I heard on the radio this morning that there's going to be more money for talking therapies for common and complex mental health problems, especially targetting children, whose current mental health services are patchy at best.
Well, that's great, if it really adds up to extra money for these services and not giving with one hand and taking with another.
One of the issues services will need to overcome is the public perception of talking therapies. It still surprises me when I realise that many people would rather take a tablet than address their difficulties through talking. I suppose we all like a quick fix, if that's really possible, but it has been known for ages that treatment for mild depression, for example, is best if it's a combination of short-term medication and a talking therapy.
CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) seems to be the thing that at the moment health services believe is the cure for everything, and there certainly seems to be evidence that it helps with a lot of mental health issues. It's not right for everything or everyone, though, and there is also evidence that many other types of therapy are just as helpful for some things and some people.
Coaching is a relatively new profession, and is also very helpful for addressing non-clinical issues which affect people's mental health and well-being. NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) is becoming more and more established as an effective way of addressing some key health problems, such as phobias and trauma related stress, but also well-being issues such as confidence, good self-esteem and self belief, which have a major impact on our psychological health and ability to function at our best. We just need even more research to demonstrate the effectiveness of these forms of helping so that they can be made more easily available to people, so that the public can make informed choices about what form of 'talking therapy' they want to try.
What's available and how much is available are important things to think about, but the other sticking point is how much will people be willing to use these services?
Talking about your problems is not something that many people find easy and counselling, even life coaching, and many forms of psychological therapy can have a rather 'touchy, feely' image which some people (dare I say men in particular?) are not comfortable with.
We really need to overcome this, because these forms of helping really do work and people get huge benefits from using these approaches, mainly because it gives them the power to make themselves well again and take back the control in their lives.
It's good that children in schools are encouraged to develop their emotional intelligence much more these days, and hopefully that might lead to future generations who are not so afraid of talking about their feelings.
We do need more psychological services, of all different kinds, but we also need to think very carefully about how we present them to people, and persuade them to make use of these very valuable resources.
Well, that's great, if it really adds up to extra money for these services and not giving with one hand and taking with another.
One of the issues services will need to overcome is the public perception of talking therapies. It still surprises me when I realise that many people would rather take a tablet than address their difficulties through talking. I suppose we all like a quick fix, if that's really possible, but it has been known for ages that treatment for mild depression, for example, is best if it's a combination of short-term medication and a talking therapy.
CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) seems to be the thing that at the moment health services believe is the cure for everything, and there certainly seems to be evidence that it helps with a lot of mental health issues. It's not right for everything or everyone, though, and there is also evidence that many other types of therapy are just as helpful for some things and some people.
Coaching is a relatively new profession, and is also very helpful for addressing non-clinical issues which affect people's mental health and well-being. NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) is becoming more and more established as an effective way of addressing some key health problems, such as phobias and trauma related stress, but also well-being issues such as confidence, good self-esteem and self belief, which have a major impact on our psychological health and ability to function at our best. We just need even more research to demonstrate the effectiveness of these forms of helping so that they can be made more easily available to people, so that the public can make informed choices about what form of 'talking therapy' they want to try.
What's available and how much is available are important things to think about, but the other sticking point is how much will people be willing to use these services?
Talking about your problems is not something that many people find easy and counselling, even life coaching, and many forms of psychological therapy can have a rather 'touchy, feely' image which some people (dare I say men in particular?) are not comfortable with.
We really need to overcome this, because these forms of helping really do work and people get huge benefits from using these approaches, mainly because it gives them the power to make themselves well again and take back the control in their lives.
It's good that children in schools are encouraged to develop their emotional intelligence much more these days, and hopefully that might lead to future generations who are not so afraid of talking about their feelings.
We do need more psychological services, of all different kinds, but we also need to think very carefully about how we present them to people, and persuade them to make use of these very valuable resources.
