Blogging about mental health issues
Each week we publish blog posts on a whole range of topics, relating in some way to mental health — written by Mind staff, service users and health and policy professionals. Some blog posts may not reflect official Mind policy.
We welcome comments and questions on our posts, but have a few ground rules to keep the site welcoming and interesting to every body. The first rule is the most important: be respectful of other commenters and bloggers.
Talking therapies:
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22 May 2012
Agoraphobia and the fear of 'what if'I have been in a particularly chronic phase of severe agoraphobia for three years now and despite a round of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in 2009 over the phone, I just wasn’t making the progress I wanted to. I started dedicated self help, which got me to a certain point of recovery, at least able to get out into the street for a few minutes, a marked improvement!
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19 March 2012
The race of my lifeThree years ago, Amy's agoraphobia made it difficult to leave the house. Next month she'll be lining up in a crowd of thousands to run the London Marathon. Here, she blogs about how she found a way to manage her anxiety.
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10 February 2012
Mental health in relationshipsI’ve been (and still am) a relationship & family counsellor for nearly 22 years. Over that time I have seen first hand the problems and discord that mental health problems cause in couple and family relationships.
I believe the stigma that unfortunately remains around mental illness creates an atmosphere of suspicion and fear in not just couple relationships, but close and extended family relationships.
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25 January 2012
My creative therapyAgata, who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, tells her story and describes the comfort art has brought to her life.
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2 February 2011
No longer a second class citizenOn a visit to a local Mind a couple of weeks ago, I met Helen (not her real name) who told me about some of her mental health experiences. She started having problems when she was at school, but nobody thought about mental health, so she was put down as the “class oddball”.
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28 October 2010
Please, I’m desperate. Can somebody help me?This guest post is published on the day Mind and the We need to talk coalition start discussions with the Government about how best to ensure that the new money promised for talking treatments is spent properly.
I had a huge wake up call a year and a half ago, when I discovered that the mental health care that I needed simply wasn’t available in the county I had moved to. I had moved just before I had my baby boy to be close to family, and in preparation for this, I had ensured that my notes had been passed on to the new health teams and that my GP was aware of my history. I then had a very traumatic birth experience with long lasting physical consequences and then dropped into a severe bipolar depression complicated by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
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21 October 2010
What does the Spending Review mean?While pundits pour over the details of what has been announced in yesterday's Comprehensive Spending Review and what it might mean for people, we've started to see how these public service cuts might impact on people experiencing mental distress.
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20 October 2010
Comprehensive Spending ReviewUpdated below.
Today the Government will announce its Comprehensive Spending Review. I know many of our supporters – and people across the country – are braced for bad news. After the announcement, there may still be many areas where plans have not been finalised, which means there is still time to continue to fight for benefits, services and opportunities for people with experience of mental health problems.
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15 October 2010
Waiting more than a year? We need to talk now.After months of work, we’ve finally completed our investigation into the provision of psychological therapies in England. We’ve led this work as a member of the We Need to Talk coalition, a body of organisations all campaigning to improve the provision of talking therapies.
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28 July 2010
Music, cats and talking therapiesObservant readers of the Mind blog will know that I have a bit of a thing for cats. I also work in the policy and campaigns team at Mind that fights for mental health services users to have better access to effective therapies on the NHS.
You can imagine my glee when
these two important areas of my life came together in this article. It turns out that meditation music helps cats relax. Apparently, just 40 minutes of this music will have a dramatic effect on a cat’s ‘stress score’.Brushing aside my initial shock in response to the fact that cats actually have a ‘stress score’, I can’t help but wish that I knew this information a couple of years ago. My cat at the time, Sherbert (may she rest in peace), was diagnosed with anxiety. Yes, you read that correctly. She had bitten off half her coat after weeks of harassment from the neighbour’s overly-aggressive cat. The vet prescribed a course of antidepressants that did nothing but raise my anxiety levels whenever I had to force feed them to her each morning. If only she’d been offered music therapy our lives would have been much simpler!
Unfortunately, the situation for us humans isn’t always that much better. Many people still need to wait far too long to access alternatives to antidepressants, the range of therapies available is often extremely limited and, in some cases, medication is the only treatment option. That is why Mind is leading the We Need to Talk campaign that is calling for the NHS to offer a wide range of evidence-based psychological therapies to all that need them within 28 days of requesting referral. Sadly for my cats, this campaign is strictly humans-only.
To find out more about the We Need to Talk campaign, click here.
Mariam Kemple is a Policy and Campaigns Officer for Mind
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19 April 2010
Why I choked on my breakfast cereal this morning...Get involved
•Ask your MP and parliamentary candidates how they are going to improve access to talking therapies
•Tell us about your experiences of talking therapiesRegular visitors to our news and blog pages will know that we’ve recently celebrated the manifesto hat-trick scored by the We Need to Talk campaign. All three major political parties have used their manifestos to pledge to improve the provision of psychological therapies. As Paul Farmer’s latest blog post argues, we should definitely see these commitments as a great step forward – we’ve achieved a consensus from all the main parties that access to psychological therapies needs to get better.
You could therefore forgive me for choking on my breakfast cereal this morning as I turned to page 13 of The Times and read this. According to this article, 40 mental health foundation trusts have been singled out for bigger cuts than any other area – the cuts equate to a reduction of an extra £50 million!
Although we all have to appreciate that funds are tight and savings will need to be made in the NHS, it is unjust that yet again mental health services are seen as an easy target when it should be thought of as anything but. As we know, one in four people experience mental distress throughout their lives and there is no reason why they should accept a reduced service any more than those needing physical health services.
These proposed cuts show more clearly than ever that a pledge alone is not enough – we need action. Although I remain encouraged by the parties’ commitments to improve access to psychological therapies, we must keep up the pressure to ensure that words turn into deeds. You can help us achieve this by getting involved in our election campaign. When candidates come to your door, ask a mental health question – just what would they do to improve access to psychological therapies in your area? And don’t forget to take our survey on your experiences. Only by working together can we consign treating mental health services as a “soft option” for cuts to the waste bucket of history.
Mariam Kemple is a Policy and Campaigns Officer at Mind
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16 April 2010
What do the party manifestos mean for mental health?
This week, the election campaign is fully under way as we see the parties launch their manifestos. It's probably the best indication of where mental health sits as a priority for a new Government.
The signs are encouraging, with some recurring themes. The Labour manifesto promises to increase the number of therapists (although makes no promises on reducing waiting times), and makes a clear commitment to tackle stigma.
There's also commitment to the mental health of ex-servicemen, and support for people looking for work. Labour Election Co-Ordinator Douglas Alexander defended his party's commitment to increasing the number of therapists on the Radio 4 PM programme on 12 April (this is available to listen to until Monday 19 April. You can hear the discussion 17 minutes in to the broadcast).
The Conservatives too support an increase in talking treatments, and plan to improve services for veterans. Their manifesto also addresses work issues for people who are long-term unemployed.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats, as well as sharing support for more therapists, outline an increase in mental health funding which in turn generates a long term saving to the economy under Vince Cable's stewardship.
So far so good. But all make reference to tough times ahead, and we are already hearing of some mental health services threatened with cutbacks, particularly in London
So what does this all mean?
First of all, this election appears to be extremely close. There's a chance for all of us to influence the outcome, and to quiz candidates on their views on mental health, so I'd encourage as many people as possible to engage with candidates, and vote.Politics doesn't exactly have a great reputation at the moment, but we can all influence that. Just ten years ago, Mind lobbied hard to change the law to give psychiatric inpatients the right to vote in a general election. It's vital that this right is upheld – so as a first step, make sure you register to vote by 20 April.
Secondly, it's a credit to our We Need to Talk partners that there's widespread recognition of the need for further development of access to talking treatments, and much needed at a time when funding cuts could threaten this.
It is clear that mental health is now recognised by all three parties as an important issue, and one which could emerge as a touchstone in a new Government. The way society treats this issue should be a litmus test for good government.
Let the campaign continue!Paul Farmer, Chief Executive
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26 March 2010
Therapy turned my life aroundTell us your experience of psychological therapies on the NHS
I had my first experience of psychosis at age 14 after years of abuse and neglect in the family home. People can argue psychosis is completely biochemical and has no bearing or connection to people’s own life experiences. Even at 14, I knew this was not true, because the voices I heard were of my abusers; the screaming I heard was my own. I got no support from child psychiatry except punitive threats, and then later on I was put on medication. But does a tablet cure abuse, loneliness, stigma and isolation?
I so desperately needed to talk about what was happening to me, but I was left alone in my living hell full of demons but no one to talk to about it. I kept asking for psychological therapies, and kept being turned down for it. The reason I was given is that talking therapies cannot help people with psychosis.
My psychosis did not go away; medication merely turned me into a zombie. It made the nightmare foggy but I still could see it and feel it. I still attempted suicide, still self-harmed and was generally self-destructive.
I waited 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years before I finally got a course of cognitive behaviour therapy. And guess what: it turned my life around. It helped change my thinking, and make sense of my experience, and it made me feel like a human being for the first time in decades of mental health ‘care’.
I am now actually living a life, such as undertaking a degree. The screaming has stopped. I think this is because my voice had been finally heard and didn’t need to be turned into a scream nobody else heard.
There are other people screaming, and nobody hears them, and they give up and commit suicide. I know people who attempted or committed suicide whilst on the ridiculously long waiting list for psychological therapies. Nobody would dare to say to someone with a broken leg, "we can treat you in a year and a half, take the pain."
I support Mind’s We Need to Talk campaign because psychological therapies gave me my life back, and because I no longer want people to end up in the ground because nobody is listening to them.
Dolly Sen
Dolly Sen is a writer, film-maker, performer, musician, artist and mental health consultant.
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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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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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