"Poor service, waste of time"

I went for help after some difficult life events. After waiting for about three weeks, I had an assessment and was told my problem was 'too severe' for their service. I was given some numbers for charities in Hanley. Since I am not suicidal, am still working, doing all the things I need to do every day and my depression score was in the moderately severe range, it is puzzling to be told you are 'too severe'. My anxiety score was under the clinical threshold. When I expressed my surprise and dismay, I was told I could have CBT. CBT is not indicated for my current difficulties. Which I know because I work in CBT - which I would have told them if I was asked. IAPT services are required to offer a range of therapeutic options, so being told you could only have an unsuitable one, and that the one indicated is not available is concerning. Seems like there is a lot of cherry picking of cases going on for whatever reasons. And for someone relating distressing events, being told at the end of the session that you are 'too severe' is not empathic or helpful. There was no recognition of how this would impact me, or that it may be distressing to have to go through the whole thing again (even if you work in mental health, having an assessment is stressful). And the idea of doing it again, with no guarantee that these other services would be able to offer me anything was very upsetting. Which appeared to annoy the person doing to assessment. All in all, very poor service.