"Not worth the hype and no utility. A zero."

This service sucks. I first started the self-directed NHS "mental health" journey 9 years ago, but the NHS has many severe administrative and clinical flaws, from the perspective of health and wellbeing outcomes (and seems to be administratively worse now, with the bureaucratic IAPT system) that are too long to go into, especially when engaging with systems that are generally pathetically devoid of introspection or self-improvement.

With a less ignorant NHS I could've been in services maybe 15+ years ago, but the services are set up for only some circumstances (eg needing parental consent, no outreach or education for potential patients, so patients need to do their own extensive research first). So it was after 9 years I was added to the LMHT.

 Call the phone: no answer. Go in person, ask them if it works and they magically answer.

They operate on a belief in letting situations deteriorate. For example when I have rang about a problem, they don't do anything and let it get worse. My undereating, sleep and leaving my room have become worse since being in contact with this team, despite contacting them numerous before things got worse for me.

When I spoke to them on the phone they say oh they'll call back today/tomorrow - sometimes they do, other times they don't. I call to see if they can help with something and they don't give an answer - at most they just listen, but they seem to think I'm talking to share or for validation, when I'm talking to give them more information so they can make more informed judgements. I'm not actually sure what they do (I've also called to ask this, still don't know).

They whinge about patients not engaging or accountability, but when patients do engage they don't do anything - they wait until patients are in a worse situation and thus less likely to engage, and then in the future go back to pinning the blame on patients or would-be patients. It's a catch22 - must be well enough to engage in order to get anything, but on top of that even with engagement you're unlikely to get anywhere. They will literally (literally) wait until you are homeless, lose income, lose interpersonal relationships and lose opportunities.

Actually useless. They know psychology enough to know they're conditioning people to give up on accessing anything (learned helplessness).

They don't believe in the effective way of doing things ie finding out what is actually negatively affecting a person and then working from there; or what a person wants from life and seeing what the hurdles/barriers are. Instead it's very non-specific and box ticky, squeezing people into particular boxes they've learnt about that might not even be relevant.

People can even provide information on what their difficulties or hurdles are, but are ignored in favour of braindead bureaucracy. Clinicians even act surprised patients know things or have insight, despite simultaneously claiming patients need to self-advocate and say what they want or need help with, which requires patients doing their own reading and thinking to access anything (which encourages excessive intellectualising) - can't even make up their mind about what they want from patients. They also love to arrogantly say "it's a start" when it's obviously not the start - just because clinicians don't see something it doesn't mean it never happened. 

You can literally tell them what the priority issues are (they should be the ones figuring out the best order to do things in), but they just do it their own way, producing zero positive results. Or more likely they never give an opportunity to say what the priority issues are in the first place.

The advice they give is not worth the hype that the media and NHS gives it. I'm sick of seeing people hype it up as something of value or utility. They gave a checklist of activities to try, most of which I've already done or can't do (require other people). So it's just the same ideas I could find online or think of myself. Braindead advice like to talk to family or friends to reduce stress.

I also think these people themselves aren't that great or resilient, despite preaching from a high horse about mental health. One said they get agitated or whatever just from eating an hour late lol. That sounds weak.

Other services rely on the NHS. For example: you apply to benefits or housing services, they ask about health conditions and want NHS evidence. I applied for PIP just to see, and they ask who to contact for evidence. I told them I'm with the LMHT, but they don't know me or anything and they asked if I have a particular contact and I said no. Other services don't know how the NHS works, because the NHS presents a misleading image.

It's largely that you need to present a certain way, but what that way is I can't know exactly. In hindsight you can find out that other people get services for some reason, despite them not having a worse situation.

Then there's Recovery College (which I found out about from a non-NHS MH professional). RC told me they're more self-directed than other treatment. Lol. The whole experience is self-directed much more than Recovery College, so I don't know what they meant by that. It implies they think there are other parts of NHS MH that do something, but I have no idea what that is. It's all self-help and actually I found much more utility over the years from non-NHS written/video resources than from NHS resources or treatment (insofar that it exists in the first place).

LMHT said to only try RC first before anything else (self-referred to RC), but RC is a whole year.

Everything takes ages, between patient having an idea and the ball rolling. This is because there's no chance to discuss things.

Don't tell you in advance what to think about for appointments.

Also waiting 1 year for social prescribing.