Lived Experience Forum

[Willy]

Hi Bismuth,

You might like to Check out Dr Niall McLaren. He is a retired Australian psychiatrist who writes a lot about psychiatry. Sometimes his articles waffle on a bit but he has some interesting stuff to say.

Here is a link to one of his better and more interesting articles. 

The Story of a Professional Delusion: Do Psychiatrists Believe Their Own Words? 

Regards
Willy

[Historylover]

Hello, @Willy. People in position of power always look after themselves, otherwise their own position would be challenged. There is an established pecking order in society, and the powerful only do that which ensures it is maintained in their own favour. The more things change the more they stay the same. 

Psychiatrists, psychologists and other sundry folk are being paid to attend, to chat, to experiment with procedures, to change medication/dosage etc. To enrich themselves at the expense of the trusting and the vulnerable. How many patients are actually exiting the system, fully cured? And how many suicide while in treatment, and how many who were unable to reach treatment? Why the backlog? No-one is exiting the system!! And no-one is being helped, really helped.

How do they assess the competence of these so-called professionals? Do they ever assess their work, their outcomes, their patient suicide rate, left treatment unsatisfied/further damaged rate, are they benefitting from shares in clinics, hospitals etc. There are NO checks and balances for these folk. It is simply assumed their word is true, and reliable, that they have integrity. 🤣 Pardon my mirth.

This is just Groundhog Day. Anyone who thinks something will change has to stop and ask themselves how often they have thought that before.

I hope you're doing well, @Willy. 

[Appleblossom]

Hearing and concurring re Politicking and Groundhog day.

@Willy @chibam @Bismuth @DogMan79 @Historylover 

I asked for patient suicide rates of practitioners and organisations to be reported. 

I guess it would be the coroners job.

70,000 CTOs is a lot. It would make sense of the bureacratic box ticking, rotation of staff to a point of nonsense and paperwork incompetence I witnessed in November.  Now its time to feel sorry for the system... eye roll.

Love and Hate the humour in Nials's book title.

@moderator I am at the point I have to laugh as I have cried enough.  Decades worth.

Yes my personality tends towards HOPE. It seems to spring eternally, but sharing a few hard earned observations on the way.

[Basil]

Hey everyone,

It's great to see people engaging in this discussion. Mental health reform is something that is very close to all of our hearts, our health and our life experience and as we know, if we aren't discussing these things and wanting to work together towards change, there is no change. That being said, it's also really important that we don't discourage people from seeking help when they need it most. 

Similar to @Appleblossom, something that has remained integral to my recovery is maintaining HOPE. I very easily fall into a space of hopelessness, and when speaking about a system in general and global terms - that is where my hopelessness thrives. 

I personally find it helpful to remind myself of two things. 

1. to zoom out (in history) and be reminded of the significant changes that have occurred over time, whether it is in Mental Health or with many other areas of our society. Significant change is possible, but it takes time, and may not be linear! 

2. remind myself that no massive group of people are all bad. There are some pretty incredible mental health professionals out there, fighting from within, or are just so great at their job. 

Also, if this discussion is bringing up anything heavy for anyone, please feel very welcome to reach out to the SANE helpline during the week on 1800 18 72 63, the counsellors would love to hear from you ❤️

[chibam]

Such a wealth of truth in your post, @Willy , I can't possibly go through and hail it all point-by-point. I'll just be concise and say that your spot on as always.

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@Bismuth wrote:

@Willy  Just cheering on the idea that more years at University don’t make you a better mental health worker. When I was as young as 16, I was already remarking that the best nurses and psychologists had effectively managed to forget everything they’d learned at uni. I considered psychiatrists so far gone as to be beyond hope, but perhaps I was wrong there. I’d dearly like to meet a psychiatrist that disproves that, but unfortunately I haven’t yet.

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If I ever did turn to a therapist again, I would hope very much to get one who had no formal mental health education whatsoever. Give me a therapist who was hired right out of highschool. I wouldn't even say no to a highschool dropout.

That's the sort of therapist who I suspect would come from a perspective I could relate to and trust. And they wouldn't be contaminated with all the junk that is forced upon our currant therapists in college; the rubbish that, IMHO, makes them so much more arrogant, and so much less compassionate.

Many of you may remember that a few months ago, SANE was doing a survey on what people thought about a program they were planning for recruiting people like us into the "Peer Worker" workforce, and, as I understood it, it involved doing a course.

I never said anything at the time, but this really, really boggled my mind.

The supposed value of "Peer Workers" is in the clarity they have about the suffering and needs of people in their predicaments; knowledge that the so-called "experts" seem to be sorely lacking.

Yet the gatekeeping process to determine someone's worthiness for being a "Peer Worker" is apparently their ability to absorb (and presumably regurgitate) a formal course - presumably cooked up by a so-called "expert". Apparently, they seem to be hired based upon their retaining of this alien material, and not upon who they are, what they have suffered, and what they can tell the world about what sufferers like themselves need. Is there any actual requirement that a "Peer Worker" has suffered at all, or has any direct understanding about the needs of a mentally ill or suicidal person? For all the checking that is doubtlessly done that all the "Peer Workers" have all their training diplomas, is anyone actually checking whether these people have any personal insight into what it is to suffer?

I just did not understand the logic behind that practice at all. If your gonna hire someone to be a lived-experiance expert on suffering, you want the direct insight that is already in their head, not some textbook junk that's been crammed in there by the education system.

[tyme]

Hey @chibam ,

Some very interesting points there! 

I'm grateful you raised them regarding the Pathways to Peerwork program.

In terms of this 'course', it looks at supporting those in the community with 'lived experience' to develop the skills to work in the industry. When I say 'skills', this does not refer to their own expert story. Rather, it looks at skills such as using various computer applications, and software; how to maintain boundaries; preparing participants to understand what they may be faced with in the industry and how to navigate it.

I hope this clarifies things.

tyme

[chibam]

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@Basil wrote:

2. remind myself that no massive group of people are all bad. There are some pretty incredible mental health professionals out there, fighting from within, or are just so great at their job. 

---

The big issue with this is that good people can still do terrible things, when they are footsoldiers under an ugly regime.

Yes, there are probably a multitude of good people who are therapists, but they all opperate under the regime of the modern therapy industry, which is woefully broken from the highest levels. Thus, the "good therapists" have their hands tied by bad industry doctrine, and are often compelled to do bad things, under threat of seeing their careers destroyed.

Niall McClaren, who's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, has written several pieces about young therapists he's encountered, who have related their misgivings about the terrible practices of the mental health system to him, and have been told by higher ranks to keep mouths shut, or else face being blacklisted by the industry. Niall himself has apparently copped more then his fair share of professional abuse for his whistleblowing about the system's ills.

Most "good people" don't have his level of guts. Doing the right thing is often very hard and very painful. Most of us tend to chicken out.

[chibam]

Okay, @tyme , I can see how some of that might be useful; so long as it remains respectful of the sufferer's own insight. For example, with regard to maintaining boundaries, a peer worker may understand that the reason why the system let them down badly was because it's stiff boundaries made it incapable of creating a meaningful connection/understanding with them, ect.

[chibam]

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@Historylover wrote:

Psychiatrists, psychologists and other sundry folk are being paid to attend, to chat, to experiment with procedures, to change medication/dosage etc. To enrich themselves at the expense of the trusting and the vulnerable. How many patients are actually exiting the system, fully cured? And how many suicide while in treatment, and how many who were unable to reach treatment? Why the backlog? No-one is exiting the system!! And no-one is being helped, really helped.

How do they assess the competence of these so-called professionals? Do they ever assess their work, their outcomes, their patient suicide rate, left treatment unsatisfied/further damaged rate, are they benefitting from shares in clinics, hospitals etc. There are NO checks and balances for these folk. It is simply assumed their word is true, and reliable, that they have integrity. 🤣 Pardon my mirth.

This is just Groundhog Day. Anyone who thinks something will change has to stop and ask themselves how often they have thought that before.

---

So damned true, it hurts to read, @Historylover . We need perspective like this in all the big decision-making arenas surrounding mental health.

I often find myself haunted by a question you posted somewhere else on these forums a while back: "If we're being helped, why hasn't anything gotten any better?" So simple, and to the point. This question needs to become a daily check for the whole industry; a slogan that defines the reforms we seek, if you will.

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@Historylover wrote:

How do they assess the competence of these so-called professionals

---

A while ago, I was watching some recordings of police interviews with criminal suspects. There's the bit that most people will be familiar with from TV shows, where the detectives presiding over the investigation will ask the suspect all the pertinant questions about the crime. But then, after all that is done, the detectives leave the room, and a completely differant cop, who (as I understand it) is from a totally differant department to the detectives, comes in to the room and asks the suspect a whole heap of questions about his treatment by the cops up till that point; whether they were beaten/abused, whether they were coerced in any way; whether they felt threatened; whether they were talked in to saying stuff that isn't true.

The realities of cronyism aside, it is, in theory at least, a way for a mistreated suspect to be placed in a safe space away from her/his abusers, and to declare their mistreatment, without fear of reprisals.

We need something similar for therapy patients. A confidential debriefing, at the end of every treatment (and periodically throughout for extended treatments), where a patient can honestly disclose to some third party, anything and everything that's wrong with their treatment, secure in the knowledge that these statements can never be disclosed to the therapist.

I hope things are going well for you at the moment, @Historylover . 🙂 If your gonna ask, their about the same here.😐

[Historylover]

Great to hear from you, @chibam. Personally, I don't see any way to correct the system. None exit the system, and society just keeps creating more damaged people—customers—to support the system. A veritable production line. As for independents interviewing post-consultation—there really is no such thing as an independent person. That they are in a position of power indicates where their priorities lie. Power corrupts. They all discuss later whether by verbal or non-verbal means. Nothing is confidential and none are unbiased. They are all occupied with looking after their own interests or bowing to peer pressure. And too few patients have the education to be able to assess whether they are being helped or not. I didn't.

Another problem I see is that if a psychiatrist is actually doing his/her job, when a patient leaves a consultation, he/she automatically begins to digest the content of their interaction. If someone intervenes, that process becomes disrupted and may become less beneficial.

The so-called 'mentally ill' are a societal creation. As you once said—narcissists are in their natural setting in the 'helping' professions, or words to that effect.

I'm keeping busy with one thing or another, at the moment. I guess it's much the same for you. 😊