What could be different in mental health care, what helps, and what have you found to be useful reading?

[OwFriggingOw]

First off - this is a thread inspired by another thread - not about another thread.

I am a lecturer who teaches mainly MH nursing students, but also Adult, Child and Learning Disability field nurses about MH, and also occasionally medical students. I have no agenda for this thread bar a genuine desire to listen, share ideas, and have an open discussion about what is helpful / less so. I worked in NHS MH for 13 odd years.

In case anyone links the other threads that inspired this thread - I have been comissioned to edit a book about people's experiences (service users and carers / family / friends) within MH services and with MH issues. NONE OF THE POSTS HERE WILL BE USED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM FOR THIS BOOK. You have my ABSOLUTE word on that. Similarly, NONE of the posts here will be used in any of my teaching.

My aim in starting this stems from several PM's and several on-thread comments about how this would be useful/ I hope it can be a helpful, supportive and productive meeting place for thoughts and ideas about what people have found helpful with regards MH care / services / support (statutory and non statutory) and what has been less helpful. Most importantly with regards the less helpful - what can be done differently?

And - beacuse I like books - maybe we can share reading ideas :)

Would it be helpful if I shared parts of my long thread from earlier regarding what I see as needed, without any other details from the thread?

Olivia, please can you confirm that you're not going to delete the thread on demand?

Or that, if you are going to delete it, you are also going to spend hours and hours and hours and hours copying useful links for retention.

And the fourth paragraph of your last post, aesops, frightens the shite out of me .

Now I'm hiding it again, I've said my piece. Olivia, I suspect you are on a loser and in the end would be better to delete this.

olivia mumsnet, will no longer rise to the thread derailing, is hard not to when you are slammed obsessively by somebody who even thinks that your judgement at mnhq is wrong. will not feed into it anymore :)

Please don't delete the thread, Olivia.

Kizzie:

If they are professionals then that is the crux of the problem.

Professionals are guilty of egregious misconduct when they dispense professional services to people who are not their patients, whose history they do not know, and with whom they do not have a professional relationship as defined by law.

If they are not professionals they are engaging in an illegal activity by presenting themselves as professionals.

"And the fourth paragraph of your last post, aesops, frightens the shite out of me "

why marygo? take it up with the psychs and schools of thought that practice it. it is not what i said that i believe although i do believe in unconditional positive regard. are you maryz? cant check atm? if so then yes i can see why it would. but it is true, there are lots of ways of dealing with psychosis and that is one of them. was using it as an example.

"Professionals are guilty of egregious misconduct when they dispense professional services to people who are not their patients, whose history they do not know, and with whom they do not have a professional relationship as defined by law."

last time i will reply but had to answer this. you are wrong. a prof who is an advocate and who works in an org like mind does not need to know the person professionally in real life or any other way to help. there is no LAW against it providing that they follow the ethos of MIND ( or said org) in their posting. nobody here is "dispensing professional services". Nobody. and i will not stop thanking people for having the balls to tell their story. it is called respect and listening and honouring

Aesop:

When you make it clear that you think therapeutic services are needed for people posting here, then you are dispensing professional advice and expressing an opinion you are not qualified to express if you are not in fact in the field of providing direct MH services.

If you are an advocate rather the a healthcare professional then you are not qualified to tell anyone that therapeutic validation of the sort that has gone on on this thread is advisable in general or a good thing in the case of any one individual. You are expressing medical opinions without qualifications.

"except nowhere have i said anything from a prof viewpoint there have i?!

Aesop, you directed your partner to the thread and then she posted:

"Aesop is a skilled and well qualified person in the field of MH."

While you may not have been aware of it before it was posted, I dont find that appropriate, and could have asked for it to be removed if you didnt want to imply a professional MH background.

For what it's worth, there's nowhere on this thread errrr professional guidelines or code of ethics have been contravened.

And Aesop, bandying about various approaches to treatment as if you had the professional qualifications necessary to explain them or judge their efficacy also constitutes a gross crossing of lines from what is legal to what is not.

*where even

Yes there fucking well is, Upwardandonward.

Math, I respect your concern but I really feel that you are absolutely wide of the mark on this thread. I have seen posts on MN from someone calling herself something like CBTtherapist offering very specific "therapeutic" suggestions to someone who has posted with mental health problems. That would absolutely fall into the kind of posting behaviour that you object to and I hope it has been deleted. But this thread doesn't remotely seem to fall into the same category. It is just a few people chatting about the ways in which mental health practice might be improved. I agree that it was a mistake for Ow to mention her professional life, though I can understand why she did it. But it doesn't remotely seem to taint the thread with the worry that individuals might be led into thinking of this thread as anything other than a constructive chat on the internet. Yes, some might speak of it as "therapeutic" and validating. Posting on MN is very often spoken of in those terms. But it is bizarre to think that their use of these terms means that they see the thread as having any different status from other MN threads, just because someone has mentioned a professional role. It is bizarre, utterly bizarre, that you think of this thread as claiming any special status over and above other supportive threads on MN.

I think you made an earlier objection that this thread might frighten people away from mental health services by focussing on negative experiences. That, too, is bizarre. It hasn't been any kind of relentless campaign of negativity. I don't understand why you are so concerned about the immense significance of this fairly humdrum and potentially useful thread.

All of your objections seem to depend on positing a very low capacity on the part of readers of the thread to assess internet discourse and take from it sensibly. There are some people who are vulnerable in that way of course, but almost any thread on Mumsnet has the potential to be damaging to people in that position. You talked sense on the other thread when you asked people not to validate a particular poster who had an extremely negative take on her experience with mental health services. But the points you made in relation to that specific poster have been very very poorly generalised by you here.

"Dissatisfaction with services is almost certainly always a symptom of illness" ... DID ANYONE ACTUALLY SAY THIS IN MH ? I can't find the original , but if they did that is one of the most offensive things I've ever read ." -Thank you kizzie for challenging that statement ( and others who did , wearily , when they saw it ) . I will never forget seeing that posted on the mh board .

thunksheadontable said "Dissatisfaction, etc" on Fri 27-Jul-12 at 08:52:36. She was trying to summarise an incorrect opinion held by Math and others.

Math, there is not. Given your level of distress on this thread, maybe you should think about ringing the Samaritans or other similar help?

Why are you swearing at Upward like that , math , after she gave her civil and infoermed opinion ?

'it is called respect and listening and honouring.'

Bollocks to that.

It is validation. It has a therapeutic value. You said so yourself.

And you made claims for the validation approach in that post of yours where you posed as a person with the qualifications to explain and judge that approach.

last time math

"When you make it clear that you think therapeutic services are needed for people posting here"

i haven't made it clear that i think anything of the sort.

"then you are dispensing professional advice and expressing an opinion you are not qualified to express if you are not in fact in the field of providing direct MH services. "

see above.

I sincerely agree with your concern Upwardabout very high levels of distress

"And Aesop, bandying about various approaches to treatment as if you had the professional qualifications necessary to explain them or judge their efficacy also constitutes a gross crossing of lines from what is legal to what is not."

i believe that people on mumsnet are allowed to talk about anything that does not break guildelines. and the above is one of them. you may not like it but that is how it is.

Therapeutic relationships (and validation) can be between any two or more living creatures, even an animal and a person. One partner does not have to have a profession for validation to occur.

Upward -- do not sneer.