Your thoughts on this waffle please?

[Vision]

Latest waffle from the "all in your mind" brigade
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publications...ance/DH_123759

[mrb]

My thoughts vision? Well I think your description of it as waffle is as good as any! I went to see my GP a couple of years ago to enquire whether my antidepressant could be made more effective by adding in another medication to augment it. This is very common in other countries but not of course here! He referred me to a community psychiatric nurse who visired the practice. This CPN was apparently a "link worker" - whatever that is. When I saw this individual I got told that the med I was on was not usually prescribed as a first-line treatment for depression as this did not comply with NICE recommendations! Needless to say he knew nothing about adding in medications to AD's. Of course he was quick to mention Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to assist with depression and I was even quicker to respond that I wsn't interested in this! I'm not opposed to it as such, and it does help some people, but I'd tried it before (off my own bat) and not found it helpful. I was also quick to tell him that CBT was being introduced primarily for mercenary, as opposed to genuine health, reasons as it was held that this "wonder treatment" would soon pay for itself by getting claimants off Incapacity Benefit and back to work. It will do neither of course and in any case recent Governments have a much better way of getting people off sickness benefits (but not into work) and that is, as we all know, simply by altering the criteria thus making it much harder to qualify! He seemed unperturbed by anything I said but his waffle about low and "high intensity workers" on these CBT schemes didn't impress me one little bit. I later discovered that these "Improving Access to Psychological Treatments" schemes would also have DWP officials "embedded" within the teams. But of course how could it be otherwise as we all know that "WORK is good for you" even when your health condition means you're quite unable to undertake it! So really seeing this link worker was a complete waste of time although it did enable me to send him an article about a man with mental health problems who was told that he had to undertake a course of CBT as part of an employment scheme. These are not compulsory of course and with the intervention of his GP he was told he didn't have to attend! Needless to say I received no reply from the link worker - there are new jobs in these daft schemes for psychiatric nurses etc and many will find that more attractive than worrying about whether the "therapy" provided is of the slightest use!

Kind regards

Mr B

[belvederebabe]

CBT did not work for me either time.....nor did psychotherapy now |I really must get to bed...lol

[ians13770]

I prefer edible waffles! Indeed it does seem as though its a lot of hot air.

[Lil_Missy]

I am being kicked off by my CMHT worker because I am too stressed and anxious to do any more therapies because I always fail when they want me to go out and do things on my own. I am only able to go to a select few places with my husband or I get panicked and stressed. She says there is nothing more the CMHT can do for me so is discharging me back to my GP.