Skip to main content
Forums Home
Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Forum News and Updates

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

I had a bad experience with a therapist at the pain clinic today - I can't even read the guide lines right now let alone try and write something - I feel confused

 

It seems as if someone got into my pretty lily-pond of life where I could see all the fish in there and they muddied the waters. It was been a really tough day and busy as always but I did ring Life Line - 

 

I thought I would read other posts before I posted - I'm glad I did - I normally get the best out of everything I plan and if things don't work out I change them and I will in this case but I really don't know if I will share about this or not

 

Dec

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

I really like the second point of changes you are suggesting about being a little careful about negative comments on particular outside services. 

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

Thanks @Former-Member 

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

I'm surprised to read that the original guideline is being moderated in an inverse way compared to how it's written.
Reading the original guidline itself, I'd think "we should be sharing stuff about that" not "we shouldn't be sharing things that criticise that". Interpreting it that way, or writing it one way with the intent to moderate it in another way, seems disingenous to me.
So I think moving it to a comment rather than a guideline is a better move.
(Beside the point, but what's with calling them "guidelines" when they're clearly "rules"?)

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

I have a problem that goes beyond this.

Reporting on negative experiences in the mental health sector DOES NOT BREACH THE GUIDELINE OF ENCOURAGING HELP SEEKING BEHAVIOUR

 

I have attempted to raise this issue a number of times

 

I am an active help seeker, always have been always will be. I'm firmly of the opinion that nobodyis an island and most things that need to be done are best done with team members and allies by one's side.

 

That being said I do not understand HOW IT IS THAT SANE BELIEVES THAT IT IS BREACHING HELPSEEKING ENCOURAGEMENT TO TALKA ABOUT VIOLENCE, ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION?

 

I even had a post deleted telling people about the ROYAL COMMISSION INTO VIOLENCE, ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES IN ALL ENVIORONMENTS AND SETTINGS AND ABOUT THE HOTLINE THEY COULD CALL FOR  INFORMATION.

 

how, in the name of all things reasonable is REPORTING ON A HELPFUL SERVICE FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED VIOLENCE, ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION AND THE TRAUMA RESULTING FROM SUCH EXPDERIENCES POSSIBLY BEING INTERPRETED AS NOT ENCOURAGING HELP SEEKING?

 

HOW IS ANY REPORT OF GENUINE AND REAL ABUSE DISCOURAGING HELP SEEKING? RATHER THAN MAKING SURE THAT PEOPLE ARE AWARE OF THE RISKS AND BENEFITS? SOME PEOPLE MIGHT REPORT HARM OTHERS MIGHT REPOR HELP, IF THERE IS A FEAR THAT ALLOWING PEOPLE TO REPORT HARM WILL TAKE OVER AND NOT BE BALANCED BY THOSE WHO FOUND THINGS HELPFUL ISN'T THAT A SIGN THAT WE HAVE A VERY SICK SYSTEM THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE AND THAT APPROPRIATE HELP SEEKING IS SEEKING HELP FOR THAT CHANGE?

 

HOW CAN A PERSON SEEK HELP FOR A PROBLEM IF THEY AREN'T ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT HTE PROBLEM THAT THEY HAVE??? CAN YOU EXPLAIN THAT TO ME? IF I REPORT ABUSE AND TALK ABOUT ABUSE, ISN'T THAT PART OF DISCUSSING WHAT HELP IS OR ISN'T AVAILABLE OR NEEDS OT BE SOUGHT OR PROVIDED FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED ABUSE?

 

WHY IS TALKING ABOUT SOMEONES BELIEF THAT THEY HAVE 'DEPRESSION' NOT CONSIDERED TO BE 'DISCOURAING HELP SEEKING' WHILE SOMEONE TALKING ABOUT ABUSE IS?

 

IF I BELIEVE I HAVE 'DEPRESSION' AND I SEEK HELP FOR IT, WHY SHOULD I NOT BE ALLOWED TO SEEK HELP FOR HAVING EXPERIENCED ABSUSE?

 

AT NO STAGE HAS ANY REASONABLE BASIS BEEN OUTLINED ABOUT HOW DISCUSSING REAL ABUSE IS DISCOURAGING HELP SEEKING - IT'S JUST SEEKING HELP FOR A DIFFERENT PROBLEM, ONE THAT IS WELL AND TRULY IN THE WHEELHOUSE OF DISTRESS.

 

THE DEFINITION OF 'MENTAL HEALTH' IS CHANGING AWAY FROM A DISEASE OR DISODER FOCUS AND TOWARDS THE SENSE OF WELLBEING AND DIGNITY THAT ALL HUMANS DESERVE TO ENJOY. THIS CHANGE IN DEFINITION IS BEING CHAMPIONED BY THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION AND THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR DANIUS PURAS, IT HAS FEATURED PROMINANTLY OR BEEN THE SOLE TOPIC OF HIS ANNUAL REPROTS FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS HE IS THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON THE RIGHT TO QUALITY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE - SO IMPORTANT IS THIS TOPIC THAT IT HAS DOMINATED THE REPORTS RELATING TO BOTH PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS AND COUNTING.

 

SO WHY IN GODS NAME WOULD IT BE CONSIDERED 'DISOCOURAGING HELP SEEKING' TO DISCUSS ABUSE? THE HARDER IT IS TO FIND HELP THE MORE IMPORTANT IT IS TO FIND HELP, DISCUSSING THESE ISSUES IS NOT DISCOURAGING HELP SEEKING IT IS ENCOURAGING BOTH HELP SEEKING AND THE PROVISION OF GENUINE HELP WORTH SEEKING

 

PLEASE FIND THE LATEST REPORT FROM THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR BELOW, THE PRESS RELEASE THAT SUMMARISES THIS REPORT IS STILL PENDING

 

https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/41/34

 


@s-jay wrote:

We’ve been listening and have heard members when they tell us that its difficult when their posts get moderated for talking about negative experiences seeking help.

 

So in response to your feedback we are taking action and want your input on how to improve.  We are reviewing the guideline below that currently sits under Safety:

Screen Shot 2019-06-27 at 1.11.53 pm.png

(please share helpful content, focussed on wellbeing, recovery and help seeking behaviours) 

 

As well as feedback from members we also find it tricky from a moderation point of view.

 

We honour those that have had very real difficult and negative experiences seeking help within the mental health service sector. We know that the support system does struggle to allow for the complexity that exists in mental health issues.

 

People should be able to get support from their peers about this. At the same time we also need to acknowledge the positive experiences and also be extremely mindful of how discussions may impact another person’s help seeking/recovery journey. For those that may still be in a process of gaining courage to reach out, we want to be sure we do not leave them feeling a bit deterred to take that next step.

 

The guideline above has the right intentions, but it is too broad and leaves too much room for interpretation. This results in inconsistency – things being over or under-moderated. The suggestion is to remove it as a direct guideline and instead add it as a comment to the bottom of that section.

  

Posts that are seeking support from peers about a negative experience they had are not against the guidelines, though mods/community managers will probably join in the discussion. Also, if the post named a specific organisation, there is still the guideline about defamation that could be relevant.  

 

The other update we are looking to do, is to add a guideline under safety that states:

  • Do not post ongoing / repetitive criticism (three posts in two weeks) of a service or the service system. If you are unsure of where to raise your concerns email team@saneforums.org for information on feedback mechanisms.

The goal of this guideline is to help avoid impacting another person’s help seeking journey. We are not trying to silence anyone but instead redirect them to us so we can help you take that feedback to the right place – as the purpose of the forums is social and emotional support

 

We are really keen to hear your thoughts on the above? How do these guideline updates make you feel? Do you think they will be beneficial to the community?

 




 

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

HI @utopia 

 

I guess the problem about thinking carefully about what you write is multifold, it can lead to people censoring themselves and not feeling like they can express distress or strong emotion. It is also important to recognise that people might not be able to carefully vet things when really distressed - or whether they should? If so how should they vet them? Should they change what they say to make it factually inaccurate? It's a really slippery slope. I think its very, very dangerous territory in this context.

 

Unfortunately what the moderators aren't making clear is that they have been interpreting people actually reporting their own experiences of abuse and harm and asking for help and support in seeking safe help or calling for change in the system, or letting people know about help available (even really official help like the national hotline for abuse of people with disabilities!) as being 'against help seeking behaviour' and causing people further trauma by making people's attempts to talk about trauma and distress experienced in services disappear - often without warning or notification. This is really scary for me as a person who has experienced so much harm and attempts to silence that harm.

 

On the other hand I don't understand why it's considered to 'discourage help seeking'.

 

It's not criticism in the sense of 'being mean' it's reporting serious harm and abuse and discussing the impacts and the risks. It's seeking help, it's talking about what help is (or isn't) out there - it's raising problems that a person is seeking help for. I'd be far more concerned about preventing that: after all help seeking is supposed to be safe, if I learn that its  not safe to go to a particular service, and that prevents me from going to that service and instead seeking a safer one is that 'discouraging help seeking'?

 

If I don't seek help from that service and doing so would have landed me in an abusive and dangerous situation is that a bad thing?

 

There is an assumption that 'abuse doesn't happen to most' or 'abuse doesn't happen to all' makes it ok to ban talking about abuse because there is some perceived (slim or otherwise) chance that a person won't be abused in a particular service: or they might not consider the behaviour abuse.

 

The latter is particularly tricky: what if the person has been harmed and they don't know it yet? Eg. they might not know what psychological abuse is or how it has affected them? Does that make the abuse ok?

 

I guess a final issue - that's a really important one is that talking about harm and abuse creates the change we need - it is the sunshine that has long been accepted as an important part of social change.

 

Beyond Blue just launched a new life coach program which requires no medical referral and is completely nonmedical and doesn't call anyone 'mentally ill' or say they have 'mental health issues' I am guessing this is happening exactly because of all the people talking about how they don't seek support because they don't want to be drugged, labelled and medicalised and how harmful they have found that.

 

Talking about abuse and harm creates change which creates more services that cater to more non-harmful approaches for more different people with different experiences - so it makes no sense to me to say it is  discouraging help seeking rather than making it more possible and safe. What scares me much, much more is that the real agenda here is to silence people talking about abuse - to keep that abuse hidden and actually prevent people from seeking help for it. Sadly that's really common. Really common. So terribly common it breaks my heart. 

 

Sushine doesn't discourage help seeking it IS seeking help. Silencing abuse isn't encouraging help seeking - it is literally and directly preventing people who are currently seeking help by speaking out about their abuse and asking 'what do I do?' from seeking it.

 

It's also quite abusive to silence people who speak about abuse so I really don't know what sane is thinking! but I dearly hope they stop, because it's so scary that they are entertaining this reasoning that it's ok to silence asking for help in speaking about abuse in services - why should we not be allowed to seek that help or discuss the need or it or the resources available?

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

@Owlunar 

 

I wrote this reply to you, but now i re-read your post and wasn't sure if I understood correctly: I thought you were concerned that you weren't welcome to share your bad experience at the pain clinic? Sorry if I misunderstood but this is how I felt when I thought you did and I was really grateful for your post (sure I'd be grateful for it anyway, but just in case I misunderstood):

 

Thanks so much for your post. I've been feeling really freaked out about this situation.

 

I've had so many of my posts suddenly deleted by moderators for talking about how rough things have been  - i'm so sorry that the post made you feel like you couldn't talk about your day or how hard things were, but thanks so much for speaking up about how this guidelines issue has made you feel.

 

It really hurts to feel alone and like it's only you who feels a certain way, makes me question reality and adds to my trauma.

 

I hope the moderators see reason and nobody has to feel censored for talking about what they are going through because of this stuff. I believe it really helps to be able to talk and what was all that stuff about breaking the silence again? Seems to me the more we are allowed to talk about how things are and figure out how we need them to change the better help there is out there.

 

Wishing, hoping things change soon and good sense and reason prevail.

 

In the mean time really hope thigns get better for you

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

Hi @Fredd50 

 

I felt upset at the time and confused -  I had a headache and couldn't seem to make sense of the guidelines - and yes - it increased my feelings of being alone with the "stuff" though that settled with time

 

But yes - it is pretty rough to have trouble with a professional service and we do feel isolated when such things are concerned and I was totally off-balance

 

We need to be able to share our feelings at such a time and one would imagine that this would be the place to do it - 

 

But I am okay now

 

Dec

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

Actually @Fredd50 

 

Since I saw the last private therapist I saw I have been thoroughly cured of seeking help - this last encounter only proves it -

 

It seems the system is unregulated and people should not be having negative experiences when seeing a therapist - it's a thoroughly confusing area and seems to have no regulation - why is that?

 

While I think discouraging someone from seeking help is negative making them aware of the truth - therapists vary and this one or that one might be wrong for someone - this is something to check out in advance of commitment - maybe it could be useful to make people aware of that

 

Dec

Re: Have your say: updating a guideline

Thankyou  @Owlunar  @Fredd50 @TheVorticon  @utopia  @Adge  @eth  @eudemonism  @Former-Member    @Appleblossom  @Shaz51  @Gazza75 

 

@Owlunar  – so sorry to hear you had a difficult experience with a therapist on Friday and that it has impacted out significantly. Also that you found the guidelines and this hard to read in that moment.. Really glad to hear you were able to ring Lifeline and talk about it here.

 

@TheVorticon & @Fredd50 – definitely agree with you that it can be hard to understand how that guideline was interpreted in that way. But that’s is why we are taking action - I think it does just come back to how broad it was so there was so much room to make different meanings depending on your own experiences.

 

Also on the point why they are called guidelines rather than rules, I think the thinking is that because they were co-designed by the community and are updated and changed based on what the community consensus is. They do evolve over time (right now being an example of this).

 

Thank you everyone we will be taking all feedback on board. We are in agreement with everything that’s been stated here in this thread. We are working hard to stay across the latest developments in the sector and also improve how we moderate. We are not aiming to remove posts that discuss negative experiences seeking help, abuse or trauma because that's what they are talking about. That is why we are updating the guidelines. There are also other guidelines that will still be relevant on these sorts of posts such as the graphic detail guidelines – IE the need to minimise the method of abuse to help avoid triggering others but instead talk in general terms about method. But in our review we found out that some were interpretting the guideline above to mean that there could be no critique of help options..

 

Thank you again to everyone this consultation will be open until tomorrow morning.

Illustration of people sitting and standing

New here?

Chat with other people who 'Get it'

with health professionals in the background to make sure everything is safe and supportive.

Register

Have an account?
Login

For urgent assistance