tragic waste of what should have been the best year of my life. Instead of leaving home and drinking myself into oblivion, I isolated myself and slipped quickly into a routine which involved spending most of my time wrapped in a dressing gown, weighing myself obsessively and living off an oh so fun diet of Diet Coke, celery and sugar free jelly.
While my flatmates were out socialising and dancing till dawn, as students are supposed to, I was in my room, alone, writing depressing angst-ridden poems and seeing how many stomach crunches I could possibly do – the number increasing every day. By the end of that first year, I looked like a poster girl for the line between life and death.
In the second and third year of university, I set my heart on getting a first Class degree, was the lead singer in a band, became a DJ, made an amazing group of friends and had a damn good social life – signs that things were better, especially as the previous summer I had been threatened with hospitalisation and had therefore gained enough weight to escape that.
But behind all this, my anorexia had made a little friend in bulimia – whenever I wasn’t busying myself with all the above, I was going to more dangerous lengths (vomiting, laxative abuse, diet pills which contained ephedrine, banned in most countries) to somehow feel better about myself. Of course, no matter how much weight you lose, it is never enough and it certainly never brings with it the promised state of ‘feeling better’, not even close.
It took me a three month stint in a specialised unit, a year in outpatient care and another nine months in hospital to get me to where I am now. Even after all that effort, hard work, stress and strain of fighting against an illness that clings to you, not wanting you to ever let it go, I still am at a low weight, still fighting every day to stay well enough to get by.
I am and feel a million times better and less scared, trapped and controlled by food, but I hope that my story will highlight a few of the truths behind some of the many misconceptions that are made about eating disorders.
Eating Disorders are serious mental health illnesses that affect approximately 1.6 million people – male, female, young, old, gay, straight, vain, plain – in the UK.
Eating disorders do not discriminate – they can affect anyone and anytime for any reason.
Eating disorders are not glamorous, nor are they the result of glamourisation through the worlds of fashion or celebrity – although social pressures may contribute to a disorder, they are rarely ever the cause.
Eating disorders are not a lifestyle choice or a diet gone too far.
Eating disorders CAN be beaten – though secretive in their nature and unbelievably hard to recover from, full recovery is possible. The support is there, just reach out.
Ilona Burton
Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2010 runs from 22 to 28 February. It is run by the charity Beat, which provides helplines and other support for people with eating disorders.
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19 February 2010
Do TV hospital dramas reflect reality?To what extent do TV hospital dramas reflect reality? Not much, according to Antony Sumara from Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. He particularly targets BBC dramas, but I doubt they are alone in ignoring good practice, patient confidentiality and attention to hygiene in the search for a gripping storyline, as he claims. Perhaps writers don’t feel that an episode of someone waiting for treatment or extolling the virtues of hand washing will draw those viewers in.
How well versed are you in what you can expect from your hospital stay? Every local NHS organisation is expected to produce a guide to local services and deliver that to all households in their area. This one is from Milton Keynes (PDF).
Have you read the NHS Constitution so you know which waiting times have been enshrined within it – no longer than four hours in A&E, for example? The constitution says that you have a right to be treated with a professional standard of care, though to be fair it doesn’t explicitly say that staff shouldn’t be sorting out their love life in corridors when they’re not treating you.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
4 Comments -
29 January 2010
I'll be there for youObviously I am always fully professional and look at the number of comments on Mind’s blogs from various contributors as a sign of what interests people and not as a popularity contest. Yeah right! After careful consideration, I am just going to review the antics of cute cats.
Why should it matter? Why do we need to know how many followers we - or others - have on Twitter or friends on Facebook?
A BBC article informs us that the average number of friends is 150 and that the ideal number of close friends is between six and 12. Your popularity at school is positively linked to your wage level in later life – excepting, perhaps, those people who are unpopular at school and then go on to pen/produce high school misfit movies. To add to the pressure there is now the necessity of having the right number of friends on Facebook (it’s 302) to have the most appeal to others.
It is widely accepted that having social support networks can reduce your likelihood of developing mental health problems or help promote recovery when you do experience mental distress. So stop taking the time to count and start taking the time to follow the advice of Raymond Tallis and cherish those precious friendships.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
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25 January 2010
Why I love being an inpatientA guest post by Marion Janner, founder of the Star Wards project
Hmm. Perhaps the only uncontroversial words in the heading are those with a character count below 4. That’s 3 of them (I’ve just started ‘tweeting’ on Twitter and am now obsessed with character count as each tweet has to be haiku-like petite, under 140 characters. I usually find it hard to express myself in under 140 minutes).
Anyway, returning to my own character, it’s been totally fucked over in the last seven years by the explosion of borderline personality disorder. BPD is actually as common as schizophrenia but most people have never heard of it. I hadn’t until many months after I became inexplicably hyper-depressed and started, completely bewilderingly, self-harming as a way of managing extreme plunges in mood (I go on and on about this in my website Mentalising). And when my partner of 20 years walked out on me, a month after our civil partnership ceremony and having forgotten to mention her plans to me, the suicidality started.
You might be familiar with OCD-type compulsions – hand-washing, germ-avoidance, safety rituals. My compulsion to kill myself is broadly similar. Although obviously with the opposite intention in terms of life preservation. It’s pretty exhausting (not least for my extensive team of therapists) trying to contain this force and all gets very messy when I decide to take an overdose as a way of flirting with death and simultaneously gaining a sense of being able to control my destiny when I sheepishly land in A&E to get the overdose reversed.
So. The chance of a break from having to internally manage my self-demolition urges is irresistible. Butlins is great, what with all the entertainment, slot machines and good grub, but it’s a lot to ask them to manage my suicidality. Whereas my lovely local, St Ann’s in Tottenham, may not have the slot machines, but they do lock me in and remove all tolerable methods of disposing of myself. Such a relief.
I’m a bit of a regular at St Ann’s, and the familiar staff team greet me with hugs and welcomes, perhaps temporarily forgetting that I’m a nightmare patient for them. For example. I’m 4’9” so not very tall, but while being ‘specialed’ via 1:1 staff with me 24/7, I’ve still managed to unscrew a lightbulb from the ceiling and use it to self-harm. All very David Blaine and presumably infuriating for staff. Yet they manage to respond to my relentless self-destructiveness with patience, understanding, non-judgementalness (?) and to use an old-fashioned term – compassion.
I love it there. I don’t need to worry about work or my weird eating nonsense or looking after my foster sons or (not) answering the phone or writing blogs or going to meetings or acting cheerful. I know from my work running the Star Wards project that St Ann’s is scarcely in the Premier League of hospitals, indeed it’s going to be knocked down and replaced. But it has exactly what I need, and what my friends and family need, to keep me safe and provide a little break from the overwhelming task of keeping it all together. There are very few days when I’d rather be at home than in hospital.
Marion Janner
Marion was awarded an OBE for services to mental health care in the New Year Honours list 2010.
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20 January 2010
Eating disorders - not just a female issueA guest post from Sam Thomas of the Men Get Eating Disorders Too website and campaign
Eating disorders is an issue that is often considered to be a female only issue, but it seems conditions such as anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder are on the increase among men, quite possibly at an alarming rate. Thus suggesting men are under more pressures than ever before.
Last September, a professor in St Georges Hospital in London had reported seeing more male than female anorexia cases. He said he thought that there was more prevalence in the women and girls than there was in males but that there is a particular increase among young men getting referrals. In a ward of 20, there were three male inpatients on average during the summer months, whilst in previous years it would often be the case that there were no men at all.
The NHS Information Centre published statistics last year suggesting that 2.7 million people in the country have some kind of disordered eating and men make up a quarter. This is a significant rise from the figure of 10 to 15 per cent of cases only ten years ago.
The reasons why more men are developing eating disorders is complex. Research carried out by the leading eating disorders charity B-eat has suggested that many cases of male anorexia are down to excessive bodybuilding and exercise. Various pieces of research have shown that men are getting increasingly dissatisfied with their bodies. The cultural endorsement of the ‘perfect body’ in men’s magazines could play a significant role.
Other possible triggers could include: family and home life, relationships, sexuality, faith, money and work issues. You may remember MP John Prescott revealing he was bulimic throughout his years in office as Deputy Prime Minister – this shows even the most seemingly tough and powerful men are susceptible to developing an eating disorder.
Earlier last year, I began a mission to address this need by establishing Men Get Eating Disorders Too, a website and campaign aimed at raising awareness of eating disorders in men, to enable men to seek support.
Having had bulimia throughout my teens and early adult years, I knew first hand the difficulties men experienced getting professional help. Many of the websites I had come across seemed to be targeted at women and I realised that this may put off men as it may make them feel they have a ‘woman’s illness’.
The website provides information and advice on eating disorders that is specific to men, and acts as a bridge to support services available. It's also a platform for men to tell their stories and get their voices heard, with a forum where men can share experiences and offer and receive peer support.
Sam Thomas, Men Get Eating Disorders Too
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19 January 2010
Mental health stigma alive and well and on the airwavesThe news that Manchester radio DJ Steve Penk played the Van Halen song ‘Jump’ for motorists delayed by a road closure when a woman attempted to take her own life from a bridge, is a stark reminder of the distance we still have to go to tackle mental health discrimination.
Apparently the request for the song came from local motorists inconvenienced by the closures, which the Revolution DJ honoured moments before she jumped. Although he is in no way to blame for what happened, few people would argue that his actions weren't in incredibly poor taste.
He has since stood by his decision saying "I don't regret playing it for a minute" and that he empathised with the inconvenienced drivers. It is a sad state of affairs when as a society we start to view someone else’s tragedy as a personal inconvenience. Surely if the frustrated motorists stopped to think that this was a human life at stake, someone's daughter or friend, they would not be so flippant. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one to suicide will know how terrible the affects are for family and friends.
Over 100 people a week take their own life in the UK. The fear of stigma means that many people experiencing mental distress feel unable to speak to loved ones and as a consequence they suffer in silence. I only hope that the publicity surrounding this event might make the public question their own understanding of mental health issues. In the 21st century, is it too much to ask that we show compassion and understanding for people who are in the depths of despair?
Mind and the Samaritans will be complaining to Ofcom about the show, and we urge you to lodge your own complaint. Please include the following information about the programme:Name of the show: Steve Penk at Breakfast
Radio station: 96.2FM Revolution Radio
Transmission date: Thursday 14 January 2010Please note that the Ofcom site wil not find any information for Revolution Radio. To make your complaint, just select "Continue" below the message that you get about this, and then on the next screen select "I saw/heard the programme".
Alison Kerry, Head of Media
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14 January 2010
Are antidepressants helpful for only severe depression?Making the news in the USA is research that indicates that mild and moderate depression are not lifted by antidepressants, which are only useful for severe depression (though the research methodology has come in for some critcism).
The research concludes that if a person experiences mild or moderate depression then medication should be just one of the options available.
This side of the pond, National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines already states that antidepressants should not be the first choice in treating mild depression but may be of use for people with a past history of moderate or severe depression.
Of course guidance and practice aren’t always in step and it was reported last year that prescriptions for antidepressants are on the rise and recently that GPs prescribe antidepressants even if they feel another treatment might be more beneficial as that treatment is not as readily accessible.
The government had pledged £173 million towards mental health care. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) scheme is designed to combat the reliance on prescribing medication for mental distress by offering accessible alternatives. There is some uncertainty over how the scheme is faring, with reports late last year that it has experienced difficulties, including only 400 of the required 3,600 therapists trained, although IAPT disputes this figure and other aspects of the article.
With any luck headlines about the best treatment options for depression and will strengthen the government’s resolve to keep supporting a wide range of treatment options for the millions who experience depression and other mental health problems.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
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11 January 2010
Let's blogA guest post by Zarathustra of the Mental Nurse blog.
It's not always easy for mental health professionals and patients to have an open and honest conversation with each other. In my own field, mental health nursing, we're often at the sharp end of the more coercive aspects of psychiatry - compulsory detention, restraint, rapid tranquilisation and so on. Such things may at times be an unpleasant necessity, but they inevitably put up barriers between staff and patient. Even in settings where there's no coercion at all - say, a CPN meeting with a patient on a community visit - there's still the structure of professional and patient, with all that entails in terms of boundaries, power hierarchies and so on.
So, where can all those involved in mental health meet as true equals to exchange banter, stories and the odd uncomfortable truth? I'd say one answer lies in blogging.
On my blog, Mental Nurse, we're keen to recognise the power of blogging as a way for people involved in mental health to tell their stories and debate with each other. That's why we host a weekly
round-up of the best in mental health blogs. On New Year's Day we hosted our own awards ceremony, recognising some of the writing talent that has impressed us and our readership over the past year.
Among the mental health blogs, one of the most popular is Seaneen Molloy's Mentally Interesting: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, recently adapted into an award-winning Radio 4 play Dos and Don'ts for the Mentally Interesting. Blogs like Seaneen's give the human story behind what it's like to live with a mental illness. Not just the experience of the mental illness itself (say, the experience of depression, or a mixed episode), but all the associated hassles and problems as well - the tussles with the benefits system, the side-effects of psychiatric medication, and so on.Sometimes these blogs give stark illustrations of the failings of mental health services. Mad Sad Girl's description of her time on an acute ward makes for grim reading, showing how frightening it can be to be admitted to such wards, and how physical healthcare for patients can be sorely lacking
For those looking for accounts of specific conditions, I can recommend Marine Snow and Obsessively Compulsively Yours for first-person depictions of anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder respectively. Borderline personality disorder is particularly well-represented in the blogosphere; Genius Gone Wrong, Becoming Hannah, Writing in the Margins of My Mind and Confessions of a Serial Insomniac all give insightful chronicles of living with that most-unfairly maligned of conditions.
As well as patients, there are a number of good quality blogs written by professionals. I can recommend Fighting Monsters and The Masked AMHP, both written by social workers, as well as Frontier Psychiatrist.
There's also some blog written by a bunch of mental health nurses, but I wouldn't bother with that one.
There's a third set of stories to add into the mix, and that's of carers. Schizophrenia - A Carer's Journal relates the fears and frustrations of a father with a son in a forensic secure unit. The Wife of a Schizophrenic is sadly currently inactive, but her back catalogue of posts is still worth reading.
The posts and comments threads of blogs provide one of those very few places where mental health professionals, patients and carers can engage with each other on a genuinely level playing field. I think that's an opportunity we should take. If you're new to the blogosphere, then the above recommendations are a good place to start.And if you don't like any of these blogs, then why not start your own?
Zarathustra, Mental Nurse
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8 January 2010
Can books help beat the blues?Harper Lee has Scout say it best in To Kill a Mockingbird: “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
People can turn to books for comfort or to match their moods. As noted in the news, Marian Keyes has told her fans via her website that she is experiencing a depressive episode. The post has a number of quotes, some from other authors that show a profound understanding of dark, low moods. A. A. Milne’s donkey Eeyore gets a mention, as might be expected. I think that this Eeyore quote captures it well:
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily.
"If it is a good morning," he said.
"Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."Notable on Ms Keyes’ site is the tremendous support from her fans, also demonstrating that she is not alone in her feelings. TashiK writes “Your books are the one thing that helps me through my bad day. I wish I could do the same for you.”
If only Ms Keyes could use her own books for bibliotherapy as others have done. Diane Shipley, who has declared her appreciation of Keyes’ work, gives advice on what and how to read when depressed. There’s even a website recommending books to read when you’re depressed.
A number of Primary Care Trusts have recognised the power of the written word and offer books on prescription. The NHS site says that reading books about various conditions “can bring many of the benefits of conventional medication without the potential side-effects associated with drugs.”
Here’s hoping that the power of books can help move those mired in depression forwards towards a lighter, brighter place. Again, Eeyore helps us put it all into perspective:
"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
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5 January 2010
Good to be grumpyShould I be concerned that our communications officer told me I should write a blog about whether it is good to be grumpy? Perhaps he thinks that I moonlight writing comments on grumpy old sod.
Or maybe it’s just because we’re all feeling a bit grouchy now that the festivities are over and trying to stick to all those new year’s resolutions is proving harder with each passing day.
Research from the University of New South Wales found that people who were put into a negative frame of mind acted in a more cautious manner, and through thinking things through more clearly than people who were in a positive frame of mind. So it isn’t about personality types and how that impacts on social interaction or thinking at all!
Other studies confirm that if you are in a bad mood you deliberate more on the issues than if you are in a good mood. Well, we can all think of occasions when our good mood or enthusiasm for an idea meant that the potential downside was not fully thought through.
Of course this doesn't mean that grouchiness is beneficial to wellbeing. No, in order to be a healthier person you’re going to have to engage in an activity defined by R. Parse as “buoyant immersion in the presence of unanticipated glimpsings prompting harmonious integrity which surfaces anew through contemplative visioning”. That’s have a laugh, to you and me. Now there’s a resolution worth keeping.
Bridget O'Connell, Head of Information
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23 December 2009
Coping with ChristmasChristmas can be a stressful time for anyone, but can be particularly difficult if you are living with mental health problems, and going through a down period.
Being alone at Christmas, dealing with complex family ties, managing on a tight budget or simply taking on too much can all have an impact on mental health. Every year Oxfordshire Mind, one of the 180 local Mind associations, gives people support at Christmas through community projects throughout the county, giving them a chance to talk about their concerns .
A Christmas workshop at one project revealed that most people’s concerns were emotional, rather than practical or financial, and a common complaint was feeling taken for granted by family and being pressured into spending Christmas in a way they knew they wouldn’t enjoy.
Single women in particular felt pressured by married siblings to ‘look after the parents’, and other people shared concerns over the stress of spending time with the in-laws.
Support groups then discuss how to plan coping strategies. Even if it is too late to make changes this year, they can look to the year ahead for what can be done differently next Christmas.
How would you like to spend Christmas? How can you make this happen and avoid any guilt or resentment? The groups discussed assertiveness skills for dealing with families, identifying a family member who is most approachable and discussing possible changes and alternative plans with them.
For those who do not feel able to assert their wishes about plans for Christmas, for example telling the family they’d rather go away with friends or spend Christmas day quietly at home, suggestions included planning a special treat for the new year. Perhaps a trip to the January sales, a weekend break or a special meal out – give yourself something to look forward to and remind yourself that you deserve to do things that you enjoy.
Christmas and New Year can be stressful times, but they are a great time to reassess ourselves, our hopes and fears, and make manageable, positive changes for the future.
Amy Whackett, Oxfordshire Mind
Find out about services at your nearest local Mind association
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16 December 2009
When the bailiffs callDebt, by its very nature, is stressful. You don’t have enough money for something, so you have to borrow some. You get into cyclical debt.
I know credit underpins our society and the modern economy, but there are a mind-boggling number of options out there and the number of newpaper articles and websites dedicated to giving people advice on how to juggle loans and credit cards clearly shows that we find credit a tricky area to navigate.
So imagine getting to the point where you have so many debts that they became unmanageable, that you just can’t make it all add up; that moment of realisation that the ends will not meet.
You receive your first red letter, a final demand, but you just don’t have the money, so maybe you tuck it away in a drawer. More red letters follow, they get tucked away, then a letter from the bailiffs. Why do they keep writing when you clearly don’t have the money?
Perhaps your creditor has sold your debt to a debt collection agency? How does that work? It soon becomes clear however when bailiffs start phoning, you now owe them the money. They call you, they write to you, they visit you, and they charge you for this ‘service’!
We have heard horror stories here at Mind about people being hounded by bailiffs who have called throughout the day, the evening and even on the weekend. Others report that when bailiffs come round they misrepresent their powers and are quite simply terrifying.
Recognising the connection between debt and mental health is not rocket science; money worries can both trigger and exacerbate mental distress. Last year at Mind we launched our In the red campaign and as part of this we’re calling for the regulation of bailiffs. The good news is there is movement on this front. The Government has committed to introducing independent regulation of the bailiff industry and is now taking this work forward.
But Mind still has concerns that the regulation may not be tough enough to stamp out bad practice.
The Ministry of Justice is handing regulation of the bailiff industry over to the Security Industry Association (SIA), the same body which keeps tabs on bouncers and wheel clampers. Mind is concerned that the SIA as it stands does not have sufficient powers to set rigorous standards, monitor compliance and take firm action against rogue bailiffs.
So what do we want? Well Mind is calling for the SIA to be granted new powers which would enable them to be the strong and proactive regulator (complete with teeth) which is needed for bailiffs. There also needs to be greater emphasis on mental health training and understanding within the debt collection industry.
Being in a situation of personal financial crisis can be devastatingly destructive to an individual’s mental health and sadly there have been many cases reported where a person has taken their own life because of their money problems.
The behaviour of debt collectors should not be allowed to compound a person’s distress, and we need the right regulation to protect the public from the tyrannical bullying which can potentially end in tragedy.
Mind is conducting a survey, which will inform our campaign, on the impact of contact with bailiffs on mental health. If you have had contact with bailiffs, please tell us about your experiences.
Vicki Prout, Mind media team
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10 December 2009
Psychotherapy needs regulating to protect the public
A guest post by Zarathustra of the Mental Nurse blog.Imagine you're a professional working with vulnerable people -say, a doctor, social worker, nurse or arts therapist. Suppose you then got struck off, maybe for breaching confidentiality, or for taking drugs in front of your clients, or crossing professional boundaries, or financially exploiting and verbally abusing them.
Or, if you happen to be arts therapist Derek Gale, for doing all of the above and promptly being struck off by the Health Professions Council as a result. One minute you're a successful professional, running something more resembling a religious cult than a therapeutic practice, merrily charging people large sums of money to financially, sexually and emotionally exploit them. The next you're off the HPC register and your lucrative income has been taken away from you. What's a poor abusive therapist to do, eh?
Luckily for Derek - though less so for the rest of us - there was a handy little loophole. All he had to do was call himself a psychotherapist and counsellor, and he could just carry on practicing as though nothing had happened. He could do it because "arts therapist" is a protected title, but "psychotherapist" and "counsellor" are not.
A protected title means precisely that - a job title that is protected by law from being used by any con artist, quack or yahoo. Doctor, nurse, occupational therapist, dietitian...these are all protected titles and you can be prosecuted if you use them without being registered with the appropriate professional body.Treat somebody's veruccas while pretending to be a chiropodist, and you can be fined up to £5000. But when it comes to sitting in a room with somebody who may have mental health problems or been terribly traumatised, and have them pay you to explore the deepest, most volatile parts of their psyche - anyone is allowed to do that.
It's worth remembering that the history of psychotherapy has examples of abuse by psychotherapists going right back to the foundations of the profession. Both Freud and Jung engaged in acts towards their patients that would be considered serious misconduct. Freud invented his entire Seduction Theory in order to dismiss his patients' accounts of sexual abuse as mere fantasies. Jung had a long-running sexual relationship with one of his patients, Sabina Spielrein.It's also worth remembering that psychotherapists, particularly psychoanalysts, have at times had a reputation for cliquey, even slightly cultish behaviour - a good read of Jeffrey Masson's Final Analysis provides some shocking illustrations of this. Without proper regulation, there's plenty of scope for an abusive therapist to do a lot of damage to already damaged people.
Psychotherapy isn't entirely a unregulated free-for-all. Professional bodies do exist. Over 70 of them are listed by the umbrella organisation, the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP). They tend to have rather Judean People's Front names - Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy, Institute of Group Analysis, Forum for Independent Psychotherapists, Association for Family Therapy, Institute of Family Therapy and so on. Each of these organisations have their own members register, and you can make a complaint against a member.
Complaints procedures vary from organisation to organisation, but these procedures often fall far short of what one might expect if complaining, say, against a doctor to the General Medical Council, or against a nurse to the Nursing and Midwifery Council.Depending on which organisation your psychotherapist belongs to, you may find that the complaints are resolved behind closed doors, with little or no accountability. You may be expected to provide your own counsel. You may find yourself expected to enter into a process of "negotiation and mediation" with the psychotherapist you complained against.
Such organisations tend to claim that the use of negotiation and mediation is to resolve any transference issues that might be the cause of the complaint, and to help resolve disputes informally. A more cynical individual (such as me) might suggest that they could be used in order to bully somebody into dropping the complaint.
Assuming that a complaint is successful and a psychotherapist is struck off by their member organisation, there's absolutely nothing to stop them simply going off and registering with one of the others; or indeed, not bothering to register with any of them.
Fortunately, this sorry state of affairs may soon come to an end. Moves are underway to make psychotherapists and counsellors protected titles, and for these professions to join their arts therapist colleagues on the Health Professions Council register. This needs to happen, preferably sooner rather than later. Only by doing so can individuals like Derek Gale be kept out of the psychotherapy profession, and members of the public can have the reassurance of knowing that when they pay for therapy, they're paying somebody who is accountable for their actions.Zarathustra, Mental Nurse
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8 December 2009
Cats to set up therapeutic centre?
A while ago I wrote a blog post about the fact that Derek Gale, an arts therapist found guilty of multiple and varied malpractice, is still legally entitled to continue to practice as a psychotherapist because counselling and psychotherapy is not statutorily regulated.This means that anyone can practice as a counsellor or psychotherapist – you don’t need any basic training and there’s no code of conduct that you have to adhere to. In my blog, I pointed out that Sorcha, my cat, could technically set herself up as a bona fide therapist.
Little did I know that an adventurous feline in Cumbria was soon to make that great leap into the psychological professions. Chris Jackson, presenter of Inside Out in the North East and Cumbria, decided to register pet cat George as a hypnotherapist in order to demonstrate the lax regulation of hypnotherapy.
Although I would be very surprised if one of the professional counselling or psychotherapy bodies would actually register a furry friend, the point is that you don’t even need to be registered with a professional body in order to practice as a counsellor or psychotherapist.
With hypnotherapy, counselling and psychotherapy all lacking proper regulation, it looks as though nothing will prevent George and Sorcha from setting up the first therapeutic centre to bill clients in milk and mice.
Admittedly, people do not need protection from rogue feline therapists. But they do need better regulation to prevent untrained or abusive therapists from continuing to practice. That is why Mind is campaigning for the statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors.
Mind is currently looking into what type of regulation and complaints processes users of mental health services would like to see in counselling and psychotherapy. Comment below or email Mariam Kemple to give your thoughts on the issue.
Mariam Kemple, Policy and Campaigns Officer
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