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"Very bad service "

I was referred months ago, when I could not cope with my everyday life. After a good three months, I was offered online sessions with a letter (I had already visited a private therapist in th emeantime, as I could not wait anymore). Then a lady called to confirm I could do ...one-to-one appointments! I told her about the letter offering online sessions. She was confused. She still booked me in for face to face sessions. Then she called back after a a few minutes. She said she had to speak with her manager before confirming I could use the face to face ones. She never got back to me that month. It was so sad I lost any trust in the service. Recently I received a call offering me telephone sessions. I agreed. I did two of them. I did not find them helpful. To be honest, I always found CBT very superficial (although I can see that some techniques can be helpful when used in other contexts -eg approaches like systemic therapy). I had tried CBT self-help books with no success. As this was the only free therapy available and I could not afford to continue going to the private ones, I thought I should try it with a real therapist, once. Well, I do not think that having a practitioner guiding me through the steps added something here. Let me note that I do not think it has to do with the particular practitioner but with the approach itself. A very specific protocol is followed, which I think it's impersonal and simplistic. To take it a step further, I actually think that CBT wants to save the therapist from the responsibility to act as a therapist. The practitioners are relying on an almost one-fits all tool, which is very inflexible. Regardless of the superficiality of CBT itself, I know that practitioners do not go through the years of study that a discipline like this demands. They go through a one-year course during which they are already allocated to an IAPT service. I let my practitioner know I did not want to continue, explaining why. I asked where I could leave feedback for the service. She replied ignoring my question and asking if I wanted to close the case or want other options. I replied asking what are the other options and repeating my question about feedback. No reply.

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Responses

Response from Victoria Gregory, Deputy Associate Director of Governance, Patient Experience Team, South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust 3 years ago
Victoria Gregory
Deputy Associate Director of Governance, Patient Experience Team,
South West London & St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust
Submitted on 18/05/2020 at 17:29
Published on Care Opinion on 19/05/2020 at 16:53


picture of Victoria Gregory

Thank you for taking the time to post your feedback I am sincerely sorry for the delay in responding to you.

I am very sorry to hear about the experience you have had accessing therapy through our Trust and also that found out CBT program unsuitable for your needs.

This not what we would want your experience to be and as a Trust and we will take some steps to address this issue with our Teams to avoid this happening again to any of our service users.

It is very useful for us to have your views and opinions of our Service and this will be invaluable to us in improving the quality of treatments and service that we offer.

Your comments will be shared and reviewed with all the relevant teams.

I would like to invite you to contact our PALS team directly with some more information of your name and details so that can follow this up for you or if you would like to share anything else with us. We would then be able to address this issue directly with staff concerned to improve our service.

You can contact our PALS team by email on pals@swlstg.nhs.uk

Please get in touch with us if you are feeling that you need support at any time on our PALS line (0203 513 6150) or with the email address above.

I would like to extend an apology to you for what you have experienced and hope that if you use our services again you will be able to see an improvement and they will be better suited to your needs.

Victoria Gregory

Deputy Associate Director of Governance

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