Yesterday on 'The World At One' on BBC Radio 4, Lord Richard Layard the man who was responsible for the biggest roll-out of watered down Mental Health treatments ever in the UK, claimed that patients having Mental Health difficulties have no excuse for being pessimistic. He went further and claiming how they need to deal with the "evil" within them.
Layard's was responding to a news item claiming that positive people enjoy better health. His crass comments which appear to blame sufferers may cause offence, not least of all because his roll-out of Mental Health services under the name IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) has created a mountain of untreated mental health problems.
IAPT incorporates denial in their models of treatment. They purposefully obstruct patients from dealing with their core difficulty. IAPT pushes resilience by focussing only on the symptoms – not the cause via a brief range of complimentary and cover-up therapies. These lightweight approaches quickly wear off quickly - especially when not used in conjunction alongside a genuine therapy.
All Layard's therapies are cheap and brief and can actually damage people when the diagnosis ignores many core and existing conditions. Victims of traumatic childhoods, repeated assaults, sexual abuse, toxic levels of neglect and complex forms of PTSD, have often become 'hard-wired' with constant unregulated responses and hyper-vigilent levels of fear. Living through constant trauma naturally results in the patient becoming fearful and hesitant about good outcomes.
Lord Layard places negative thinking in the 'evil' camp - himself showing a gross and insensitive ignorance of mental health challenges and the chronic impact they can have.
In fact, people who habitually think positively can themselves fall into a crisis or depression. Many have lived in complete denial of their own problems. They can lack empathy for themselves and for others. Does this ring a bell for Lord Layard?
Layard's baby: IAPT, the NHS 'bare bones' mental health provider not only has ravaged access to genuine mental health approaches such as powerful forms of psychotherapy but Layard deluged the public with a roundabout of "artificial sweetener" therapies - mostly rationed. They are delivered by lowly qualified enthusiasts and volunteers, many straight out of college.
50% of people attending CBT (a thought adjusting treatment) are so unimpressed that they drop out of treatment. Those who stay find gains can slip away.
Many patient's consistently request higher quality therapies which remain blocked by Layard's model for reasons of cost and training. More worryingly patients with chronic conditions are ‘hidden’ from view if they pass through the 'Layard' system, allowing their condition sometimes to worsen to severe and unsafe levels.
Describing patients who are often only offered fake or watered down mental health treatments as having evil in them, reveal that there may be an abusive belief system behind the UK's publicly funded mental health services.
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