Posted in depression, For patients, Review, UK, tagged CBT, counseling, counselling, diagnosis, emotion, feelings, mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychotherapy, recovery, Research, therapy on April 28, 2011 | 1 Comment »
I noticed today that Depression Awareness Week is coming, according the website of the charity Depression Alliance. This year it’s going to be the week of 11th-18th April — oh — well, I suppose I’m in no position to complain that they don’t update their website very often.
Like many sources of information and self-help about mental illness, Depression Alliance have a fuzzy definition of what mental illness is, and that’s much more serious.
Posted in CBT, For patients, Research, Review, UK, tagged CBT, counseling, counselling, diagnosis, distress, evidence, mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychiatry, psychotherapy, Research, science, therapy on April 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
This month’s draft guideline from the health quango NICE on the long-term management of self harm provides a revealing perspective on the NHS’s inadequacies, which go beyond failures in the treatment of individual cases to NICE itself and the basis for its existence.
Posted in For patients, Review, UK, tagged mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychotherapy, relationships, therapy on March 3, 2011 | 4 Comments »
A Harvard professor of psychiatry and the law has published a pocket guide to help clinicians working in mental health avoid some common pitfalls.
It is possible to look at the guide from a patient’s point of view, and to deduce some warning signs of when therapy is going wrong.
Posted in depression, For patients, Research, Review, UK, tagged evidence, mental health, mental illness, NHS, Research on March 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
A recent analysis of patients’ comments about the NHS highlights a widespread problem, but comes to the wrong conclusions about how to fix it.
Posted in For patients, For therapists, Research, Review, tagged evidence, marketing, mental health, mental illness, reality, Research, science on February 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Posted in CBT, For therapists, Research, Review, tagged evidence, mental health, mental illness, peer review, psychology, psychotherapy, Research, science, therapy on February 20, 2011 | 2 Comments »
It seems strange to think that we are all hurtling through space on this big chunk of rock we call Earth. It’s OK when immersed in a science fiction story and disbelief is suspended, but for real? Weird.
Yet it’s the accepted view of things. Scientists tell us that it is so.
Posted in For patients, Review, UK, tagged HPC, IAPT, mental health, mental illness, NHS on February 18, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The Chief Executive of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, wrote to all the NHS Trusts yesterday to explain more about how the NHS in England will be changing over the next three years. His letter includes a timetable for the changes.
These changes are focussed on improving outcomes, on improving the quality of NHS care — care which currently results in a accelerating avalanche of complaints from patients and from the relatives of deceased ex-patients.
Posted in For patients, Review, UK, tagged BABCP, CBT, diagnosis, family, IAPT, mental health, mental illness, NHS, recovery, therapy, training on February 9, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Last week the UK government published its mental health strategy for England. It contains some good news for patients, and some not so good news. It has its critics and its supporters. Whatever your view of it, if your are involved in mental health in the UK its three simple principles are going to be important to you in the coming years.
Posted in CBT, For patients, Review, Techniques, tagged CBT, diagnosis, emotion, evidence, feelings, mental health, mental illness, NHS, psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, recovery, relationships, schizophrenia, therapy, training on January 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The wilful narrowness of much academic training for mental health professionals never ceases to astonish me.
Its worst effect is that those professionals who have the most impressive qualifications and titles can turn out to be be the least skilled treatment providers, which makes it very difficult for patients who are serious about recovery to find a competent therapist.
Posted in CBT, For patients, For therapists, Review, tagged Carl Rogers, CBT, childhood, diagnosis, mental health, mental illness, paradox, psychiatry, psychotherapy, relationships, schizophrenia, therapy on December 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Far away to the North, in Lapland, some say, Santa’s elves are elving away making Christmas presents ready for good little girls and boys. What would be on a mental health Christmas list, I wonder? Immediate response to every psychiatric crisis? Coordinated team treatment without any referrals or waiting lists? Effective home treatment that keeps people off medication and out of hospital? Perhaps, if you’ve been very, very good…
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