Latest gem by Wessely & Co - June 2012 report by LSE

[natasa778]

A truly horrifying report by London School of Economics, coauthored by Simon Wessely, on how NHS is 'failing' mental health patients and how most of them are denied proper help, that is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.

It talks about 'people with unexplained physical symptoms' and how GPs should be better at recognising and DIAGNOSING these people as mental health patients and pushing CBT on them.

They are also counting (surprise surprise) autism, ADHD, psychosis, schizophrenia etc as mental health disorders (in need of CBT I guess?...).

What a bunch of deranged lunatics.



Here is the article on LSE website with link to report: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2012/06/Mental_illness.aspx

The report is chaired by Prof Lord Layard. Other authors include Professor Stephen Field, chair of the Futures Forum, as well as 7 other professors of economics, psychology and psychiatry, 2 other economists, and 2 NHS managers. Names are shown in the report and all members are happy to be contacted.
For Professor Lord Layard – R.Layard@lse.ac.uk; +44 (0)20 7955 7048 (office);

For Professor Stephen Field – Steve.Field@nhs.net; 07725 498 364 (mobile)

On psychology, Professor David Clark – david.clark@psy.ox.ac.uk; 01865 618 604 (office);

On psychiatry, Professor Simon Wessely – simon.wessely@kcl.ac.uk +44 (0)20 7848 0448 (office);
On economics, Michael Parsonage – Michael.Parsonage@centreformentalhealth.org.uk; +44 (0)

 

[Esther12]

I wonder how accurate the claims they make about the efficacy of treatment for these conditions are? There seems to have been a lot of spin coming from people whose income is threatened by health cutbacks recently. I've not read this report, so cannot comment upon their figures, but we've had Esther Crawley claiming PACE showed a 30-40% recovery rate for CBT/GET for CFS patients, despite this being clearly dishonest.

 

[user9876]

They don't mention the PACE trial in the references. My guess is that they wouldn't want the work to be under the spot light of a wider community. I'm sure the economists would be shocked at the standard of the research.

 

[sianrecovery]

I guess they need to go after a new group of patients to torture, as their claims in terms of ME/CFS are not standing up to scrutiny. Presumably they would also like a more passive and even more disenfranchised patient population - those with schzoid dosorders beware.

 

[natasa778]

Maybe people should write to "the authors who like to be contacted", BUT also copy in LSE Vice Channcelor and Board members, and other University 'suits'.

Universities are in trouble nowdays and last thing they need is bad publicity.

 

[Esther12]

I just looked through it. It reads like an empty PR puff piece - so many important, contested and difficult to understand concepts are referred to casually as if we can know what they are and how to accurately and consistently measure them (the difficulty of measuring the efficacy of treatments which cannot be blinded and are assessed via subjective questionnaires; 'suffering', 'mental health', etc, etc. How they answer the question 'What proportion of suffering in the community is due to mental as opposed to physical illness?' just serves to highlight what a silly question they've posed for themselves, and how easily it can be manipulated to serve the interests of those answering it). It will probably convince whatever civil servant it's been targeted at, but I cannot imagine wanting to put my name to such a document.

I can't copy and paste from the document, but the section on 'cost-effective treatment' seems to cite sources for some of their claims, but not others. They also seem to avoid saying how effective the NHS's provision of psychological therapies has actually been.
It also references this Wessely piece "The crisis in recruitment into psychiatry training.":

http://cep.lse.ac.uk/textonly/research/mentalhealth/WESSELY-crisis-2011.pdf

It mentions problems like:

A large body of research has established however this interest declines during medical training for many reasons:
a) The perception that psychiatric patients “don’t get better”

So Esther Crawley's claims will help inspire a new group of medical students! It's the perception that matters, not the piss poor results from PACE.

The MaudsleyHospital has traditionally been the most sought after place for psychiatric training, analogous to the position of Queen Square, Great Ormond St or the Brompton in neurology, child health or cardiology respectively. 25 years ago it was intensively competitive, with approximately five applications per place. Although this year the scheme did fill its places, this was with a ratio of one applicant per place, meaning that there was no longer any competition. We also know that drop out/failure rates are increasing, reflecting a lowering of overall quality.

I wonder if it will ever be recognised that the quality of psychiatrists is so low that this should be reason to restrict the authority they have over the minds, cognitions and behaviours of others?

Psychiatry would work fine if all psychiatrists were clear thinking geniuses, but it's probably not a good idea to assume that this is the actual psychosocial situation in which psychiatry operates.

 

[sianrecovery]

ah, the dear old Maudsley...I know a few people who have trained there. And lets not forget to raise our glasses to its founder, an enthusiastic proponent of clitoridectomy to 'cure' masturbation. Another proud chapter in the triumphal march of psychiatric history

 

[Enid]

How does the saying go - oh what a tangled web you weave when once you set out to deceive.

PR puff and nonsense here.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

"Not enough people are buying Unobtanium! You NEED Unobatium to LIVE or the di-hydrogen monoxide will kill you!!!!"

 

[alex3619]

"Not enough people are buying Unobtanium! You NEED Unobatium to LIVE or the di-hydrogen monoxide will kill you!!!!"

Di-hydrogen monoxide, oh yes, its an infamous chemical, often made in labs and not nature - though some is natural of course. Its also very true that thousands die of it every year. Why are all these deaths being ignored? We should ban di-hydrogen monoxide in our foods, we even feed it to babies!

Seriously though, psychosomatic medicine is dying. They are desperate for new patients. They keep broadening the definitions of psychosomatic illnesses. My hope is that the definitions will become so broad as to be obviously rediculous (its less obvious just now, you have to do a little research first).

The more I read up on Freud the more horrified I am. Modern docs can see its quackery. How come more are not challenging psychobabble? Frustrating.

Bye, Alex

 

[Jenny]

Some letters from today's Guardian commenting on the report:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/18/evidence-access-mental-health-services

It is the case, as Philip Graham argues in the first letter, that the effectiveness of CBT is grossly exaggerated for mental health conditions.

Jenny

 

[Esther12]

Some letters from today's Guardian commenting on the report:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/18/evidence-access-mental-health-services

It is the case, as Philip Graham argues in the first letter, that the effectiveness of CBT is grossly exaggerated for mental health conditions.

Jenny

Thanks a lot for that Jenny.

I can forget than in most areas (other than CFS) there are normally other interested parties willing to look at the evidence and criticise those who go beyond it. I was beginning to despondently imagine that reports like these are just accepted as accurate because they had come from 'independent experts'... what a relief to read Graham's response.

 

[Esther12]

In the new Wessely document they say:

Moreover, a half of all patients referred for first consultant appointments in the acute
sector have medically unexplained symptoms,19 such as back pain, chest pain and headache.
These patients cost the NHS some £3 billion a year,20 and many of them should be treated for
mental health problems.

Reference 19 is this Wessely paper, which says that psychiatric morbidity is not associated with medically unexplained symptoms ("per se" - which seems rather odd, given the inevitable emotional problems caused amongst some by having a physical health problem. Maybe it just didn't reach statistical significance until people had a few different unexplained health problems?):

http://mykcl.info/content/1/c6/01/47/68/120Nimnuam22001.pdf

"Many of them should be treat for mental health problems"? Well maybe. But you've not provided any evidence that this is the case, or that these mental health 'treatments' would be a sensible use of money.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Alex
yup, as I humourosly try to show they are merely trying ot drum up trade
again, these assholes are no different ot the "snake oil peddlers" and "witch hunters" of times gone by
they will make suprious claims and inspire fear to get trade.

Yes, people desperately need GOOD psychological help, if folk could see the ruination of lives here, sigh, another fella I know died of alcoholism yesterday, aged 50 iirc.
They do not need manipulative, lying bullshit though.

Esther
lad I know, from birth I could see he had some seriosu physical problems, due to his behaviour and even shape of his head
but docs ignored him, jsut saying he'd grow out of it, or it was psychological (new born with psych problems, oh FFS!)
now he's adult, mentlaly subnormal with serious problems some of which are phsycial, and they STILL do jack shit, tests yes, but uncoordinated and of couse they slap the "autism spectrum" on him rather than work further
autism my ass, he's had physicial issues since birth.

Anything the medicla profession cannot easily explain, they blame on the patient, and then if that can't work, they hit them with the simplest diagnosis to save time/effort of proper investigation
P*sses me off no end, because it wastes lives
that lad SHOULD have been diagnosed, treated or helped since infancy.
He has no chance of working or education...though of course our NeoNazi masters and ATOS will I'm sure try and force him to work though he is completley unfit and unsafe to work.
:/