October 2008 Archives

Ok, there's been a few bits of mental health research published over the past couple of days.

OK, I've been a bit slack on the old Mad World front recently. I've been spreading myself a bit thinly recently - spending quite a bit of time on CareSpace, putting together the Ivory Tower podcast, doing some video work at the recent social services conference and attempting to get to grips with Twitter. Is anyone out there on Twitter? Let me know and I'll follow you.

Right, back to mental health matters. In Scotland, mental health patients are waiting up to four years to see a psychologist. I know waiting times in England can be bad but four years is unbelievable. Kind of defeats the point really.

People with depression or anxiety tend to prefer counselling or therapy rather than drugs, according to a meta analysis of research findings.
There's a post on Mind Hacks about new spoof psychic Shirley Ghostman.

Also noticed today that the BBC is to broadcast some interesting programmes about mental health as part of its Headroom campaign to improve general wellbeing.

There's a new project in the blogosphere called Mindapples, aiming to get everyone thinking about the five things ordinary folk do each day to keep them sane.
Two major things worth pointing out today.

Mental health servics in England are a model for the rest of Europe, according to the World Health Organisation. We're very good at slagging things off in this country, so it's nice to take the opportunity to celebrate something that's doing well.

And secondly, the credit crunch, which doesn't seem to have really hit the real economy in the UK yet, is already having an impact on people's mental health. Let's hope all the advances we have made over the past few years on things like mental health services can be maintained in the face of tough economic times.

Some such as the Conservatives are already wanting to roll back some employment rights, it seems.
Change is possible in all areas of life and addiction can be beaten, according to a piece in Psychology Today. In fact, according to the stats, more people beat their addictions than do not. It's good to have an antidote to all that fatalism on World Mental Health Day.
Nearly half of workers in the UK would not be happy to reveal a mental health problem at work, a new survey reveals.

This is sad but hardly suprising news, as mental health stigma still seems incredibly strong. A recent discussion on CareSpace illustrated that even workers in social care, which would probably be more enlightened on these issues than other sectors, would have second thoughts about disclosing mental health problems.

Of course World Mental Health Day is on Friday and it will be interesting to see if it gets any decent coverage.

The stigma suffered by dementia patients makes life much harder for many, research suggests.
Now I'm no musician, even though I'm trying to learn the guitar at the moment. However, even my strangely discordant attempts at playing simple chords have a calming effect on me. That may be more to do with the zen-like repetition of the same notes required in practice than the soothing nature of what I'm actually playing.
There's a bumper bag of mental health materiel for your consideration today.

First up, a new meta analysis suggests longer term psychodynamic psychotherapy is more effective for complex mental health problems than shorter term approaches. This is potentially important news because longer-term therapy has sometimes struggled to establish an evidence base. There has also been more emphasis on shorter term approaches recently, particularly in the government's CBT initiative, although that is admittedly focused on milder mental health conditions.

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Mad World highlights the latest research, policy and debate about all things mental health along with some social work stuff and the odd piece of random nonsense, just to keep you on your toes.

It is written by community editor Simeon Brody.

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