Ive come to the conclusion that people in this profession are winging it.

[ihatethecold]

Mental health workers, especially people involved in any way, shape or form with helping children/ teens with MH issues.
It's an absolute travesty.
Right across the board I am shocked at how they really don't seem to know how to help young people.

Gp services that don't have a clue so won't prescribe anything and just refer you to a service that is so overstretched your child has to be practically dying before they will help them.
They genuinely don't know how to help.

Camhs, so underfunded that you wait absolutely ages just to get an assessment, to be told they will treat your child but the waiting list is a year long. They will refer you to a psychiatrist but that takes weeks. then they forget to put the referral in!

Private therapy, now this really is a shocker. You would think if you are paying (and this really isn't cheap) you would be seen by a professional that has some solid ideas of how to treat MH issues.
Its so wishy washy. I've never felt so ripped of in my life.

Counsellors with their own agenda. Took us 6 months to realise this.

School support workers. They deal with school kids that need support because of all sorts of needs. Lovely people but they really don't get MH.

One family support worker linked to the school said that self harming was ok and children need to do it to relieve their stress. How the hell is that right?

After 18 months of trying to get help for my DD14 I have come to the conclusion that they are winging it. No one seems to have any solid ideas that will help her manage her problems

Unfortunately Ive become an expert in severe anxiety in teenagers. Ive had to so I can support her.

Its just so depressing seeing how bad the services are.

I dont want or mean to offend anyone in this line of work but it just seems to be endemic that no one really has a clue.

Yes, I think that psychology does attract some people who either have their own issues or like the idea of viewing others as curiosities, as cases rather than people.

Sure there are good practitioners out there too but not met any personally.

Once paid £50 for a shockingly bad and rude Relate counsellor. Never again.

It's the system though ( which I have personal experience of and completely understand your frustration !)

After a 3.5 year slog im almost finished with a degree that will still only put me roughly half way (time wise ) to what I would need to do to qualify as a psychologist . So I think winging it is a stretch !

Camhs is a mess but largely due to underfunding.
I'm a mental health nurse. If my days are spent "winging it" then God please help me. I am exhausted and terrified that someone is going to die on my watch because of inadequate resources and a heavy unsafe reliance upon agency staff who are quite frankly shit and incompetent.

They closed down an amazing award winning women only psych ward near me because it was too expensive. They helped so many women. Instead of learning from them and using that ward as a model they just fucking shut it down.

I'm glad I'm not too bad at the moment, thank God. It means I don't have to deal with MH very often.

As I said. I apologise if I’ve offended anyone.
I just haven’t come across anyone as yet that I have any faith in.

2 years ago my eldest child (adult) developed psychosis and tried to commit suicide 8 times in a 4 month period. He was constantly in A + E because of this.
The crisis team were awful. I had to push for them to provide appropriate care for him. The psychosis team changed his key worker 3 times in 6 weeks.
They absolutely refused to section him unless I refused to take no for an answer.
1 time in 8 months did they agree to provide a mh bed for 1 week.

He is only still here because of the support we constantly gave him when he decided he didn’t want to live.

I am now there every day helping my dd cope. I can’t work because her mh is so inconsistent.

Yeah agency nurses can be real bitches. They want to do as little work as possible. Seen that a few times. I'm sure not all. But seen it a lot.

Really sorry to hear you've had such a ghastly time, OP.

Op Iv had an almost identical experience with a very close friend that you describe in your last post . It's horrendous . Im sorry you are going through all that but I honestly think it's underfunding over individuals been uncaring , not bothered etc
It's extremely sad

I've had my own YEARS of mental health issues (massively traumatic childhood). Now doing Masters in Psychology and Neuroscience.

The blunt truth - nobody really knows a lot about most mental health issues. And there are many harmful "experts" often in mainstreams roles who don't have a clue. Psychiatry is a terrible sham that often does very real harm (and i say that as someone who would normally very much consider the "educated expert" as the go to person).

What do you do? No easy answers. If you think a counsellor is not good pull your daughter out of there. Keep trying to find the person who will be able to help. Have very low expectations of any NHS interventions.

Best of luck.

People can and do recover OP, no matter how ill they have been. There are really great psychologists in the NHS, it's just getting referred to one that's the big issue.

It sounds like you've been through a horrendous time OP. I'm really sorry that you feel let down. When you feel like this it can be easy to lose sight of any positives at all - is there a single therapy/intervention/individual who/which has been helpful? Can you identify what it was that helped and seek more of that?

At least can you identify what exactly it is about your own support which is crucial to your DD and is there any way this can be duplicated without putting more strain on you? You're obviously doing something right and sometimes professionals need to hear from you about what works best for your child. You may have already tried this but I mention it just in case it's been missed.

You don't mention medication and I know that many people including professionals can be very anti-medication when it CAN be a literal life saver. Neither my DH nor my DS would be here without anti-depressants. Has any drug treatment been tried?

Aren't we really only in the infancy of understanding a lot of mental illness and mental health conditions? Diagnosis often isn't straightforward or clear-cut and the best treatments we currently have for many conditions are not fast nor fabulously successful. From a policy perspective, we haven't put nearly enough focus on mental health. The underfunding in day-to-day service on top of that makes everything much worse. I'm sure I would be raging if my daughter was suffering and had been treated as your has OP. I totally understand your anger.

If your child is anxious and the nhs can’t help then you need to look at ways of managing it without that intervention.

Exercise, diet, vitamins, clubs

Yoga, hypnotherapy etc

I would be doing this if the help is as useless as you state

MH in all honesty is a minefield and a postcode lottery

I'm so sorry you're having such a hard time of it OP.

We went through ten types of shit with CAMHS, who were not just useless, but actively damaging to our situation as a family and didn't help my dd one bit.

However, social services were great. My daughter's mentor at school was great. I don't know where we'd have ended up without them.

And the Michael Rutter Centre was great - part of the Maudsley. DD was lucky to be referred there and had 18 months of DBT group and individual therapy with a counsellor who really got her. DH and I also had counselling there which helped us massively. There are pockets of great practice. There are amazing therapists. You've just not had one yet. I don't think it's because therapists are generally arseholes, I think it's because human beings are so damn complex that it takes an exceptional person to unpick the knots, and there simply aren't that many exceptional people around.

My DD has been hospitalised twice, two suicide attempts, diagnosis of depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder. She left school with two GCSE's and has a long history of self harm. However, she is 18 now, has loads of friends, and a full-time job in the NHS which she's brilliant at and really enjoys. She still has her struggles but there is no comparison to where she was even a year ago.

Please don't lose heart. Keep doing what you're doing for your dd. You sound so knowledgeable and competent, so much more than me.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rutter_Centre_for_Children_and_Adolescents

Psychiatry is a terrible sham that often does very real harm (and i say that as someone who would normally very much consider the "educated expert" as the go to person)

And you're doing a masters in psychology and neuroscience? Good god.

I seriously hope that none of the posters who have piled in on the OP actually work in mental health (or even health), although it appears that some do. SUCH a lack of empathy.

OP - vent away - no need to apologise that's what Mumsnet is about. If some people are so entrenched in their own issues that their first thought is to attack you, then that says everything about their level of insight and skill. I can't add anything wise - dealing with young people's mental health is so difficult and it sounds as if you have more than your fair share of challenges. It's small steps isn't it?

Do you get any support from anyone - family, friends? If not, then hopefully some of the kind and wise posters on here might be able to point you in the direction of some?? Hoping that you get some help from this thread.

Nobody has "piled in" at all.

The research into the efficacy of psychotherapy repeatedly shows that the quality of the relationship between the therapist and client is the strongest indicator for a positive outcome. If your daughter does not like or trust her therapist it can be predicted that therapy is unlikely to be successful. I would suggest changing if this is the case. When looking for a new therapist I would (as well as making sure they are properly accredited) book an initial session only and make sure your daughter is comfortable with them before committing to more.

I'm sorry you're facing this. As has been said MH is massively underfunded.

I've been a service user for years now and my experience of the crisis team is the ones who have also been service users themselves are brilliant, the ones who haven't - are next to useless. I've found this again with therapy - I had a specialised form of CBT and although he never told me directly I highly suspect the therapist dealt with his own MH battle, he just seemed to "get it" quickly

I think the suggestion of hypnotherapy upthread is a great idea too.

It might just be my experience but if you can pay for private treatment I would find someone with personal experience who's then gone on to train and practice

I can understand the heaviness comment but as PP said, she obviously lacked insight into whether your DD understood what she was trying to convey

I can also understand the statement about SH being a relief... I think immediately cutting off or shaming it wouldn't be the answer to healing but hypnotherapy might help in finding a better coping strategy to replace it with. Rightly or wrongly as an ex SH'er I view it as an addiction

TitaniasCloset

I shouldn't hav eto prop up the workers fragile egos The CPN I wrote about upthread, when I called her in a crisis trying to explain my fears due to being abused in the past told me "hearing about this doesn't help ME."

minifingerz Yeah, I had DBT for borderline PD and it was really helpful for the most part. I did not get it until my late 20s though- in my teens you did not get diagnosed until adulthood. I had traits of this disorder since 16 but not diagnosed until my early 20s and then just drugged up and not helped until 28.

ihatethecold it sounds like you and you’re family are going through a really tough time, not helped by the input you have (or have not) had. I’m a MH professional and can I just say sorry, this should not have happened. As you recognise we are in a funding crisis. MH has been hit harder and longer than most areas as it’s not as visible. I sometimes drive home crying about how we are unable to meet needs.

You mentioned you saw a CBT therapist privately and it was not useful. Perhaps, if you are able to go private again, seeing someone who has more ways of working than just one model (CBT) may help. Anyone calling themselves a clinical child psychologist has been highly trained in multiple models (including CBT) and will advertise their specialties. You can search for one in your area just by googling or on the British Psychological Society website. I am not a child psychologist so am not promoting myself but the profession would take seriously the professional problems you describe e.g. not respecting boundaries

May I just add I have yet to meet anyone with a MH issue which is not complex, if you listen to the person full story rather than just addressing the symptoms.

They are a joke, but sadly they are damaging more people than they are helping. I am currently in "therapy" for PTSD having been assaulted by a man posing as a women and having to explain to my "therapist" that there is a difference between the medical condition of intersex and the psychological condition of "transgenderism"

I don't know if all these armies of people trying to help really has helped very much. And you can't just prescribe a pill to make things right and counselling doesn't work for everyone.