Dozens of leading professionals just slammed Theresa May’s controversial new mental health ‘guru’ [L

[Demepivo]

*As a follow up there was an article published in the Morning Star written by members of the group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk...efully-let-down-by-professionals#.We-VIh_TVDs


*Like the Canary not my preferred choice of publication (it was the former newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain), however it is nonetheless welcome.

LAST week, over 65 deaf and disabled people’s organisations, campaigns and mental health professionals wrote to the Prime Minister asking her to urgently rethink her decision to appoint Professor Sir Simon Wessely to lead the much-anticipated independent review of the Mental Health Act as announced in her speech at the Conservative Party conference on October 4.

Wessely’s body of work on myalgic encephalomyelitis (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome), and his conduct in relation to people with ME, make him resoundingly unfit to lead an inquiry into the Mental Health Act.

ME is a poorly understood illness, believed by most researchers in the field to have a physical cause. But the “psychiatrisation” of ME through a cognitive-behavioural approach to the illness led by Wessely since the late 1980s has resulted in treatment (particularly graded exercise therapy, or GET) which can be harmful and even coerced, in the stigmatisation of patients and let to the frequent denial of their entitlement to social security and support.

Wessely has consistently promoted the unsubstantiated suggestion that ME is caused or maintained by patients’ false illness beliefs and abnormal behaviour.

 

[NelliePledge]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/922721151146692609

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/...efully-let-down-by-professionals#.We99GFKZM_V

Great article. Must read. Now need to get this into more of the mainstream press.

Finally the biggest medical, financial and scientific scandal getting attention.

Good to see left wing media coming on board

 

[lilpink]

Great Dr Jay Watts took a screen shot.

Ha ha!

 

[Yogi]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/922721151146692609

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/...efully-let-down-by-professionals#.We99GFKZM_V

Great article. Must read. Now need to get this into more of the mainstream press.

Finally the biggest medical, financial and scientific scandal getting attention.

The authors are Linda Burnip & Denise McKenna from Disabled People against Cuts.

I found this speech very interesting by Denise McKenna who has mental health problems and a psychiatric survivor. I would advise reading all of it.

I have only recently become acquainted with the psychiatric criticism by mental health patients. To sum up it seems they are as dissatisfied with psychiatry as physical ME patients are. Mental health patients criticism is that psychiatrists at present are focused on the medical model (brain chemical imbalances) and ignores the social context (poverty, discrimination, unemployment, etc). This is has financial advantage for governments and employers who can ignore the societal problems and note tackle them and focus on the medical model instead.

This is kind of the opposite of what we are arguing and fighting for. In physical and ME illnesses, the psychiatrists have ignored the medical issues and medical model and made up the biopsychosocial (BPS) model and false narrative of social factors.They have blamed patients with ME with a variety of psycho and social reasons for their ME.

This is fascinating as the leading psychiatrists have deliberately forced the wrong model, treatment and solutions for both physical and mental health patients. In both cases the patents are not treated correctly and the wrong model is used but more importantly the paymasters of the psychiatrists can wash their hands of the problem and any liability for the issues. E.G For physical ME patients by claiming there is no organic basis and therefore no insurance or government benefit payouts by blaming on non-existent psychosical factors which the patient will obviously deny. For mental health patients who insist that they have psychosocial problems the psychiatrists wrongly use the medical model and ignore the societal problems. WIN WIN for certain governments and industries. LOSE LOSE for both mental and physical ME patients.

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-some-cfs-wessely-mentions.54105/#post-899535

To set the ball in motion for this conference I want to say something about how the campaigning issues of survivors have changed in the past decade or more. I am speaking from the perspective of a survivor and a benefit claimant. I want to take you back to the early 1990s when I first became involved in the survivor movement after a few unhelpful admissions to psychiatric wards. As you might know, the survivor movement opposes the medical model of mental distress and has been campaigning for decades for care to be provided from the perspective of a social model. We have also been fighting the power imbalance between healthcare provider and service user, an imbalance that is enshrined in law; I’m referring to the Mental Health Act.

.................
I mention this history because I want to emphasise the enormity of the shift we have already made in campaigning. We are now out in the world standing side by side with other oppressed people. We always knew that the medical model of what they called mental illness was based on denial of the social context of our distress and that that denial served a political ideology. We knew that mental distress was caused by social factors, poverty, discrimination, domestic abuse, bullying, and so on and we weren’t convinced that the chemical imbalance in the brain story was the whole story or even any part of it. We also knew that the big pharmaceutical companies were behind a lot of the drug pushing. We were arguing for our pain and madness to be contextualised.
.............
Psychiatry had been unable to bring an end to much mental distress. It wasn’t curing us. Survivors came up with a Recovery Model which was about finding fulfilment in our lives on our own terms. However this model was stolen from us, transformed, and used against us. It is re-presented to us as being about changing our attitudes and all the other negative things we are guilty of. The sole purpose of the Recovery Model now is to move us away from the benefits system and pretend we are moving towards work. It has no therapeutic purpose.
...................
By turning psychology and the caring professions into weapons of abuse the government is trying to destroy the institutions that help to uphold our values, our empathy and respect, and even our love for each other. As though it’s not enough that they want to abuse us, they want to delegate the abusing so that we abuse each other. We have to fight to save the integrity of these professional and academic disciplines. I don’t think it’s too extreme to say they are trying to annihilate our humanity.

https://recoveryinthebin.org/2016/0...ckenna-mental-health-resistance-network-mhrn/

Would love to hear @Keith Geraghty's opinion on this and if he is aware of the criticism of psychiatry by mental health patients and the irony of these issues.

The other author is Linda Burnip and is an amazing woman who called in the United Nations to investigate the UK government over disability rights abuses. UK is first country in world to be investigated by United Nations.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...igation-uk-government-violations-human-rights

The only way this psychiatrist abuse by Wessely et al can be tackled is by all of us physical and psychiatric patients joining forces.

 

[boombachi]

Ironically now that a more social model is used in mental health services, there are those that say it ignores the great suffering experienced by patients. The issue as I see it is one of choice and patients being considered 'experts by experience'.

Amonst all of us, we will each choose a different way to deal with symptoms of physical and psychiatric illness. I know some people who hear voices who choose to take medication because the alternative is so distressing. Others prefer to use coping strategies. Some will choose or need both alongside support with housing, employment and social inclusion. A lot will depend on severity. I choose to manage my cfs symptoms with herbal medicine and pacing and I don't think I would risk the side effects of a drug like rituximab. If I was bedridden, I would probably take it in a shot. The important thing is to be given accurate information and respected to make your own decision as well as your own contribution be valued.

To say that it should all be about the social aspect of illness greatly dismisses the experience of someone suffering from a severe mental health condition. Of course there are social aspects to any illness but to impose either model on any patient is wrong imo.

Doctors and psychiatrists should act as advice givers but treatment should be collaborative. Dogma doesn't help anyone.

 

[Yogi]

Hi @Keith Geraghty - I appreciate you are busy but incase you had not seen my post above I have tagged you again. I would and many others would love to hear your opinion of the above post if you ever have the time.

Thanks for your time and all your hard work for ME patients.