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By susiebelle, on July 30th, 2010
[Guest post by Susiebelle]
Mental commented on this post when i wrote it on the 7th July (which was also when i spotted the article on the BBC) and asked if she could steal it for a guest post.
To be honest I’m still a little jet lagged/diet coke (caffeine/aspartame) detox suffering to be bothered if Mental just copied and pasted it it without even asking. However i can understand that when i eventually come round from this sleepy, migraine, post holiday, general depression and lack of diet coke induced state i may actually care and be rather upset and angry, so here it is the officially submitted guest post on a subject that i will always have some thing to say on.
In fact i ended up talking to the off duty pilot who was sat next to m on my flight back, explaining the scars (after he had explained his skin graft scar on his wrist) but i think i childhood accident has less stigma attached that my “self inflicted” scars, which was how i tried to describe them to him, fully aware that my Nan was sitting listening on the other side of me.
So to the BBC (ground-breaking) article about a (revolutionary) report on how self harmers are not getting the help they need.
(No? Really?)
The original post is here by the way
Another news story where i feel like saying:
- “Have you only just realised this??!!”
- “So what’s new?”
- “Does this mean you will do something about it now?” (to which the reply is probably “no”)
Continue reading BBC – Self Harmers Not Recieving Help
By rasselas, on May 21st, 2010
[Guest post by Rasselas, Prince of Dysthymia]
Firstly, my personal motto: I’m not anti-psychiatry, I’m anti-bullshit.
So whether you’re talking about so-called laissez-faire economics, the madness of Chavez, or the corrective utility of Seroquel, to me it makes no difference. Bullshit is bullshit, no matter the shape, size and texture, no matter what arsehole it’s extruded from. All bullshit stinks.
I have a question. I’m hoping some of you will be willing to give it serious consideration.
In the subcultures of criminalised psychoactive drug taking there are many wisdoms. One of them is that you will get the best deals from trusted, established, peer-reviewed dealers who, by and large, will be users themselves. Coleridge knew this, and so did de Quincey, Baudellaire, Burrows and Self. It’s a wisdom that’s passed down through the ages.
Now, many years ago I was offered Abilify. Whoever conceived of that neologism was a crafty wordsmith; it’s like the noun ‘ability’ (the quality of being able to perform or facilitate achievement or accomplishment) has been blurred breakneck through the Large Hadron Collider smack bang into the verb ‘stultify’ (cripple, deprive of strength or efficiency; make useless or worthless) – nice.
Continue reading Pushin’ the wrong buttons
By DeeDee Ramona, on January 16th, 2010
The Irish health system is rather complicated, containing both a comprehensive and entirely public network of hospitals and clinics, and an equally wide-ranging system of private non-profit establishments.
In this article, we’ll have a look at the public system and how it is funded. Then, I’ll examine the parallel, private system. After that, we’ll see how the two intersect in the GP system. Finally, I’ll lay out some of the main problems the system is facing.
Continue reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Irish Health Service
By DeeDee Ramona, on November 28th, 2009
This is a post about the systematic, institutional abuse of patients by mental health nursing staff.
I had the misfortune in the late 1990s of spending a year in total as an inpatient in a Big Dublin Hospital where many of the staff treated the patients with a mixture of disgust, antipathy and contempt. We were the lowest of the low, like convicted multiple murderers. They felt justified in treating us any way they felt like it, with a let up only if they thought we were trying hard enough to redeem ourselves on a daily basis. Behaviour like self-harm, suicide attempts, anorexia or being sectioned was taken as proof that the patient wasn’t interested in getting well and wasn’t trying hard enough, and was dealt with harshly. (Yep, sectioned patients were badly treated purely because they had been sectioned, and so obviously didn’t want to get better, you read that right).
Continue reading Why Some People Hate All Mental Health Professionals
By Mental Nurse, on August 7th, 2009
Come across this in a few places. None of which link to the original research.
Nicotine improves brain function in schizophrenics, from Cosmos magazine:
Researchers led by Ruth Barr, a psychiatrist at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, set out to find if the nicotine in cigarettes was helping patients to overcome their difficulties with cognitive function, such as planning and memory in social and work settings.
They found:
The participants showed improvement in brain function, including less impulsive behaviour and better levels of attention, which are both unrelated to nicotine withdrawal, said Barr.
Continue reading Smoke Yourself Sane
By DeeDee Ramona, on August 2nd, 2009
That phrase, “You Own Your Own Feelings” is one that used to get repeated to me over and over by therapists at Big Dublin Hospital. They were telling me that it was entirely a matter of choice if I chose to be upset about, among other things, severe physical abuse and sexual type abuse dished out to me by a schoolteacher, constant emotional and physical abuse in the home til I was about 16, a string of abusive boyfriends etc etc etc.
I chose to let these things bother me, evidently. If I chose differently, which of course I could, since I owned my feelings, I would no longer have these things bothering me. Nice little logical extension of CBT and solution to all my trauma-related problems in one, natch.
Anyone else encounter this attitude in therapists?
Continue reading “You Own Your Own Feelings” or the Limits of CBT
By jessa, on July 25th, 2009
(Guest post by jessa)
What would you do if you knew that tomorrow when you go to work, all of your patients would have very high IQs, all much higher than your own?
Okay, I really do want an answer to that question, but of course I am also trying to make a point.
Continue reading What if your patients are smart?
By jessa, on July 11th, 2009
(Guest post by jessa)
I’m kind of on a quest. In trying to figure out how to make mental health care better, I’ve tried to figure out what has gone wrong. What happens to turn people who went into this profession with the genuine intention of helping people into people who harm their patients egregiously without noticing or caring? I haven’t really figured this out.
Continue reading What happens to well-meaning professionals?
By DeeDee Ramona, on July 9th, 2009
(Guest post by DeeDee Ramona)
With additional material provided by a friend who wished to remain anonymous. Please note that as I’ve also been asked to write a version for distribution in the USA, a lot of the language is targetted in that direction.
Introduction
Here’s a little guide I wrote to how to stay out of trouble during your stay on a a general adult acute psychiatric ward in the UK. Despite what you might think from the TV, such places are, in general, not particularly dangerous. There are factors that can, however, make your stay more difficult if you’re not careful how you approach the situation.
The problem is that you are, effectively, shut into a set of rooms smaller than the Big Brother house, with twice as many people, none of whom really want to be there and with whom you have nothing in common except mental illness. All of you have had your social skills drastically compromised by illness. Some of the other patients may live a very rough existence, due to past and present social exclusion and you will need to get on with them too.
Here are 10 tips to help you have a trouble-free admission.
Continue reading Staying Out of Trouble During a Stay on an Acute Psychiatric Ward: A Guide
By a mental, on June 22nd, 2009
(Guest post by A Mental)
I must apologise for this first introduction as not only are there my normal levels of confusion to deal with, but I have also taken my sleepers, which add all sorts of exciting confusion such as voices and people running around fast etc etc. So this may actually make no sense at all. And it may well be long. I waffle. Writing in a succinct manner is not a skill I have ever mastered – my A level English Lit teacher told me so.
Anyway, as you may (or may not) have guessed from my name, I am not an RMN (does the term ‘Mental Nurse’ make anyone else chortle by the way? Mental Health Nurse or Psychiatric Nurse I could understand, but Mental Nurse?? I can just imagine 2 nurses talking ‘So what sort of nurse are you?’ (asks RMN) ‘Oh, I am a Children’s Nurse, I work with children. What about you? Our imaginary RMN replies ‘I am a Mental Nurse. I work with mentals. Does anyone see my point regarding the slightly odd terminology there used in the titles? Or is it just the Zolpidem that makes me find it amusing? Anyway, enough chortling, back to the point, the point’………………………………. Ah yes, the point is I am not an RMN, or any other nursy type, or anyone professionally involved in mental health. I am a patient (refuse to be client - seems linked to prostitution) under MH services, and have been since I was 17, and am now 23 (or will be in a week). I swear this had a point, I haven’t a bloody clue what it was anymore though. So anyway, I just registered my name as ‘a mental’ since we have already established RMNs treat mentals, and there is only one of me, hence the lack of s in my name. Wonderful, you have had to endure a blog about my name. It really was about something else, I promise.
Continue reading Question for MN
By Mr Ian, on April 4th, 2009
It’s not a euphamism. I mean it quite literally.
Blind people have had them for years. Now deaf people have hearing dogs. But what use can a dog be to a person with a mental illness?
According to the limited information – and Wiki – quite a lot.
A psychiatric service dog is a specific type of service dog trained to assist their handler with a psychiatric disability, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or schizophrenia.
Although assistance dogs classically help with physical disabilities, there are a wide range of psychiatric issues that an assistance dog may be able to help with as well.
Now the thing to note here is – a service dog is not the same as a therapeutic dog.
We all know that therapy dogs are nice and cuddly and give us a little emotional boost. Bit like an AIN.
But psychiatric service dogs…. they’re the RMN’s of Animal Therapists.
Continue reading Mental Health care – going to the dogs or is it all just for the birds?
By Mr Ian, on March 28th, 2009
Before I begin – beakie started it.
I was replying in the comments thread and, as per usual, it became verbose and convoluted. So I’m setting up camp here for the counter-argument.
Is CBT (or any psychological or social therapy, like the Hoffman Process) Boswellox? Does it have any credibility?
I suggest it does. And I have a theory to go with it.
Aren’t you lucky.
Continue reading In defence of CBT – and other Boswellox
By jessa, on March 10th, 2009
(guest post by jessa)
Mental health care professionals have to write about their patients, but this has been a mysterious process to me. I have had to chart, but in a different setting. I used to work in a home for four developmentally disabled men; they were all paraplegic, only one could speak, and he only spoke two words. I had to write notes about various aspects of their day and care. I was specifically told that when I made interpretations, I had to include the specific actions that were the basis for my interpretations. I could write, “Dave waved his hands over his head and screeched when we turned on MTV to a Britney Spears video, so I think he enjoyed the video,” but I couldn’t say, “Dave enjoyed watching the Britney Spears music videos.” This was partly because, although it may have seemed clear that Dave enjoyed the music video, we couldn’t be certain because Dave couldn’t tell us whether he was waving his hands and screeching because he was happy or, possibly, because Britney Spears causes him moral outrage. By recording what I observed, my notes were less likely to be misleading and more likely to help decipher puzzling behavior. If I wrote that Dave was happy but not that he waved his hands, and someone else later noticed that he winced in pain when lifting his arms over his head, they have no clue that those two events might be related.
Continue reading Ask the Mentalists – Charting
By jessa, on February 25th, 2009
(Guest post by Jessa)
In the Mental Nurse forums, Nell and I were discussing plans for a survival guide to mental health care (you should contribute when we get around to making a more formal request) and we got off on a tangent about our linguistic bones of contention with mental health care. These linguistic bones of contention are one of those things that I have asked professionals about while I have been under their care, but that they have refused to discuss with me (as per “why won’t professionals answer patients’ questions”).
Continue reading Ask the Mentalists – Artificial Language Barriers
By Mr Ian, on February 21st, 2009
A person moves to a local small community. One of the community team knows him from previous admissions to hospital in another region following “bizarre behaviour” in public.
The man is known to have a diagnosis of “Schizophrenia”. Anecdotal reports suggest that the person can become extremely unwell within a month if not taking [...]
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