Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Oh shit, do we have to put up with this all summer?
He was shocked. SHOCKED.
He was shocked. SHOCKED.
The state's new found concern for Mental Health ("stiff upper lip")
- Thread starter brogdale
- Start date
not-bono-ever
meh
This isn't work - its a YTS scheme for parasites who's only other role is public fecundity to continue their disgusting genetic line. They have nothing to say about my life, it is a badly fitted suit of convenience for these vermin, an attempt to wheedle favour and possibly avoid the gallows that inevitably haunts their dreams.
ItWillNeverWork
Messy Crimbobs, fellow humans.
Not everything is a capitalist conspiracy, you know.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Which might be worth responding to properly...had I said that.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Increased cultural attention to mental health issues has come about entirely independently of the state and the royals. It isn't surprising that, decades afterwards, we get this sort of stuff; the current shift is behind even Alastair Campbell and the Tories. None of it has any policy backing of course and refuses to look at any social background - the Prince stuff is particularly offensive, suggesting that the issue is a vague "lack of communication" rather than any of the actual things that happen to people.
Interesting how it's so frequently related to male issues when it hits the press, like pretty much always.
Interesting how it's so frequently related to male issues when it hits the press, like pretty much always.
Greasy Boiler
Active Member
They talk a lot about raising MH awareness and providing help in schools, but how the fuck are schools going to do that when they can't even afford teachers?
Counselling is overwhelmingly individual. It (generally) ignores structural factors. It can be relatively cheap, particularly if trainee counsellors are used to deliver frontline work (this is the mainstay of several local services' provision. Our drug services, for example, employ zero diploma level counsellors, I believe; but have three trainees, who need the practice hours for their diploma / BACP registration).
Feel happier about (or more at peace with) being structurally shafted is, at one end of a scale, what counselling can deliver both to clients and the state.
At the same time, cash is being stripped out of mh services. My city has no inpatient psychiatric service at the moment. People have to be shipped to Middlesbrough. The IAPT team is a couple of people, covering a huge area.
Funding has also been stripped from all of the services that might contribute to improved mental health. Like housing. Whilst increased conditionality on benefits adds stress to those least able to bear it.
I've recently been involved in an evaluation of prison drug treatment, and the conclusion is - broadly - that there's not much point counselling prisoners happy, if they're going to be released street homeless.
There are, obvs, benefits to counselling. It can also serve political (and depoliticising) ends.
Feel happier about (or more at peace with) being structurally shafted is, at one end of a scale, what counselling can deliver both to clients and the state.
At the same time, cash is being stripped out of mh services. My city has no inpatient psychiatric service at the moment. People have to be shipped to Middlesbrough. The IAPT team is a couple of people, covering a huge area.
Funding has also been stripped from all of the services that might contribute to improved mental health. Like housing. Whilst increased conditionality on benefits adds stress to those least able to bear it.
I've recently been involved in an evaluation of prison drug treatment, and the conclusion is - broadly - that there's not much point counselling prisoners happy, if they're going to be released street homeless.
There are, obvs, benefits to counselling. It can also serve political (and depoliticising) ends.
bi0boy
Power User
Don't confuse the state with the royal family, who are parasites with their own agenda of clinging to their position. The traditional safe cause of animals, in this case ivory poaching, clearly wasn't making enough headway so something more meaty was needed. It always has to be as uncontroversial as possible (the queen mother used to berate Dianna for doing AIDS and land mines instead of animals) and who can criticise someone talking about their mum dying?
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
You really do a good impression of being a complete fucking idiot at times.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
for a start you can criticise anyone who has killed their mum talking about her dying. after that you're just quibbling.
bi0boy
Power User
You do tbf, hence your OP.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
the queen is the head of state. Thats sort of her point. Anyway, wills is 1 year my senior and bald as a coot, which means I win. Poor, but hirsute
Is your dad James Hewitt, perchance?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
he's not doing an impression.
Plumdaff
joy in people
And CBT delivered generically by people with no BABCP accredited training in three hours is many things, but it isn't really CBT in any meaningful sense. It's rather like saying counselling is a natter on the phone with a well meaning mate.
Anyway the cynicism of this while mh services are crumbling and the government is actively pursuing the demonisation and destitution of people with enduring mental illness is breathtaking.
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It's marketed as CBT. People who don't know any better will think it's legitimate 'proper' CBT.
It's delivered by people that can't call themselves doctors (much like WCA 'doctors'), who call any mental health issue presented to them as 'low mood'. Suffer from depression? Low mood. Suffer from anxiety? Low mood. Suffer from the crippling effects of capitalism-inspired nihilism? Low mood. Fill in a form each week telling us how you feel, on an arbitrary numerical scale (instead of talking about it), and half the time is done already.
Oh and if you have to pay extortionate bus fares to get to this 'treatment' expect no support or flexibility.
Great piece on this in the graun today - nailed on.
On mental health, the royal family is doing more than our government | William Davies
On mental health, the royal family is doing more than our government | William Davies
There was a piece on You and Yours earlier in the week too about the 'epidemic' of mental distress amongst young people and there was a question about cause and I noticed it because it's so rarely talked about; its as though it just is, these things called anxiety and depression.
The medical model of illness is disguised though because this focus on stigma also means few people says illness anymore. Instead, people have mental health difficulties or issues (or just mental health, when they mean the opposite) although these issues have the names of psychiatric classifications. Sometimes these issues can be helped by taking medication, though these medications have multiple effects, not just the desired one. And then there's this idea that the absence of 'issues' is mental well-being or resilience or happiness. It is now the responsibility of the individual to manage this mental well-being, as if its a thing, like a muscle you exercise, and there's a method here too, called talking, and that helps.
I wonder about these kinds of conflations of illness and difficulty and health and happiness; they seem to have become merged, blurred. And although I don't like the idea of an illness as a biological thing, I do wonder about the words which describe sickness, debilitation, dependence, vulnerability, madness, fear, what happened to them? Instead, this language of mental health difficulties, which can mean anything about anyone.
The medical model of illness is disguised though because this focus on stigma also means few people says illness anymore. Instead, people have mental health difficulties or issues (or just mental health, when they mean the opposite) although these issues have the names of psychiatric classifications. Sometimes these issues can be helped by taking medication, though these medications have multiple effects, not just the desired one. And then there's this idea that the absence of 'issues' is mental well-being or resilience or happiness. It is now the responsibility of the individual to manage this mental well-being, as if its a thing, like a muscle you exercise, and there's a method here too, called talking, and that helps.
I wonder about these kinds of conflations of illness and difficulty and health and happiness; they seem to have become merged, blurred. And although I don't like the idea of an illness as a biological thing, I do wonder about the words which describe sickness, debilitation, dependence, vulnerability, madness, fear, what happened to them? Instead, this language of mental health difficulties, which can mean anything about anyone.
If you're bothering to respond, why not respond in a way that people can understand?
I think what I said was fairly clear. Focussing on the experiences of young people is commendable, but what about the rest of us?
No, its not clear because your response to my post doesn't respond to anything I've actually said.
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