One area where I knew I definitely needed to know more was mental illness, as a newly qualified therapist back in 2004.
This, I’m pretty sure I reasoned, will give me a better understanding of clients with a past history of mental health problems -whatever their current reason for consulting me -and would also equip me to cope if I encountered someone in serious cr.
To be able to recognise their symptoms in a client, and know what to do, I wanted to be better informed about the different common kinds of mental types ill health. I honestly wasn’t sure. Another question isSo the question is this. I do in that situation? I had heard of clients experiencing a psychotic episode during therapy. Let me tell you something. Late in 2005, By the way I heard a radio discussion about Mental Health Aid, a completely new Scottish NHS initiative which seemed to offer what I wanted in an intensive ’12 hour’ course.
I just wanted the training, It was infuriating -I was happy to pay.
No exceptions, I hurried to book a place -only to discover that I couldn’ Scottish residents only.
Until the English NHS adopted the scheme, that they By the way I couldn’t take the course. Certainly, researching further, I discovered it had originated in Australia, and that Scotland was one of a growing number of countries to adopt it. It covered a vast selection of mental health problems, was aimed at ordinary people not doctors, and taught the diagnosis, support and signposting skills I wanted. Bingo! Afterwards, MHFA manual in the bookshelf and NHS Scotland certificate proudly on the wall, I went back to my practice with increased confidence and understanding about mental health problems.
I found an accredited Scottish trainer prepared to travel, and a letter to other therapists attracted sufficient interest to make a course viable if we shared the costs, I hosted a course at a local hotel in March I remain truly grateful to those who responded to an enquiry from an obscure colleague and joined me for what turned out to be a fantastic two training days, networking and chat, as well as to the APHP for accepting the course as a credit wards our CPD requirement. I got it thanks to the support of colleagues, loads of from the APHP. Health ancillary workers, that said, the priority target groups are those who should be going to encounter a person experiencing mental health problems, frontline staff in advice and counselling, prison and probation officers and so on might be high on the list in England, as elsewhere.
Two years on, the English NHS has indeed launched a version of MHFA.
Instead of NHS Scotland, the accrediting body is the Care Services Improvement Partnership, commissioned by the Department of Health, it teaches similar theory, techniques and strategies as the Scottish version.
With input from Lewes and Wealden MIND and from NIMHE, it’s based very closely on the Scottish model, and is now being rolled out throughout the country. English MHFA initiative ain’t aimed at qualified mental health professionals in general adults, like its counterparts elsewhere. Remember, successful participants receive a certificate issued centrally by CSIP and a Mental Health Aid manual. Aims of MHFA are fourfold. Now pay attention please. By educating more people about mental health problems, the course also aims to increase awareness and thus reduce the stigma and prejudice that can be directed at those experiencing mental illness. Ok, and now one of the most important parts. Where I have always seen us in the equation is in the ‘pre or’ ‘post emergency’ phases, under the selfhelp sign -the things that a person can do for themselves in addition to any treatment or medication prescribed by their doctor.
By providing a really good grounding in the practicalities of mental ill health, plus an olkit of strategies for use in an emergency, MHFA has made me better at reading my clients and helping them find their way to recovery, and has prepared me for anything I may meet in the way of cr or extreme distress.
My initial hypnotherapy training taught me to direct such clients straight to professional medical help, and MHFA teaches identical.
It must be stressed that so that’s not a course that trains therapists to treat clients’ mental health problems, particularly not clients in cr. When a patient is stable and receiving medication and treatment, we can’t treat severe clinical depression. My interest in this side of my work was a lot stimulated by the original training that I stayed in contact with those involved, and was fortunate enough last year to gain a place in the first cohort to train as accredited MHFA trainers in England.
Loads of us know that there are freelance trainers and with luck or persistence a local course should be found, trainer places at present are going mainly to large organisations and public bodies who wish to appoint internal trainers to serve their workforce.
Although I am now delivering a few courses a month to groups of up to fifteen participants, so this article was not a plea for business, mainly in the voluntary sector, in addition to my continuing clinical practice.
If the local PCT identifies us as so or not, I think that hypnotherapy and psychotherapy fall firmly into the category of priority target groups, and if training is available locally colleagues will find it rewarding and useful. If colleagues wish to contact me, I’d be happy to answer any queries about the course content, or I’m quite sure I would like to alert colleagues to the existence of this initiative, that is running now in England, is rolling out shortly in Wales, and had been established in Scotland for a few years. Keep reading. And were affected as people always are by a tragedy of this kind, when we reached the material on recognising and responding to suicidal thoughts I discovered a couple of them had recently lost a close colleague in this way.
While during a MHFA course I led for advice workers whose clients are often distressed or in cr, I thought of him shortly afterwards.
When he chanced on an emergency and had the skills to help, a representative of our local air ambulance. Remarked to me how much satisfaction he got, outside of work.
As pointed out by one statistic, it seems obvious to me that Mental Health Aid may turn out to be equally as important at the kind that comes in a greenish box with an almost white cross on it, with one Briton in four experiencing some mental health problem in any one year. On p of that, if they chanced on another emergency, in other words, perhaps in the future they must be able to help, Although training for work purposes, it was clear from what was said that they saw their new skills applying equally to their personal lives. He is based in offices in central Darlington in ‘North East’ England, and will deliver MHFA courses throughout England for up to 15 participants either in house, or at a suitable external venue.