Mental health services are shambolic

Just a rant!

It seems that these days the only groups who might benefit from mental health services  are those who are severely ill (been sectioned and are in hospital), and those with stress related anxiety and depression, who have access to Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT): 6 weeks of CBT in a GP surgery or brief telephone contact. But if you have a chronic anxiety condition as a complication of having a developmental condition like autism, there is hardly any mental health provision!. I know this from first hand experience; you might get 6 weeks  of CBT, which barely scratches the surface of your problems, and are then expected to get on with it yourself, until the problems you face mean you need more CBT; and so it goes on  in swings and roundabouts with no real progress!.

Isn't it about time this diabolical state of affairs changes? And what precisely is the Autism Strategy doing to ensure that adults on the spectrum with chronic anxiety get the intensive (more thaan 6 weeks in many cases) therapy they need?

Parents
  • Yes, and at my clinic mental health services now share the same space as physical health, meaning that the clinic is noisier. At least when the clinic was mental health only, I ran little risk of bumping into people I might know, and even if I did, they would be sharing similar issues. Everyone knows how stigmatizing mental health conditions can  be, and yet the managers think nothing of putting all the different services (sexual health, children's clinic, elderly health checks) together!. It is also now a nightmare getting through to anyone on the phone; last time I tried it took me a whole half an hour, and I almost gave up. When mental health had its own clinic, I could get through to someone very quickly.

    Things seem to be getting worse, not better!

Reply
  • Yes, and at my clinic mental health services now share the same space as physical health, meaning that the clinic is noisier. At least when the clinic was mental health only, I ran little risk of bumping into people I might know, and even if I did, they would be sharing similar issues. Everyone knows how stigmatizing mental health conditions can  be, and yet the managers think nothing of putting all the different services (sexual health, children's clinic, elderly health checks) together!. It is also now a nightmare getting through to anyone on the phone; last time I tried it took me a whole half an hour, and I almost gave up. When mental health had its own clinic, I could get through to someone very quickly.

    Things seem to be getting worse, not better!

Children
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