The list of those with a vested interest in consciously or non-consciously muddying the waters of mental health outcomes (fake news) is staggering and include Charities, IAPT and Independent Practitioners. Consumers, Businesses and Clinical Commissioning Groups beware!
Most client’s of mental health services are glad of the help proferred, they find them ‘soothing’ but this is a far cry from recovery from identifiable disorder. I’ve just put ‘Voltarol’ on my sprained ankle it is soothing, less of a burning sensation, but it doesn’t actually speed up the rate of recovery or increase gait velocity (improvement). Recovery would be back to what I was before I crumpled getting out of the taxi. Blurring the distinction between soothing, improvement and recovery is good for the marketing of a product, analgesic/wares of a mental health service provider, but the ‘injured’ are not well served and ill equipped to protest. As a consequence the juggernaut of existing services continues. There is a pressing need to go beyond expressions of client satisfaction.
E-cigarettes look like a good way of helping people giving up smoking cigarettes, but the long term effects are unknown, a Parliamentary Committee has just been appointed to look at the matter. There is an understandable wariness about wide dissemination in the abscence of evidence. But there is no such critical awareness when it comes to mental health.
Dr Mike Scott
