Relationship Advice

Hi guys,

I don't have autism, but I strongly suspect my boyfriend does so I am here asking for some advice. He also thinks he might have autism.

A) getting a diagnosis

Although he strongly suspects he has autism, but is reluctant to go through the effort of getting diagnosed as he doesn't see the benefit. I recently got diagnosed with dyspraxia, and found it made me feel relieved and better about myself to have a diagnosis, and better able to handle it. He doesn't understand these reasons. Would someone please give me an argument that might persuade him to get diagnosed?

He could get it done through his work place but he is worried about the potential impact on his career.

B) Communicating Needs

I have gone through a difficult time lately, and he can be what appears to be thoughtless or mean. I ask him to put himself in my shoes, and see how he would feel if I said those things to him. He told me he doesn't understand, he can't do that. I feel very hurt at times, even though I don't think he can help it, and it causes problems. Does anyone have any communication tips for me, for me to tell him that I need him to do certain things for me because I don't feel well without making him feel like I am a nuisance or that I am blaming him?

Parents
  • Getting a diagnosis of autism is a very personal thing which can be life changing as well as pretty traumatic. It can be an extremely positive thing but it is also often accompanied by a lot of loss and grief, so it has to be a personal choice.

    It is not a good thing to try to persuade somebody to get a diagnosis. Nobody, other than the actual person, can say whether they think it will be a good thing for them or not. If he was asking for reasons why other people decided to go for a diagnosis and what their experiences were etc, that's a different matter but it doesn't sound (from what you have written) that he is asking that.

    As for communication tips. It sounds like you want some tips on how to control his behaviour to make him behave in ways that meet your needs. Maybe a taser gun? Every time he doesn't behave how you want him to you can give him an electric shock and eventually he may behave how you want him to without the gun.

    If you're upset about something, then it would be more helpful for you to deal with that. Face it, do some inner work around it or whatever you need to do but don't expect someone else to make it go away by giving that responsibility to them. Even if your boyfriend did do these things that you want him to do, so that you could feel better, it would only be temporary and what if he's not around the next time you get upset, how will you stop being upset then?

    You can't control everybody into doing what you want and I'm sure your boyfriend can't be with you all the time.

    The NHS provide free counselling services which are often very good. It might be worth your while contacting them and they'll be able to give you some support around how to manage your emotions etc. When you take your focus off your boyfriend, and put it back with yourself, you can find ways to learn to deal with these situations more effectively and I'm sure your relationship and communication with your boyfriend will improve dramatically. And if he sees you taking responsibility for yourself and taking such good care of yourself, he might be so impressed that he decides to start looking into the possibility of getting a diagnosis. And when he does, you can direct him here where he'll get lots of support and he will be luckier than most of us, because he'll have your loving support as well which is priceless. Many of us dream we had a loving partner to support us with our 'autism'. He's a lucky guy as I'm sure you are too to have him in your life. It's not always easy being an aspie or being in a relationship with one but he's fortunate that he has such an understanding and accepting partner in his life. Best of luck.

  • The NHS provide free counselling services which are often very good.

    Come now BlueRay, working in the NHS as you do...you must know this advice (above) is misleading. The NHS do not offer free counselling,  the best they offer is group or short term CBT via IAPT, and this is only through referral by a GP for an existing and 'diagnosed' mental illness, such as anxiety or depression for example. And IAPT services are certainly not (sadly) available for people to use to routinely discuss or seek advice regarding their relationship difficulties. 

  • Hi AngelDust

    I didn’t realise the IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) Services were so sketchy across the country.

    They provide an excellent service where I currently live and also in other areas of the country where I’ve worked and lived. The IAPT services that I’m familiar with are self referring services or people can be referred by their gp or any other support worker. They provide a counselling service as well as CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) and other therapies. The IAPT service was established by the government in 2005, so it maybe that it hasn’t reached all areas yet or maybe some areas don’t offer a full range of services. However, the OP (original poster) could contact her local gp surgery and they’ll be able to sign post her to local services. There will be some kind of counselling support service available as local authorities have a big drive now to offer preventative services so it would be unusual for her to not be offered some kind of support.

    It doesn’t sound like the OP uses local services routinely and certainly if she doesn’t address her need for support regarding getting her emotional/psychological needs met, it will lead to depression and anxiety. I have used this service myself towards the end of my last relationship when I was in a similar situation to the OP so I have no reason to believe she won’t be offered similar support. I have certainly never come across an IAPT service that required users to have a diagnosis of a mental health condition. They are more about the prevention of mental health conditions.

    That’s interesting to note, however, that IAPT service are not the same across the country. I never considered that, thank you. They have always provided an excellent service wherever I’ve lived in the U.K, however, I’ll bare that in mind from now on. Thank you. 

  • I apologise if my user name comment was a mistake...to my knowledge I have never previously upset any poster on here in the four years I have been posting (other than NAS36741) and this therefore was the only (of 2) theories I have on why you would feel the need to repeatedly wade in and defend what you perceived to be an 'attack' on BlueRay. And thought I would offer it as a curve ball, in case it was true. You never know, it could have been?

    The thought did not even cross my mind to look at any of your previous posts and therefore I have no prior knowledge of you. Good point however, this is perhaps something I should have done first! 

    What I will offer is that I was challenging BlueRay as some of what he/she posted was not congruent with my own lived (20+ years) experience of NHS Mental Health Services (professionally, not as a service user.)  

    The 'Attack Vs Challenge' thing is problematic. What you view as an attack I view as my having challenged, questioned or outright disagreed with things BlueRay has said, (alongside agreed in places too) from what I had perceived as one 'professional' to another. 

    I don't agree, however, that challenging, questioning or disagreeing with someone is 'attacking them.' If I did I could just as easily accuse you of having attacked and continuing to attack me. 

    Are you attacking me or are you 'challenging, questioning and disagreeing' with me? In which case, please do explain what makes my posts 'attacking' and yet yours not? 

  • I'm assuming the troll comment was a mistake? If not, if you look up my username you will see I have been on these board since my diagnosis late last year.

    Thank you for replying to my request for help from you. I’ve looked at the links you provided and they don’t  specifically discuss NHS counseling services, which is what I thought we were discussing when I replied, so it’s no wonder I couldn't find the posts I thought you were referring to. I recognise that the links you sent mention mental health services in general and this has helped me immensely as I know understand it would be useful to clarify what your statements in posts mean.

    When I asked for the quotes of what I had I said that caused you offense I was simply asking for your help to understand you better, I wasn’t arguing with you. I wanted to read the quotes as being able to see what paragraphs or sentences hurt you and having you explain why would have helped me to hopefully phrase my points in a way that was less hurtful to you in future. I was trying to work with you rather than against you. It’s a shame you felt unable to provide the evidence I asked for.

    It does comes across as though you perceive differences of opinions to be attacks on you personally, even when there isn’t anything attacking in the posts. This then leads you to become defensive and attacking other posters. When you stated you felt I was trying to shame you and push you off these boards your comments did upset me, as that isn’t what I am like. I have tried to be as sensitive as possible in my posts but I don’t believe you show others that respect to others even though you want them to be respectful to you. You did come across as brusque, rude and attacking in your comments, even though neither BlueRay or me weren’t being like that to you. I noticed in one of your post you did mention that you can be like a dog with a bone when you don’t understand something and that is clear from this thread, however, it doesn’t excuse your behavior. I’d appreciate it if could start to consider how your posts impact upon other people and in turn be a lot kinder in your use of language when you respond to posts, especially to me.

  • PS, Just to further clarify my 'question' reply (I hope), I think where I am coming from is: if I believed in (and had experience of) the effectiveness of a metaphysical approach to mental health, then I would really struggle (personally) to see the point of using any other type of therapeutic approach with clients, as all other approaches would seem superfluous in comparison? Hope this makes sense?  

  • Oops, I replied in the wrong placeRelaxed

  • Oh dear NAS24859, I am finding your arguments increasingly tenuous. But if you insist…

    Would you mind quoting the statements where you felt I was trying to push you out? I didn't feel I was and was simply challenging the information you gave when I thought it was incorrect or I had a difference of opinion. As such, I am keen to find out what statements I made which were perceived that way.

    I think you will find that, from the larger context from which my ‘push out’ statement was taken, I clearly refer to this as a generalisation. 

    You say you wanted your premise to be challenged to help you see things from other peoples points of view but you seem upset when others do this. For example, you stated as fact that the NHS only deliver CBT therapy. I gave you the fact from my local NHS, which showed this was incorrect as that 2 out of the 6 therapies in my area are not CBT.

    I would suggest you have a good read of this previous conversation in which I clearly said…IAPT don’t offer other therapies other than CBT but they can refer into other NHS Mental Health Teams to access other therapeutic approaches. I therefore reiterate my point: IAPT don’t offer other approaches other than CBT but, and I quote myself again’ Other therapy approaches are hanging on for grim death in small pockets throughout the NHS which thankfully IAPT is still choosing to refer some of their clients to.’ I therefore did not, as you claim, write that the NHS only offer CBT, I stated IAPT only offer CBT. 

    I've kept my eye out for the masses of these posts over the last 5 days to help me understand where you are coming from but have not been able to see these comments in the volumes you express. Could you provide me with the links?

    Of course, no problem. All the following posts (sadly) describe difficulties, dissatisfaction and frustration with Mental Health Services and lack of effective or appropriate support available. I only went back 2 ‘pages’ though as there are just too many to list…

    http://community.autism.org.uk/f/health-and-wellbeing/11981/how-do-you-tell-your-therapist

    http://community.autism.org.uk/f/adults-on-the-autistic-spectrum/12075/non-diagnosis

    http://community.autism.org.uk/f/parents-and-carers/12071/nhs-treatment

    http://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/12092/self-diagnosed-as-autistic-1-year-for-an-nhs-diagnosis

    What I would like to put to you however is that, I think, NAS24859, that you are actually NAS36741 under a new account and you didn’t much like a reply I gave you a two weeks back…and you are perhaps therefore desperate to stick the boot in to me ever since in any (increasingly) tenuous way that you can?

    Who watches the watchers?

    That would be me.

  • Have no fear NAS24859, I am in the process of writing a response to you right now...

  •  As BlueRay is helping you, would you be able to post the quotes from my posts where you thought I tried int to shame you or push you off here? It would really help me to develop an understanding of how you think and feel. I could then be mindful of that when responding to your posts in the future.

  • Hi BlueRay,

    Thanks for this and thank you for persevering with me, I really do appreciate it.Relaxed 

    I have been trying to keep up with you and Deepthoughts convos so I can better understand. 

    The only 1 question I have left, which I really wanted to ask you was:

    Do you ever find (or have you ever found) that your Metaphysical principles clash with the theories or approaches of the other therapeutic models you use?

    I ask as, most therapies have their own underlying principles and theories upon which each therapeutic approach is based, and most (if not all) underlying theories disagree with each other as to the cause, purpose and approach to mental ill heath. For example a Person Centred Therapist would not employ the use of Psycho-dynamic techniques as they would disagree (clash) with one another in both conceptualising the clients problems and the subsequent approach used to tackle them. 

    So, genuinely and open heartedly interested: do you find such clashes exist in your work and if so, how do you consolidate these differences in your work/approach?

    Thank you again for thisRelaxed

  • Thank you. Yes, I was going to ask that ~ for AngelDust to list the questions and I will gladly answer them. I thought I had answered them but maybe I got mixed up with what the question was. Thank you. I would do well to learn how to word things as succinctly as you do, it may cause less confusion. 

  • Sorry for not replying sooner AngelDust. I initially read the brief reply you made but then missed the lengthy text you added later.

    I have no intention of being shamed or pushed off here for sharing my own 'viewpoint' as it were

    Would you mind quoting the statements where you felt I was trying to push you out? I didn't feel I was and was simply challenging the information you gave when I thought it was incorrect or I had a difference of opinion. As such, I am keen to find out what statements I made which were perceived that way.

    And, in my mind, this is what I have attempted to do here, by stating my premise and expecting that premise to be challenged until I change my viewpoint

    You say you wanted your premise to be challenged to help you see things from other peoples points of view but you seem upset when others do this. For example, you stated as fact that the NHS only deliver CBT therapy. I gave you the fact from my local NHS, which showed this was incorrect as that 2 out of the 6 therapies in my area are not CBT.

    In one of your earlier comments, you explained that..

    Even now (almost daily) there is currently three or four posts going on where people are struggling to access the professional help and therapeutic support they actually need from our mental health services. 

    I've kept my eye out for the masses of these posts over the last 5 days to help me understand where you are coming from but have not been able to see these comments in the volumes you express. Could you provide me with the links?

    You say you have questions that you want answering but instead of getting the answers you need myself and BlueRay are being unhelpful. It might help with clarity if you listed the questions you wanted answering then the replies could be written under each question.

  • Metaphysics is sometimes referred to a spiritual healing but that is different to faith healing and depending on the person you are working with, you might also use a more psychological approach but it will always be underpinned by metaphysical principles. 

    As far as people challenging me ~ now that I did miss! I see conversations and discussions not challenges ~ yes, this stuff does go over my head and I have been called naive and that I have Pollyanna syndrome etc etc but I don’t see somebody who has different views etc to me as disagreeing with me, they just have different views. I don’t get all this agreeing and disagreeing business. I don’t understand all that. When people say we’ll have to agree to disagree ~ why?!?!?!? I don’t get it. Why can’t we just have different views and leave it at that? Why do we have to say we agree to disagree? Why not just be happy with diversity? I love that we all have different views and see things differently. I find it enriching. I love diversity. You don’t have to feel ashamed for having different views from other people, in fact, I don’t think it’s possible to have the same view point as somebody else. And I don’t think it’s possible to be pushed off here, is it?!?!? Thinking

  • This is exactly what I was saying. I learned that if you focus on the problem, you live in the problem and your ability to see solutions is limited. If you focus on what’s good and what’s working, you are open to solutions to what’s not working. 

    I never said there aren’t any problems within the nhs. I don’t ignore them or live in denial. I’m well aware of the short comings of the nhs. I rarely visit doctors, I never took my son to see doctors when he was young. He went to the doctors a few years ago when I was out of the country. He was heavily persuaded to go by family and friends. They even contacted me to try to persuade him!!!!! I contacted him and told him NOT to go but after a few days of everyone around him being hysterical because they said he was so ill, and without me there to back him up, he eventually went and the doctor did what I said they would ~ they prescribed him antibiotics!!!! ~ which he didn’t need. He would have recovered without them. He’s never had them in his life before that. 

    However, there are so many things I am grateful for regarding the nhs, not least because they gave me my diagnosis but they also provide me with comfort knowing that if I did get into an accident, the nhs is there to receive me and help me as best they can. They are currently helping my dad. My sister and niece work for the nhs and they love their jobs. I have two other friends who work for the nhs and they also love their jobs which have provided, let’s say, a better quality of life for them. I have so many reasons to be grateful to the nhs, so many, and despite their flaws, they have improved so much in even the last 50 years. I could reel off so many reasons why I am grateful to them. 

    It is said that medical intervention, including drug therapies, is the leading cause of premature death in the western world. However, I am still grateful to the nhs and just like me, my family and friends, it’s not perfect, but they do their best so I’m not in denial of their flaws but I (or the nhs and patients) don’t benefit from being focused on them. 

    I previously answered your question [AngelDust] regarding my qualifications. You have misunderstood my excitement, passion and enthusiasm for what I do as defensiveness. I love what I do and I love talking about it and I know I can come accross as very confident, which you have misunderstood to be defensiveness, but it’s more about the passion inside me that fuels what I do. I’m not responsible for how other people take what I say but if you still have questions about my qualifications or what I do (after reading my previous answer), I’d be happy to expand. 

    The nhs or social services don’t employ me as a metaphysician, but that’s how I work, I can’t work any other way and although they don’t understand how I work (I didn’t understand it until 2014 when I discovered I was a metaphysician), they love what I do and encourage me to keep on doing it. 

    So yeah,  NAS24859 summed up very nicely what I was saying. Thank you , you summed it up very well ~ I haven’t yet learned the art of saying in a few words what takes me a whole essay!!! You can imagine what my text messages are like See no evil lol! 

  • I certainly prefer a cheery and optimistic therapist to once who focuses on negative.

    Haha, thank you for this. I must admit it did make me smile. I agree that it is really important to cherish the positive aspects and people in our lives, its very true. However, in therapy, I think it might be equally valuable if your therapist does focus on the  problems and 'negative aspects' of your life that have likely brought you to therapy in the first place. 

    It does appear as though your 'bashing' BlueRay by suggesting they are a fraud and can't be a therapist because of their viewpoint. 

    Its not BlueRays 'viewpoint' I am questioning as she/he seems (to me) to be a very interesting person whose posts I genuinely enjoy (and appreciate) immensely, a genuine sentiment I have often shared with her on here and highly likely will again. I also respect how supportive she/he has been to others on here too. 

    (* with regards to the Faith/Spiritual Healer comment, this was not actually intended negatively in ANY way at all, I am genuinely interested in hearing more about this as I find it utterly and absolutely fascinating, and this (comment) came from a previous comment BR made when she/he said they didn't even have to meet in person or even know the name or presenting problem of a client but could work with them therapeutically on a 'metaphysical' level as she IS a qualified and accredited Metaphysician. And I was not aware that the NHS employ those...are you? ) 

    In my 'viewpoint' my queries were more coming from a place of...if you were a mechanic (and really interested in cars) and you heard another person talking about car engines that run on candy floss, wouldn't you be tempted to challenge and ask questions about that? Wouldn't you want to know more about those engines? Can you imagine a mechanic alive who would not query that from a place of curiosity or utter surprise if nothing else? 

    And, in my mind, this is what I have attempted to do here, by stating my premise and expecting that premise to be challenged until I change my viewpoint. Have you never told a person in your life that you believe (from your own personal knowledge or experience base) that the information they are offering is incorrect or inaccurate? Not their opinion. But the information they are offering about a topic being discussed

    As one of those 'pesky negative people' who notice things though... I am extremely interested, however, in how it seems possible (to me) that everyone who does challenge or disagree with anything BlueRay says (who him/her self is not backward in challenging or disagreeing with others on here, which I respect) are being systemically shamed and pushed off here though.

    An interesting social experiment/phenomenon in progress, no?  And all the time you keep wading in to tell me how wrong I am to challenge the (what I am finding to be confusing and conflicting) information that I keep reading, my actual questions (about therapy) remain unanswered. Which is totally fine, no one has to answer them if they don't want to.    

    However, thank you kindly, but I have no intention of being shamed or pushed off here for sharing my own 'viewpoint' as it were.      

  • It is real shame that you seemingly felt the need to dismiss my genuine experiences and concerns about the state of our NHS by reducing ('reductio ad absurdum') my observations and opinions to the ramblings of a ‘negative person’ guilty of ‘NHS bashing.’

    I didn't perceive BlueRay comments in the same way as you Angel Dust. I work in the public sector (education) and have the same experiences of Blue Ray. Many of the people I work with focus on the negatives and due to this become unable see the positives. This attitude doesn't help and instead leads to low morale and poor performance.I had this attitude initially, as that was the way I was brought up and it caused me a lot of upset and distress. When I started focusing on the positives and doing what I could to change the negatives it made my working life a lot better. Rarely are things all good or all bad. I certainly prefer a cheery and optimistic therapist to once who focuses on negative.

    It does appear as though your 'bashing' BlueRay by suggesting they are a fraud and can't be a therapist because of their viewpoint. 

  • Hi BlueRay,

    It is real shame that you seemingly felt the need to dismiss my genuine experiences and concerns about the state of our NHS by reducing ('reductio ad absurdum') my observations and opinions to the ramblings of a ‘negative person’ guilty of ‘NHS bashing.’

    I think instead it is really important that people who work in the NHS face this reality in order to better fight this situation in an attempt to enable better services for our patients. And although it is very true that whining about something does not make it go away, it is equally true that being silenced about it, as I feel you have attempted to silence me, (or being in denial about it) does not make it go away either. 

    What I will offer is that, I have openly questioned you (with kindness intended and an open heart) about your work as I had believed we may have much in common and could discuss so much. However, instead, whenever you offer information about your alleged ‘therapeutic’ work or role, I tend to only gain more confusion from this than less. This naturally leads to my asking more questions as I am interested in this field. But it appears that my questions tend to make you defensive, lash out and start swearing instead.

    I cannot help trying to make sense of the things people say, until they make sense to me. I am also guilty of being 'hypersensitive' to incongruence, and I can tend to get stuck on a subject until it makes sense. I know my thought processes are ‘flawed’ in this way and therefore open to making mistakes. This is why I question.  

    I will therefore reiterate however, that, very little you have ever kindly offered has enabled me to believe that you are a qualified 'therapist.' What I currently do believe/understand, however, is that you work or have worked in a 'supportive role' (of some kind) within Mental Health Services and that your personal 'therapeutic approach' (which you described in another post) is more consistent with that of a Faith Healer, if you believe in a Supreme Being or a Spiritual Healer if you believe in a Divine Energy? 

  • I could just as easily focus on all the ways in which the mental health services are failing people, but what benefit would that be to me or anybody else?

    I worked with people who were so ground down with all the failures that they were losing, and in some cases, they had lost their passion for doing the job. And still, the services are failing, so I don’t see any benefits to focussing on failures.

    The NHS and social services are riddled with people who’s language, behaviour and actions centre around the failures. They talk about it and yet, the failures are still there and to top it off, they no longer like their jobs or who they work for. 

    I’m not saying I don’t encounter failures but that my focus is on what does work, what’s working, how can we make the best of what we have. 

    The mental health services were unable to help me but I didn’t see that as a failure. I just saw it as it was. They were unable to help me. My help came after I got the autism diagnosis and my work coach at the job centre thought outside the box and arranged for me to have support from a local social services team. 

    Most professionals I meet who work in the NHS are painfully aware of just how much the NHS and mental health services are failing people, nationally and they are no fun to be around. They don’t enjoy their jobs, they don’t like their employers, they seem to focus more on what the services don’t do rather than what they do do and they’re miserable to be around. I just choose to focus on all the incredible good they are doing. Like I said, they gave me my diagnosis and that was the best thing anyone could do for me.

    People have the unreal expectation now that the nhs and the mental health services, can magically wave a wand and suddenly make their lives better and when they don’t, they complain and say the service has failed them. Yet they are also often the first people to turn to the very services they condemn when they need help. For example, if they get cancer, they will turn to the nhs which doesn’t make sense to me. They spent most of their time talking about the services in a negative way yet they’re the first people they run to at the first sign of a difficulty. 

    Nurses and doctors and IAPT therapists etc are trained in a very specific way and most of their training is put together by the pharmaceutical industry. They study ill health, they don’t know much about optimal health so now we’re turning towards health as opposed to maintaining/managing illness, it’s going to take a long time before they find their place within society. Like most of us, their role in society is changing and they’re still a bit unsure of where they’re going. People go to the doctors with all sorts of things that a doctor hasn’t got a clue about but they have to some how do something otherwise the patient will say they failed them. It’s a tough world. I just think the people who are prepared to work for s**t wages in the nhs, the ones who genuinely love their jobs and focus on that rather than the failures, don’t deserve all the negativity that comes their way. 

  • I found them to be excellent and know a lot of other people who have benefited also.

    Sadly, I don't often see many of those people on here.

    Even now (almost daily) there is currently three or four posts going on where people are struggling to access the professional help and therapeutic support they actually need from our mental health services. 

    I am, however, really pleased when I do hear that someone has benefitted. And I agree, I too really prize and value our NHS. 

    However, the language and the conceptualisations you offer are not consistent or congruent with a knowledge base nor lived experience I would expect a professional working in mental health services to possess.

    Most professionals I encounter working in Mental Health are only too painfully aware of just how much the NHS and the Mental Health Service is failing is patients, nationally. 

    I therefore simplistically reiterate; I think you are very lucky that you have not encountered the same in your local area. 

  • I tend to work with what we have and make the most of it but in every area I’ve worked in, they’ve had an excellent IAPT service. 

    The mental health service is undergoing huge changes as they attempt to move to a recovery model but far from limiting the services, they’re actually expanding them. In terms of they are now bringing in more mindfullness techniques.

    Many of the therapies are based on the cognitive behavioural therapy model as they have found those to have the most effect. But I don’t get involved so much with what other people are doing. I do my work to the best of my ability and I stay away from hot topics. I do though have conversations with the psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists and they are all looking more towards a recovery model, which is a huge shift in how they work. This is something new for the NHS and is going to take a huge cultural shift but they’re doing their best. 

    I think the highly qualified therapists who don’t follow the cognitive behavioural model would be best suited working outside of the NHS so they can have the freedom to work in the way they work best. I’ve found there’s so much more freedom when working independently although one of my longer term goals is to somehow bring my work back to the people who access NHS support as I found they also benefit greatly from my work and I enjoy the more hands on approach I have with those clients. 

    For me, I don’t get involved with the debates. I see how the NHS services are evolving to a more recovery/therapy based model, despite the onslaught they’re under from the pharmaceutical companies so I think they’re doing a great job. We’ve come along way since the days of dipping people in cold water while strapped to a chair, to try to relieve their mental torments so for me, it’s all good and this shift, to a recovery model, is going to take a long time, a lot of effort and a lot of changes and a lot of money. 

    The NHS have to work to evidence based practices so they have to make the best of what they’ve got. There are however, many more so called ‘alternative’ avenues to good health these days so people have now got more opportunities available to take their health in their own hands and seek out support that they think will work best for them. 

    I think we’re living in pretty incredible times, in terms of diversity. People no longer have to rely on the nhs/pharmaceutical companies to help them manage their symptoms, they can now seek out services that aim to work at the level of the cause to achieve optimal health and vitality. It’s currently not so easy to get long term studies done in the so called ‘alternative’ fields as most if not all, large scale studies are funded by the food and pharmaceutical industry but there’s enough evidence around to give people the confidence to listen to their own bodies/listen to themselves and seek to find the cause to their difficulties and then the solution, in diet/lifestyle choices as opposed to drugs and long term therapy. 

    I’m hugely grateful to the NHS. They gave me my diagnosis of autism and for that, I will always be grateful to them because it changed my life and made me realise I do belong on this planet, that I am a human being afterall. So I can’t knock the nhs at all. They’re also currently looking after my dad who is undergoing treatment for cancer, very well. Their methods are in almost total opposition to my approach to health but this is what my dad wants and I’m grateful the service is there for him. The nhs might not get everything right, all the time, but neither do I, so I can’t judge them and I wouldn’t, especially not after getting my diagnosis and from behind the scenes, most of the people who work in the nhs are very hard working, good honest down to earth people who don’t earn a great wage but they do an incredible job. On my first day working in a nhs mental health team I basically insulted the lot of them but by the time I left that contract, I had seen what an amazing job these people do, day in day out. I couldn’t do it, even if I wanted to, my autism wouldn’t allow it, so I take my hat off to them and I saw their value by the time I left. So I won’t knock anybody who works in the nhs or the organisation. It’s doing its best and I think that’s all any of us can do and for those who don’t like or want to deal with the nhs as the primary source of health care support (like me) there are plenty of other options.

    The nhs might be free but it’s not compulsory, we don’t have to use their services. 

  • Yeah, this has been my experience NAS24859 of IAPT. I found them to be excellent and know a lot of other people who have benefited also. Glad to hear it worked for you too Blush

  • No, I still believe IAPT are this restricted. They are built on a 'business model' premise of offering quick fix, short term therapy being central to their whole approach to mental health. 

    I just believe that any other therapy is hanging on for grim death in small pockets throughout the NHS which, I AM glad to hear, some IAPT services are still choosing to refer a select few of their clients to. 

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  • No, I still believe IAPT are this restricted. They are built on a 'business model' premise of offering quick fix, short term therapy being central to their whole approach to mental health. 

    I just believe that any other therapy is hanging on for grim death in small pockets throughout the NHS which, I AM glad to hear, some IAPT services are still choosing to refer a select few of their clients to. 

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