If you are undergoing a medical procedure this is a pressing question. Curiously, psychological therapists create an aura in which clients are disuaded from asking this question, with responses that amount to ‘we don’t like to use labels, just complete questionnaires to see how you go’, masking a wholesale distrust of the medical model. Clients are intimidated from voicing their basic concerns, when asked whether they were given a diagnosis usually the response is ‘no’ or “they said I had ‘x’ symptoms” either way they do not feel on solid ground. Invalidating a person/client’s nascent question whether it be the ‘meaning of life’ or the likelihood of treatment that makes a socially significant difference is direspectful.
IAPT obscures the answering of this question by a sleight of hand, using changes on 2 psychometric tests to indicate recovery, with no blind, independent assessment of outcome and no use of a ‘gold standard’ diagnostic interview. But this obscurantism is not confined to Government funded psychological therapy services, in private practice there is an equal failure of diagnostic accuracy and comprehensive evaluation at both initial assessment and at the end of treatment. However at least in the private sector one can search out a therapist who can deliver, no such option is available within IAPT.
Dr Mike Scott