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.

Op I sympathize.If an adult is suicidal help is almost i but for I but for teens a big fat 0.
We are lucky as we have good GP.No medication as it the main side effect is suicidal thoughts and the benefit in teens minimal.
Cahms,still waiting after 10weeks and aware that as DD won't say much she will be dismissed.If you have a suicidal child they don't seem to see it as needing action until the suicide has been effective.
School are trying to help,luckily DD found a teacher to confide in for which I am very grateful butt school counciling has a long waiting list as it is trying to fill in where Cahms should be .DD has had the school counciling before and sausage is a nice lady but they don't really talk about the important stuff.Then she frets because she has missed a lessons.
Personally I find it draining and feel I am failing my daughter.
Quitelivley5.I know you mean well but our children are a bit behind where any if that is applicable and us parents often feel too defeated to even apply it for ourselves.

There are a lot of good people in the profession, but I think it attracts a lot of power hungry people too - most caring professions do, unfortunately. It also attracts a lot of people who have airy fairy ideas about helping people while having no actual clue how to empathise. As I said, not all by any means, I’ve had brilliant therapists. But I’ve also had awful ones, especially from the crisis team.

Also, it’s so chronically underfunded that there’s basically nothing many services can do apart from patch up the people who are absolutely at the end of their rope.

It’s really tragic. I hope your daughter gets the help she needs. If it’s any consolation, I had mh problems for a long time but I got through it - and I didn’t have a lovely mum in my corner like her.

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

I disagree science is about disproving so much as proving. You can study things with a critical mind and realise its limitations. I think it's refreshing. New innovative approaches could be made if students weren't led to believe the current techniques are working whenthey are clearly not in many cases.

I was a mental health nurse for years ime I don't think professionals are winging as such but often different professionals have different opinions, it's not an exact science and there can be a blurring of lines in diagnosis whilst nurses who work more face to face with a patient may see some elements of behaviour and personality a psychiatrist for example who often sees a patient more on a limited basis may diagnose a specific illness and obviously cuts to services don't help , often even in the best circumstances professionals dont collaborate their assessments , it's far more difficult in mental health to give a full diagnosis then in general medicine , for example if someone has broke there leg or had a heart attack there is usually scans xrays etc to back it up in mental health people rely more on opinions and experience.

You can't study it with a critical mind when you call an entire profession a sham (which it is not).

Psychology is not an "exact" science in any way, shape or form, it is a pseudoscience based entirely on subjective observation. In my humble opinion it should be banned as it causes more harm than good. Psychological warfare is despicable and destroyed many minds

Said by someone who doesn't know the first thing about psychology!

And also now speaking as a parent of a child with severe autism and learning disabilities ,parents are an expert with their own child and I do challenge some professionals and having worked on acute mental health wards and seen patients with autism admitted who should never have been admitted there's no way in hell my child I would allow him to be admitted to a mental health ward it would be completely the wrong environment for him but it does happen sadly.

I'm so sorry ebonyandivory. Some people really are in this for the wrong reasons and I think as funding is cut we can expect to see more of that. The caring nurses will eventually be so disheartened they will give up.

Said by someone who studied psychology and decided very quickly that actual science was far more realistic

Didn't study it very well, did you?

I’m so sorry you’ve not found anyone to help your children in crisis. My experience of psychologists, counsellors and therapists is very mixed. And I’ve seen a lot, double figures. I more recently saw a great therapist for perhaps 3 years and have moved on to another not because the first wasnt good enough but because no one person has all the answers.

I had depression all my childhood and finally saw a clinical psychologist through the NHS when I broke down in my last year of university after my father died. She was brilliant. I thought she’d fixed many of my issues. But actually she’d only scratched the surface. This level of therapy doesn’t seem to be offered anymore, an hour a week, open ended.

As for my dd, we saw a very good child psychologist privately when she was having issues. The women I see for me and the woman we saw with dd was on recommendation. Others have said it is important for your dd to trust her therapist and this couldn’t be more true.

My experience of the 2 Relate therapists i saw is mixed. The first one suddenly disappeared as she’d been sacked for acting inappropriately with a client. I’m not surprised as she bullied me although I didn’t realise at the time, I was confused and not capable of sticking up for myself against a figure of authority. The second was very experienced and had been to war torn countries helping children. But she wasn’t my intellectual equal, which meant we didn't make great leaps forward and was quite bitchy about my mother, which wasn’t what I needed. She also liked the sound of her own voice.

Your dd needs people, who give her the room to speak, are on her side but non judgemental, who lets her speak and guides her.

Whereabouts do you live? Perhaps you could put a thread up asking for people to give recommendations in your area.

I did a thread about 6 weeks ago getting recommendations.
One private clinic had a 4 month wait because of the waiting list at camhs.
The other clinic I am currently with.
My SIL is a very good child psychologist based at a well known local hospital. She does advise me but she obviously can’t treat her niece.
She has recommended a couple of people but they are not taking new clients.
She despairs of our local Camhs.

As for what my dd is doing to help herself.
She now exercises 3 times a week. She eats well and is very aware of how much this helps.
She also has a job on a Saturday for 2 hours a week in a hairdressers to help boost her confidence.
She works hard to have good sleep habits.
No phones etc after 9pm.

She works so hard every morning to get to school in a fit state. I can physically see how much she is struggling some days.
I take my hat off to her at how much effort she puts in to get better.
She’s also very open and knows she can tell me anything without judgement.
I can tell instantly how the day will pan out in the first 5 seconds of going in her room in the morning.
We call it patching her up to try help her face the day.
Lots of hugs and room to talk of she needs it.

i'm with you op. It is shit.

It is shit. It's shit for the staff too. And there are some shit staff.

The reality of working in CAMHS is huge caseloads. Sessions back to back. No dedicated admin time. So yes, a lot of winging it. Gone are the days when you'd have time to plan a session beforehand. How can you do that when you're seeing 6 young people in a 7.5 hour working day? Then you've got notes to do, make any phone calls, attend any school meetings, do any mandatory training.

You have to hold 60-70 young people in your mind. Without excellent admin, it's impossible to get everything done. Work is always taken home to complete.

Your colleagues are equally busy, so you don't have time to discuss cases (anonymously) with them for advice.

You either see everyone at CAMHS but then lose flexibility for families and disrupt school, or you travel to see people but then can't see as many.

OP you are right to be angry. So are others in this thread. But please channel some of that anger to the people who fund services. The model we have now isn't working.

I too have experienced this.
Some of the things the MH workers said were shocking. That there "wasn't the funding to offer any support". When asked what to do/how to support a child, they said they Didn't know.
Shocking.

I'm sorry other people are in the same boat. It's a tough long road we are all on.
How do the MH workers get help if they end up with MH issues?

And no, I don't think OP has been rude or made sweeping generalisations. What she has said is valid, of her experience so far to date.

I don’t know about winging it but I definitely agree with a pp that a lot of the mental health professionals have different views and give different advice even disagreeing with confirmed diagnoses. I also question if any of it really helps anyone, except medication which I do believe in and have seen work with my dc. However even that hasn’t been a long term solution due to side effects and adjusting doses etc.

Anyone watching Victoria live on BBC 2.
Utterly heartbreaking
It’s proves my point. 😓

I turned over to it but had obviously missed it. What were they saying?

Medication has done absolutely nothing for me except contribute to lining the pockets of big pharmaceutical companies.

The only person that has helped me has been me. I have read literally 100s of books about MH, all aspects, and worked very hard on gaining deep insight into myself and my behaviour and my past. But obviously that is not really doable for a child/teenager.

Try watch it on Iplayer if you can,

They had a teenage girl who tried to kill herself 10 times in 11 days.
she had an ED and psychosis.
Every time she was in A+E they would make her medically fit then discharge her. Her parents looked visibly broken. They said Camhs dismissed how unwell she was. Said she was attention seeking when she was self harming at 13.
The girl was saying she had 2 imaginary voices/ people in her room all the time telling her the most awful upsetting things.
So upsetting and tragic to watch

It's not the case everywhere or for everyone. I was a specialist within a CAMHS environment for many years and the vast majority of workers were brilliant and went above and beyond on a daily basis.