Published online, I read in the Nowrwich Evening News from Feb 9, 2018 about the suicide of a young man after failing to get mental health services. I only know about the case what I read there. Given that Sir Robert Francis QC's comment from the MidStaffs Enquiry still echoes in my mind, I am shocked but not all that surprised - "A culture has allowed to develop that puts the self-protection of the organisation over patient care..."
While working as a Locum Social Worker in England, I have more than once observed how even reasonably compassionate colleagues when the client did not respond to what was offered them reverted to blaming the client for being attention-seeking or worse. And more than once, after listening to difficult clients' concerns rather than their diagnosis, I have been able to offer simple real-life support for what they needed - assistance for the person to be able to help themselves. (Often they found useful the free online material published by teh Australian Centre for Clinical Interventions - their Consumer Handbooks).
So what shocks me here most is how client and algorithm-trained staff remained locked in a futile vicious circle of expectations. Ultimately, I see at the heart the expectation that the medical model of diagnosing and medicating can solve real-life problems people want to fix (as the father in this case says his late son was very keen to do even!)
It is the culture that needs to change. Psychiatry-survivors such as the Hearing Voces Network are already presenting key aspects of what is needed - taking the real concerns people live with and present seriously. From theere the process starts to see deeply and clearly.
While working as a Locum Social Worker in England, I have more than once observed how even reasonably compassionate colleagues when the client did not respond to what was offered them reverted to blaming the client for being attention-seeking or worse. And more than once, after listening to difficult clients' concerns rather than their diagnosis, I have been able to offer simple real-life support for what they needed - assistance for the person to be able to help themselves. (Often they found useful the free online material published by teh Australian Centre for Clinical Interventions - their Consumer Handbooks).
So what shocks me here most is how client and algorithm-trained staff remained locked in a futile vicious circle of expectations. Ultimately, I see at the heart the expectation that the medical model of diagnosing and medicating can solve real-life problems people want to fix (as the father in this case says his late son was very keen to do even!)
It is the culture that needs to change. Psychiatry-survivors such as the Hearing Voces Network are already presenting key aspects of what is needed - taking the real concerns people live with and present seriously. From theere the process starts to see deeply and clearly.
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