Social Services Archives

‘Just Give Us The Resources To Treat Personality Disorders’ and then what?

There has been a great clamour this week from mental health bodies, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) for more monies to address the grave problems of clients with personality disorders (PDs). But they have neglected to add that there are few randomised controlled trials of psychological treatments for PDs and those that have been conducted have had very different outcome measures. It is important that clients with personality disorder are given realistic expectations of treatment and are protected from commonplace misdiagnosis.

One of my clients lost access to her children in part because a psychiatrist claimed she had an emotional unstable personality disorder (EUPD), fortunately legal action is being taken against the local authority for their part in this debacle. The latter were insistent she attend a mentalisation group, my protest that she did not have a personality disorder and therefore did not have to attend went unheard! The stresses of taking the legal action have been colossal. Maybe the energies of the RCP might be better spent making sure its’ members make reliable diagnosis. As part of the legal proceedings in this case a Psychiatric Expert Witness rejected the opinion of the treating psychiatrist but not before a great deal of distress had already been caused to her and her 3 children.

Dr Mike Scott

I mentioned in an earlier post that a former client of mine, ‘Angela’, lost contact with her children because a psychiatrist diagnosed her as having an ’emotionally unstable personality disorder’.

The case has now been partially heard in Court and an Expert Witness agreed with me that the diagnosis was unfounded, as there had been no adherence to the agreed diagnostic criteria for the disorder. In the interim, despite my protestations, Social Services were insistent she attend Group Mentalisation Therapy, a treatment targetted at people with a personality disorder. Social Services refused to respond to my two reports. To date ‘Angela’ has increased access and the legal case against the local authority is ongoing, I and ‘Angela’ are therefore limited in what we can say at this stage. But cavalier diagnosis and misdirected therapy are a national scandal. ‘Angela’ is happy to write on this Forum at the conclusion of the case. The horrors she has endured are unspeakable and a consequence of a systemic abuse of power in Health and Social Services.

Dr Mike Scott