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A Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner’s Damning Indictment of Her Role

Last week a PWP (Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner) ALIEE November 25th 2020 put a post on this blog, calling for Panorama to take note of the desperate plight of PWPs – the main providers of services in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Service. Unfortunately the track record of the media in this regard is not good. It is a year since Radio 4 chose to broadcast predominantly the voices of  lead figures in IAPT and well known fellow travellers, rather than give expression to those at the coalface  and their clients.   One wonders what it takes for the media to wake up and ‘smell the coffee’ – £4billion has been spent on IAPT over the last decade all without any independent audit. Given the current, parlous state of Government finances this should at least come under independent critical review, perhaps by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

When a PWP candidly admits “I am trained to overlook the full picture”, it raises eyebrows. Then when ALIEE goes on to say that she operates purely with the ‘5 area model’,  this is jaw dropping.  This is not a model for any psychological disorder, by itself it is a heuristic for providing generic cbt, which has never been considered an evidence-supported treatment. Then this PWP states if clients still have high PHQ9 and GAD7 scores by the 4th session, it is the client who should be interrogated for their  competence in scoring, with the threat that if such scores persist there is the spectre of criticism from superiors. This is tantamount to fiddling results. It is atrocious that AIEE has been placed in this invidious position. I do not believe she is weak but rather like a prisoner at Auschwitz charged with the removal of dead bodies from a gas chamber.

The burden of proof is with IAPT to demonstrate that it has procedures in place to make it impossible for ALIEE to have been operating in this way. Protestations that ‘there a few bad apples’ in every workforce simply won’t wash.

Getting the media and politicians to listen is like getting the post war German Government to take action against war criminals. Action was only finally taken following many years of work by children of Holocaust victims. Unfortunately in the short term the implicit plea is that ‘we have enough to do with the Pandemic and Brexit, not to say Climate Change’ but the climate of the upcoming generation is affected by the mental health of today’s adults. 

Dr Mike Scott

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BBC Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live Are Lifting The Lid on IAPT

with interviews with IAPT clients, an IAPT therapist,  myself and many more.

Watch this space.

 

Dr Mike Scott  

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Radio 4 Programme On IAPT Coming Soon

There has been a hiccup over when the material was to be broadcast and hopefully next week a broadcast date will be set.

Great

 

Mike

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When You Do Nothing, Repeated Testing Will Likely Indicate ‘Recovery’ or ‘Remission’ At Some Point

IAPT shouts eureka at this point, discharges the client and claims the improvement is due to the therapists efforts.  It is like declaring  that a person who is terminally ill is cured because they have had a good refreshing day gardening. In effect IAPT has gone fishing for flashes in the pan – I make  similar points in a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 investigation into IAPT. 

But studies of depression and the anxiety disorders  e.g Bruce et al (2005) require a 2 month period of symptoms not significantly impairing functioning (see also DSM-5 criteria for recurrence of depression). Bruce et al (2005) point out that anxiety sufferers naturally only have symptoms 80% of the time. With regards to depression Stegenga et al (2012) point out that for 40% of depression sufferers their depression naturally takes a variable course.  Without independent assessment of the period for which the person is without significant symptoms talk of remission/ recovery is meaningless. IAPT’s clients have not been assessed using this metric. 

Bruce et al (2005) https://www.dropbox.com/s/9powmto8miw60a2/Natural%20recovery%20in%20Social%20Phobia%20Panic%20Disporder%20and%20Generalised%20Anxiety%20Disorder.pdf?dl=0

 

Stegenga et al (2012) https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0x2fm0ds01no0k/natural%20course%20of%20depression%20stegenga%202012.pdf?dl=0

 

Dr Mike Scott