Should access to mental health services depend on you saying pronouns?

Jesus, please get the help you need. Urgently.

It's a standard form ensuring that all people are treated with respect. Nothing else.

Failing to treat trans people in need of MH care with respect can stop them proceeding to treatment.

That's very different to being offended when trans people are acknowledged to exist.

When my toddler had an operation, I had to tick the right boxes promising he hadn't smoked more than five cigarettes that week.

I hope that you're okay, and - honestly - don't let this stop you getting help.

It means the support is coming from a faulty source where the therapists training is based on falsehoods.

The NHS really cant do mental health at all, really. You'd think given the enormous need, they'd at least make a bit of an effort.

I was looking for support for a child and had to fill in a very similar form. Probably created by local NHS. The child in question's history included being told off by peers for not fitting neatly enough inside their gender stereotype box. The thought that they might encounter a mental health professional who essentially did the same by suggesting they were trans gave me chills.

But then I thought, I do feel able to challenge this kind of thinking now (especially as the referral wasn't for me) and persevered with the service. The professional assigned was very young..... And very sensible, thank fuck.

Thank you @Redtoothbrush, and I am sorry for the angst you have suffered. This is all so destabilising.
I am knowledgeable, of a mature ish age, reasonably assertive and used to work in the NHS. Still I felt so vulnerable in the face of seeking help from them and not fully trusting them. God knows how others without the advantages I've had are expected to cope.

One of the things that really sent me over the edge was stuff associated with my brother.

From what I know, mental health issues in family members of someone trans are not uncommon and are often directly related to the trauma on the family.

I'm not remotely surprised by the above two posters but it highlights a real issue.

There's lots of people for whom restricted access methods are really problematic. Autistic people are known to have real issues with telephones. They have a higher rate of mental health problems than the rest of the population. So naturally, our health authority makes all assessments phonecall only... There are absolutely no exceptions for a face to face assessment unless you are hospitalised then and there. It's appalling and not fit for purpose.

Not that the services are worth much anyway. But that's an entire topic of it's own.

... or like me and @MiraculousLadybug have been traumatised by it

I have had mental health support, in large part because of my reactions to losing my much-loved job as result of refusing to go along with gender ideology (transing a child).

Seeing NHS MH services signal their adherence to something so sinister and damaging presented me with an additional emotional barrier. This was not fair on me. I did see a therapist and luckily she was great. But it's pot-luck in the NHS.

Subsequently I sought private longer-term treatment and at assessment I had to request that the allocated psychotherapist was open-minded - and additionally (based on possibly false assumption, I know) I did not want someone young to work with me. I know how ideologically captured the therapy professions are, in their training and via their professional bodies. Look at what is happening to Dr P (Clinical Psychologist).

Discussing my experiences and reactions to them has formed a large part of the work we are doing. I needed to trust the person because I have all-but lost trust in so many institutions and individuals I used to believe to be thoughtful, ethical and professional.

I believe that is someone wants their therapist to use wrong-sex pronouns it is their responsibility to ask that at their assessment. It should not be thrust in the faces of the vast majority who don't know about this stuff, or who are actively against it.

Also being a detransitioner is part of my trauma that I won’t feel able to talk about in a MH service clearly designed by and for TRAs. How could I trust them?!

It’s just too inyerface and when I’m having a MH episode I can’t “just click through and pretend this isn’t batshit” this sort of thing absolutely would prevent me from accessing MH support. I am a detransitioner. People can piss off with their “what pronouns are you?” I don’t fucking know anymore just call me anything while you help me stop wanting to off myself. Mindless bureaucracy and rightthink when someone is vulnerable and needs help and is potentially having an identity crisis is not on at all. How does this cater for people with EUPD who have an unstable sense of self and could spiral if they can’t skip the question and are pushed into a concrete answer? How does it help EAL people access support? It shuts more people out than it helps.

Because therapy shouldn't be politicised by ideological bullshit.

No one should 'have' to categorically state their pronouns. In fact it could be completely counterproductive for someone who is in a state of flux about their identity. Which may be the very reason why they're attempting to access therapy.

Definitely worth getting in touch with the ICB. I've recently got in touch with two separate ICBs to enquire about/moan about lack of timely appointments given by a GP and a hospital department, and in both cases a quick phone call/short email prompted them to contact the GP/hospital department to find out what was going on.

In both cases, suddenly it was discovered that an appointment could, in fact, be found in short order, despite us previously being told that was a sheer impossibility. The GP practice manager was highly pissed off, but so what.

Gosh. I hope you get things sorted.

There isn't one, I've worked out the ICB may be an option. I am meeting a solicitor on Monday as there's significantly more that has been shared which is inaccurate.

There isn't one, I've worked out the ICB may be an option. I am meeting a solicitor on Monday as there's significantly more that has been shared which is inaccurate.

That is just not on. What is the GP equivalent of PALS?

If you want to complain op this is a link to Prof. Alice Sullivan's report on sex and gender data collection. Short version sex data should always be collected separately from gender identity. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-data-statistics-and-research-on-sex-and-gender/review-of-data-statistics-and-research-on-sex-and-gender-executive-summary

Obviously if you're feeling fragile then complaining is probably not high on your list of things you want to be doing right now. If you want to link to the form I'd be happy to complain on your behalf.

It's rubbish OP and I feel the same as you.

I don't write my pronouns, I don't have gender dysphoria but another illness that complicates pronoun use.

I filled in a form and ignored the gender question and they put me down as trans - it was a community organisation. They have now sent said form to my GP and so it's on my medical records and is one of the lies my GP is refusing to remove as they deem it part of my medical records

I now longer feel I can access GP care

That won't happen.

There will be more people hitting crisis before they end up with contact with the system.

It'd be interesting to see a bit of research into the effects of being met with a fucking bot when you're at a low ebb and seeking help.

I wonder whether accessing this type of shitty, low-rent 'service' actually has worse outcomes than not accessing it. A new kind of iatrogenic harm!

That said, OP, I hope you are able to seek and access some support from somewhere. Happy to try and help - PM me if you want to chat. Bear in mind I'm just a nobody on the internet with no qualifications, but I am at least human.

Quite but then the service will be less and less used and they'll say 'oh there's no need for mental health services' - having baked in inaccessibility at the start - and dump the lot, meanwhile the number of people harmed in ways big and small rises exponentially.

You'd almost think those designing these 'services' which do the opposite of what they purport to had a vested interest in the failure of the NHS.

I won't engage with it.

What's the point?

Mental health issues are so frequently about loss of human interaction, communication and connection.

One of my things has always been about not being processed like a sausage factory and being seen as a human individual.

I may as well just go online and do self help shit than engage with a bloody chat bot.

I definitely feel that my mental health has worsened through having to use AI chatbots or apps to do what used to be basic tasks rather than talking to humans (as in the good old days) in a general sense.

If you're elderly and alone these days presumably you can go weeks without talking to another human being if everything is done via app/ automatic check out etc. My elderly parents get so frustrated they can't pop to the post office to do things like they used to (their local post office has shut anyway, and their local bank branch). It's not natural for humans and I suspect very very bad for all of our mental health except the 1% profiting and squeezing every last drop of money out of us via this route.

Chatbots / inflexible AI gatekeeping preventing actual mental health help like this is what MAKES me depressed. And I suspect it would worsen the mental health of anyone forced to use it and that many people who are suffering the most will just give up, which I suspect is the point.

I hope some academic somewhere studies this, as I'm pretty sure this will be a universal experience.

It definitely breaches GDPR / Data Protection law as is collecting data it doesn't need. If there were massive neon letters at the start of the process flashing 'WE DON'T REALLY GIVE A CRAP ABOUT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH' it couldn't be clearer. Deeds not words and all that.