posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
taperoo2k at 03:42am on 08/03/2007
taperoo2k at 03:42am on 08/03/2007The main reason for my anger over the new mental health act is the role that CTO's will play.
CTO's are Community treatment orders. Which basically means that it if a person is deemed to have an untreatable condition, such as a personality disorder, they can be detained. Even if they have not committed a crime. The Government is as usual painting a rosy picture of CTO's, even though a report by the government itself has concluded that there is a lack evidence to support the contention that CTO's actually work.
The Mental Health charities contend that far from helping people with mental health problems it will make them not want to seek help for fear of being locked away, even though they haven't done anything.
CTO's are Community treatment orders. Which basically means that it if a person is deemed to have an untreatable condition, such as a personality disorder, they can be detained. Even if they have not committed a crime. The Government is as usual painting a rosy picture of CTO's, even though a report by the government itself has concluded that there is a lack evidence to support the contention that CTO's actually work.
The Mental Health charities contend that far from helping people with mental health problems it will make them not want to seek help for fear of being locked away, even though they haven't done anything.
Now they are several reasons for the mental health act 1983 being updated and changed. One of the reasons is that parts of the act are not compatible with the Human Rights Act. And that there are "loopholes" that allow people with dangerous personality disorders to evade section orders (which strip you of most rights). Now I do agree that people with severe personality disorders do require hospital care to not only safeguard the public but to also keep the patient themselves from harming themselves and others. I believe the CTO's are the wrong way to go about it.
The terms of the CTO's are so wide open, that they can and probably will be abused to lock people up who are not that dangerous or for political reasons.
I suffer from major depression with psychotic features. However I have no desire to harm myself or anyone else. If that does become the case, then i will undergo hospital treatment, even though I've seen how grim hospital treatment is (Aunt's been sectioned a few times).
I feel that the stigma around mental health problems is wrong. It's not helped by the tabloid rags and even some of the broadsheet headlines that suggest that anyone with a mental health problem is probably a killer just waiting to kill somebody. Which is not the case. What needs to change is society's view of mental health disorders and for the whole mental health system to change so that it can help people with problems improve their conditions as far as they can be improved. Instead of just being sectioned for a few months and then released back into the community only for the whole process to start over. The system at the moment creates the situations where very disturbed people kill innocent passers by. However this is rare, but tends to get highlighted by the tabloid rags which makes it look like there are thousands of nutcases out there waiting to kill people and the only solution is to lock them up.
I think it's a national disgrace that instead of trying to help this section of society that need medical care and help to improve themselves, we instead focus on locking people away and turning our noses up at those people and hoping the problem goes away.
Now the treatment I've gotten in the last couple of years has been great, though i am my own worst enemy at times. However prior to this the treatment I had was pretty shambolic with one shrink telling me i just needed to cheer up. Though that may have been down to my condition being difficult to diagnosis because I'm very good at hiding my emotions and because i find it difficult to eloquently describe how i feel or what my symptoms are.
So while i do believe the mental health system needs reform, i think the government is misguided and is as usual going after the headlines with promises of policy's that have in fact very little detail, and just make the problems at hand worse not better. Which is the Hallmark of Tony Blair's time in office.
This may not be comfortable reading for some people, who for whatever reason find this topic difficult. But the bottom line is that mental health disorders are a reality which is not going away. The sooner the stigma around it dissolves the sooner we can breach the subject in open and honest terms. We have come a long way since the days of lobotomy's and insulin shock therapy, but there is still a very long way to go.
CTO's are dangerous and possibly open to abuse.
BBC report
MHA site
Government report on the mental health act and CTO's (PDF file)
"I believe that it is possible to be more objective than most of us are, but that it involves a moral effort. One cannot get away from one's own subjective feelings, but at least one can know what they are and make allowance for them." George Orwell
The terms of the CTO's are so wide open, that they can and probably will be abused to lock people up who are not that dangerous or for political reasons.
I suffer from major depression with psychotic features. However I have no desire to harm myself or anyone else. If that does become the case, then i will undergo hospital treatment, even though I've seen how grim hospital treatment is (Aunt's been sectioned a few times).
I feel that the stigma around mental health problems is wrong. It's not helped by the tabloid rags and even some of the broadsheet headlines that suggest that anyone with a mental health problem is probably a killer just waiting to kill somebody. Which is not the case. What needs to change is society's view of mental health disorders and for the whole mental health system to change so that it can help people with problems improve their conditions as far as they can be improved. Instead of just being sectioned for a few months and then released back into the community only for the whole process to start over. The system at the moment creates the situations where very disturbed people kill innocent passers by. However this is rare, but tends to get highlighted by the tabloid rags which makes it look like there are thousands of nutcases out there waiting to kill people and the only solution is to lock them up.
I think it's a national disgrace that instead of trying to help this section of society that need medical care and help to improve themselves, we instead focus on locking people away and turning our noses up at those people and hoping the problem goes away.
Now the treatment I've gotten in the last couple of years has been great, though i am my own worst enemy at times. However prior to this the treatment I had was pretty shambolic with one shrink telling me i just needed to cheer up. Though that may have been down to my condition being difficult to diagnosis because I'm very good at hiding my emotions and because i find it difficult to eloquently describe how i feel or what my symptoms are.
So while i do believe the mental health system needs reform, i think the government is misguided and is as usual going after the headlines with promises of policy's that have in fact very little detail, and just make the problems at hand worse not better. Which is the Hallmark of Tony Blair's time in office.
This may not be comfortable reading for some people, who for whatever reason find this topic difficult. But the bottom line is that mental health disorders are a reality which is not going away. The sooner the stigma around it dissolves the sooner we can breach the subject in open and honest terms. We have come a long way since the days of lobotomy's and insulin shock therapy, but there is still a very long way to go.
CTO's are dangerous and possibly open to abuse.
BBC report
MHA site
Government report on the mental health act and CTO's (PDF file)
"I believe that it is possible to be more objective than most of us are, but that it involves a moral effort. One cannot get away from one's own subjective feelings, but at least one can know what they are and make allowance for them." George Orwell
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However, before this amendment was even thought of, when I went to take part in a psychology study at the place opposite Warnerford Hall, the receptionist asked me if I'd already checked my bags in... And then, coz nobody escorted me out, I had to hover in a glass tube (ok, tunnel, and stand around feeling self-conscious and trapped) until somebody came along and ask to be let out... *scared* I was convinced that they'd think I was an inmate... ;-)
In all seriousness, at present, the mental health services fail a lot of people. Some people with scizophrenia basically get committed, treated until their bed's needed by somebody worse off, released back with no support (we saw a film at uni - by no support, I mean not even making sure that the electricity etc. in their council flats will be switched on), then committed again once they forget to take their meds/ lash out/ otherwise spectacularly demonstrate that they're not ready to live independently. There's a revolving door in place that shouldn't be - people who do need those levels of support should get them.
The standard of care at all levels varies considerably too, and people are let down who need a variety of services.
One of my friends tried to kill herself when she was 15, and because she couldn't in good faith say that she wouldn't try again, they wouldn't discharge her from hospital. It didn't have an adolescent ward, so she was in a main bay with children who were on the whole about a fifth of her age, and it really didn't help her get her head together that she got nasty looks from the kids' parents when she cried.
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Though i guess Orwell would have probably seen this new mental health act as part of his vision of the future coming true. Must get a new copy of 1984.
My aunt gets sectioned a few times a year and she usually ends up being discharged after a week or two. They just send her home and wait for her to lose the plot again.
I've only ever been in the psychology department at the main Warneford Hospital, and a day centre thing which was so boring and pointless i walked out and never went back lol.
I guess i should have been sectioned in 2001, when i had a breakdown, but my GP was amazing. Got me well enough to avoid that. 2001 was the mixed bag year for me, first half was me going crazy, second half of the year was getting a good psychologist who diagnosed me, something other professionals seemed reluctant to do because i'm a difficult case to diagnose apparently. Though Professor Geddes is quite mad, he thinks Radiohead sounds like Genesis (sp?).