There must be something missing!?

Last week we discussed exercise as one of our Toolkits for Good Mental Health, and so far we have covered exercise and sleep.  Our next tool is a conventional one: talking therapy.

Whilst we’re not necessarily ranking these tools in order of effectiveness, isn’t it interesting that we have only just mentioned this and yet this is the main treatment provided by the health system!?

What’s missing?

Although the effectiveness of talking therapy is difficult to quantify, I attended a talk by a mental health professional a couple of years ago who said that talking therapy is only effective in about 1/3 of cases.  So I started to ask the question, what about the nearly 70% of people who are left suffering?  Medication and light therapy are the only other treatments provided by our health system.  The former is rarely the answer because it doesn’t get to the root cause of a condition and merely manages symptoms, if at all.

I could see clearly that there are other causes, and readily available treatments, of poor mental health that aren’t being recognised or addressed by the professionals.  These approaches get to the root cause and stop it becoming a major issue.  I wanted to raise awareness to empower people and prevent them from becoming severely mentally ill.  We also need to change the system-wide approach.  This was the main driver for setting up Mental Health Getaway. 

Talk it out

Talking therapy involves talking to a trained professional about your thoughts, feelings and behaviour.  It can include counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and many more.  You can find a full list of available therapy on the NHS in the UK here, or you may be able to obtain them through a health insurer.  These therapies are aimed at helping people to understand themselves and their thought patterns, to dispel issues by talking about them and to learn coping and stress management mechanisms to manage them.

In order for these to have any chance of being effective, the therapist must be a competent individual that the client connects with.  Therapy will be ineffective if there is no sense of trust, respect or mutual understanding.

Are you depressed enough?

However, talking therapies are costly and are not always readily available.  In August 2022, the Independent reported that the number of people waiting for community mental health care from the NHS was 1.2 million, whilst 8 million did not meet the criteria to be eligible for treatment and have therefore been left to fend for themselves.  In October 2022, the Guardian reported that 1 in 4 people are being forced to wait more than 12 weeks for help on the NHS and as a result, are often turning to A&E or even dialling 999 to reach the emergency services for help.  In July 2022, YoungMinds, a mental health charity for children, young people and their parents, reported that, of 14,000 <25 year olds who completed their survey, 26% had tried to take their own life as a result of having to wait for mental health support and 9% were turned away without treatment.

Mental health services, as with the NHS as a whole, have been put under increased pressure as a result of the response to COVID.  However, the blessing is that we are talking about it more openly now.

What else can you do?

It is possible to obtain therapy independently from the NHS and medical insurers, however it is not affordable for some.  Given it is only effective for c33% of people, we recommend looking to the other causes of mental ill-health first, which we share at Mental Health Getaway, or at least in conjunction with talking therapy.  Alternatively, you may wish to turn to the next tool in our Mental Health Toolkit, which we will discuss next week.

Prevention

Our Mental Health Getaways are aimed at people with low level anxiety, depression or dissatisfaction with life, for whom we aim to prevent serious concerns arising later.  Along with sharing good practice for mental health in general and these building blocks, toolkit and skills, we use higher-level approaches of talking therapy called Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Transformational Coaching.

NLP helps us to understand the ways our thoughts affect our behaviour, which the coach can then use to assist us to positively rewire our brains in the way we think and behave.  Transformational Coaching is focused on enabling self-actualisation and dives deep into an individual’s psyche, focusing on who that person is and desires to become.  Transformational coaching goes a step further than regular coaching because it is about ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’, as in traditional coaching.  It raises the question, who do I need to be in order for my goals or dreams to become a reality?  The ‘becoming’ process is the transformational path.

The future

I am told by talking therapists themselves that some of them are beginning to encourage people to recognise the importance of nutrition, sleep and exercise in good mental health.  Whilst this is great news, it comes too late when the burden has been placed on an already struggling mental health system.  This is especially so where people are having to wait long periods for treatment, or being turned away with no help at all.  Why are we not teaching this in schools, and also educating adults, which is by far a better approach to protecting the NHS!?

Next week

Next week we will discuss an alternative to formal talking therapy, which may be more accessible.

Until then, well wishes,

Andie. x