Depression and Anxiety have been something that has affected our lives more and more. You either have had depression or anxiety, currently have depression or anxiety, or know someone that has one of them or even both, and everyone is wondering, ‘what is the solution?’
Everyone that works with clients, cares about getting results. When you talk to any health professional, the joy of working with a client through their journey and watching them grow as a person and reaching their potential is why we do what we do. There’s nothing more rewarding than this! Where health professionals do differ is our approach or HOW to get a desired outcome with a client.
When I first started on my road in Mental Health and psychology, we were essentially told to pick a field and then hate all the others, which I initially did. As mentioned before, we are programmed from an early age in our educational system that there is a correct way to do things – 'Deductive Learning'.
After defending a psychological approach for a couple of years, Rob broke me out of my trance by asking me a specific question. “How do I specifically get the result I desire?” In psychology, this is something that I had never thought of because we too busy trying to fit our learning into a scientific paradigm. Develop a theoretical framework, find out through observation what the current situation is, develop a null hypothesis, develop a methodology to test, get results and conclusion.
After realising that what I could theoretically do and ‘actually’ do behaviourally, were poles apart. I was incongruent because I was going around trying to help people with phobias and anxiety when I had them both myself!
I decided that I needed a new way to be able to help people in real world situations. I needed to be able to walk my talk because I now knew theories will only get you so far.
Having worked in the NHS and in Private health care companies in the UK, I have experience of how they both work. Both are reliant on exceptional staff who go above and beyond what they are contracted to do in order to allow the services to run efficiently as they can.
In 2023 however, they are now not fit for purpose and the focus is now on disease management rather than prevention or reversing dis-ease. Lobbying now takes place in Whitehall at Government headquarters and the wealthier companies essentially run their agendas through ‘Government Think Tanks’.
In other words, your health is not the government’s top priority, and this is becoming increasingly visible to the UK population. Investment in Health and Wellbeing is a fraction of what it was 15 years ago, and it’s come to a point where the population need solutions that don’t rely on the government saving them, because they won’t.
The NHS focus is:
• Health Inequalities
• Lowering Mortality rates
• Treating or Easing Symptoms (So you can live with the condition easier)
No government is going to change their current health outcomes, to now focus on reversing dis-ease. For the NHS to change in this way would cost massive amounts of money, restructuring and re-training. Reversing dis-ease is also a harder outcome to achieve with the way that the health service is currently set up. Having small measurable changes looks better on paper and the government can tell people that they are meeting these health outcomes.
So, in conclusion, the NHS is there to reduce health inequalities and mortality rates. It will make interventions to reduce these risks. But that is all it is designed to do. If you want to reverse dis-ease and have big health changes, then you must go to experts outside of the NHS.
Baljeet Sandhu MBE said that we need to disrupt the ‘saviour complex model’ that has long plagued the mainstream providers, perpetuating a co-dependent culture of the service user and service provider. “It recognises that it requires support to take leadership of one’s own life and aspirations and reconnect with self and one’s community” (Baljeet Sandhu CEO, Centre for Knowledge Equity and Visiting Fellow said Business School, University of Oxford)