i accept what yu say. (given that we are on the same side).

my point is more forceful as not everyone will have a mental health problem in their life. But everyone do have psychological challenges.

and that is the commonality between us all.

It isn’t about people ‘with mental health problems’ and ‘others’; anyone can suffer from mental health problems, at any point, and they can come and go, or simply be a temporary problem, or long term, or whatever. The sufferers aren’t different, they are normal people – just as people who might experience physical health problems are not distinct from ‘others’.

Well no, they wouldn’t be because, um, everyone ‘has’ mental health.

“ppl with mental health problems…”

no need to be so pedantic.
I am sure everyone else gets the drift. “no what i mean”

“Actually there is. There is a constant threat that if they make decisions that suit them in the best interests of their business they will be dragged through the mud, fined, sued, and even put out of business”

Not with mental health there isn’t. You’re plain wrong. Point to me any weight of cases where any employer has been taken to task under the DDA or other legislation for unjustly discrminating against those with MH problems.
Your line is a straw man, an an imaginary threat.

It is better to work for a real wage than sit at home on benefits

Yes, but support is needed. It isn’t there. You cannot demand of folk with severe and enduring MH problems that they take a job, any job, without appropriate support.
Your nalysis if CBT is risible. It is ‘proven’ to work mainly for mild to moderate cases (where I would argue that time alone may well produce decnt outcomes). Furthermore the type of CBT envisaged under IAPT is CBT-lite, as it were, dumbed down, delivered by the under-qualified, and for too brief a course-., and it’s by no means the best course of treatment. There is more evidence for CBT solely because the Govt has funded more research to justify its selection of the cheapest option.The government’s proposals mean that a therapy will be prescribed before anyone has done an assessment of the individual’s needs.Andrew Samuels, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Essex, said: “What you’re witnessing is a coup, a power play by a community[CBT-ers] that has suddenly found itself on the brink of corralling an enormous amount of money. Everyone has been seduced by CBT’s apparent cheapness.”
Don’t get me wrong, it can. help, but the way it’s been rolled out means a one size fits all approach:like Henry Ford – “You can have any colour you like, as long as it’s black”.
If you’d bothered to read what I’d actually written upthread, you may have realised that I’m arguing the case most strongly for those with severe and enduring MH needs (eg those on the SMI): note the complex in my statement “It’s demonstrably proven that just shoving someone with complex MH needs into a job, as if work were of itself a cure is counter-productive…” . I make clear distinctions (based on need) among those under the umbrella term of having MH issues-had you noticed?
Try working in MH with those with severe and enduring needs, see and hear the ways in which they are being bullied by the DWP and Govt pronouncements into positions without the support that is needed, something that harms both user and employer, and costs more in the long run (one night in-patient stay costs the system approx £450+). The indentured labour threat may have been phrased provocatively too, but is something Purnell has had in mind: read the Welfare Reform Bill and its proposal to impel long-term benefits claimants to work for large companies, which will be sub-contracted at public expense, while these new workers are paid under half the minimum wage, the difference being pocketed by those companies. No mention of those contacted employers having to provide appropriate support in return for their subsidy and cheap labour. It’s all stick and no carrot for the severe and enduringly mentally ill.

There is a constant threat that if they (employers) make decisions that suit them in the best interests of their business they will be dragged through the mud, fined, sued, and even put out of business

You could say the same thing about paying corporation tax or business rates. Perhaps you think PAYE administration is an unreasonable burden on employers, too?

[48] You clearly have a tenuous grasp of the concept of “tough love”. I don’t know why you think that people with mental illness smoke weed (well, perhaps all the ones you know do, in which case you should get out more) but in that case “tough love” would involve an intervention to deal with the addiction first, and find suitable (not “shitty low paid insecure”) employment second.

I am coming around to the view, SMFS, that you don’t like other people very much. Perhaps I should’ve twigged that from your nom de blog…

“I wonder if SMFS has actually advised – or would recommend – that course of action to someone s/he cares about who has a mental health problem?”

Yes I would. When the alternative is sitting at home in front of the TV smoking weed, anyone who loved anyone else would insist on them getting a job. This is precisely why Social, which does not give a f**k if you and I live or die, will give up benefits forever, but if we turn to our family and sponge off our brothers for a while, after a few months they will say get off your arse and get a job. Because they actually do care.

It may not work for people with all mental health issues, but it will work for many of them.

“This is of course to leave aside SMFS’s claim that there are “plenty of jobs” which will come as news to politicians of all parties, let alone anyone else.”

I doubt it. If you think about it for a moment it will become apparent that there is no shortage of jobs. I could do with three maids and a butler. Any company would like to take on more people. Ask any farmer if there are things that could be done. The problem is the cost, not the work. What we have is a shortage of jobs at the prevailing level of wages. It is one reason why most immigrants do not take British jobs – they do the work, that obviously exists, that British people will not do at wages they will not accept.

Objecting to your misinterpretation is not a misinterpretation.

“I was making the point that actually, there isn’t any bullying of employers, and the bullying is solely of the service user.”

Actually there is. There is a constant threat that if they make decisions that suit them in the best interests of their business they will be dragged through the mud, fined, sued, and even put out of business.

“It’s demonstrably proven that just shoving someone with complex MH needs into ajob, as if work were of itself a cure is counter-productive and an utterly false economy, as relapse rates rocket without support”

I would differ with you on that. Again it is a question of which subset of the mentally ill you are looking at. Work is a cure in itself in many cases. The problem is institutionalisation. If the mentally ill know there is an easier option that is not shameful, they will take it.

“Furthermore, CBT is promoted above other talking treatments (e.g. solution-focus therapy) because it is cheaper and can be delivered at a basic level by someone after just a couple of weeks training.”

And of course because it can be shown to work. Which most if not all talking treatments cannot.

“just when it’s the hardest time in generations to find a job,you appear to support measures to beat up on those who can’t find employment/ indentured labour in return for meagre benefits, labour for the multinationals who then reward the politcos with directorships and consultancies for securing them cheap labour?”

Actually I would respond to that if your terms were not so laughably biased. No I do not support beating up on the mentally ill and the rest simply has nothing to do with what I said. It is better to work for a real wage than sit at home on benefits. Whether or not someone works for a multinational is irrelevant to their mental well being. Is it too much to ask you stick to what I said and not invent whatever strawmen you like?

Well no, they wouldn’t be because, um, everyone ‘has’ mental health.

Your narrative hasn’t been misinterpreted. You’d need a narrative to begin with for that to happen.

what I am saying is that ppl with mental health and others have a shared underlying psychological challenge in life – and that partially include how to fulfil our deepest needs and aspirations. and also how to deal with our inner conflicts.

Often (mostly) the psychological side of life is the cause of our mental health problems.

Once this gets into the popular domain,

will be the time that the claim that ppl with mental health and others are no different
willbe widely accepted.

yu have stats to show that (under contro studies) that this is the case.

religion (which really is any devotional shared activity) gives a sense of belonging. would yu not agree that isolated ppl have more menal health problems?

However there are no reasons to discriminate against people where reasonable adjustments can be made and in the case of people with mental conditions these adjustments are slight. There are a lot of extremely talented people out there whose conditions can be managed but apart from within the arts world we rarely hear about them.

For example, on the railways the First Group consider recovering alcoholics a health and safety hazard (i.e. they might relapse) and refuses to hire us, while London Underground provide support facilities for those of us in their employment. The former approach is better business practice, the latter is socially responsible.

Meeting the particular needs of their employees imposes costs on firms, just as waste disposal does, and “efficiency” (in the strict economic sense) requires firms to minimise or evade such costs.

This is before we come to the issue that Shatterface raises, of managers who simply aren’t doing their job. The boss s/he describes no doubt had a boss himself, who was doubtless well aware that S’s immediate boss was the way he was but swept the matter under the carpet. I very much doubt they were criticised when the brown stuff eventually hit the fan.

if you know of any employer which refuses to employ those who do not drink alcohol then I’m surprised they have not been prosecuted for racial discrimination as this would effectively bar Muslims (among others) from employment.

Excellent point. Holding team meetings in the pub and making pub going a requirement of the job would constitute what’s known as indirect discrimination, for exactly the reason you give. I understand the Govt is looking at changing the law on disability discrimination to include indirect discrimination, as under existing law sex and race are the only protected groups that are covered by it.

Nick

That is not a matter of petty discrimination – it is a question of changing the way an entire company strategy is constituted for the sake of one new employee. Why should they do that? If you force it through government legislation, you will just generate resentment of people with mental health difficulties, and create incentives to try and select out potentially costly employees at an earlier point in the hiring process. Better would be the most flexible system possible, combined (if you must) with transparent benefits for those disadvantaged. Given the ability to experiment, plenty of companies will work out their own ways of including people with mental illnesses in their workforce.

It’s not just about one new employee, it’s also about potential employees who could being put off applying because they know these practices are in place, and about existing employees uncomfortable with their working culture but who are too scared to speak up for fear of losing their jobs.

Your argument about creating resentment by imposing change, and leaving it instead for companies to work out for themselves, is exactly the same argument that was used when the sex and race discrimination laws were first introduced. Companies have had years to come round to the idea of employing people with mental health difficulties, they’re not a new group that’s suddenly sprung up out of nowhere, and as Laurie rightly says, they’re still one of the most discriminated against groups when it comes to recruitment and employment. Unfortunately legislation is sometimes the only way to prompt employers into making the necessary changes.

I made the mistake of telling a line manager about my mental illness a few years ago and the result was that every arguement I had with him was dismissed as a result of my condition: eventually I had to transfer to another office. Shortly afterwards he was transfered out himself for racially abusing another member of staff: her complaints were taken seriously because racial abuse is more easily demonstrated.

If you are mentally ill your complaints are taken as a symptom of your illness.

Actually, I’m researching an article on religion and mental health at the moment, and this is a load of bollocks. Studies have consistently shown that it is not one’s religion that affects one’s mental health, but vice versa.

To illustrate this: a Christian person who enjoyed good mental health might well cherish an ontology wherein a loving and forgiving saviour will one day spirit them away to heaven; a Christian person with anxiety issues and low self-esteem would be more likely to fear a wrathful god who they needed to strive constantly and vainly to appease; a Christian person with paranoid delusions might become convinced they could hear angels talking to them and instructing them to behave in certain ways. Just as, for example, some atheists are incredibly happy with their position on the natural spectrum of life and death, and some live in constant mortal terror of ultimate death without hope of afterlife.

In fact, the only exception is when a person is brought up in an extremely fundamentalist religious culture/family/environment, which has been shown to be far more damaging to mental health than simply growing up in a culture in which religion plays a part.

thanks . we do not differ.

outlook on life can be a cause of a period of major depression. and I speak from personal experience.

outlook on life is nothing to do with cheering up.

It is about a number of things including one’s value system.

That is not a matter of petty discrimination – it is a question of changing the way an entire company strategy is constituted for the sake of one new employee. Why should they do that? If you force it through government legislation, you will just generate resentment of people with mental health difficulties, and create incentives to try and select out potentially costly employees at an earlier point in the hiring process. Better would be the most flexible system possible, combined (if you must) with transparent benefits for those disadvantaged. Given the ability to experiment, plenty of companies will work out their own ways of including people with mental illnesses in their workforce. There are too many mentally ill people out there for them not to!

I have a big problem with this, not because I don’t think you’d be a good candidate (depends on the job), but because *you* will never be in a position to know that you’re “the best candidate you’ll see today”. That’s got nothing to do with your health. As an interviewer, I’d put an instant black mark against anyone who said “I’m the best candidate you’ll see today”. Just say you’re a good candidate, and say why. I wouldn’t want to give a job to someone who thought they were better than everyone else, let alone to someone who thought they were better than other job applicants they knew absolutely nothing about.

You don’t seem to appreciate the difference between being a bit down (i.e., your outlook on life’) and being affected by what you call pharmocological problems related to the brain. Conditions such as anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, bi-polar and major depression are all caused or aggrevated by ‘chemicals in our body’. They are not problems that people can overcome by just cheering up or changing their outlook. The happiest people you know are just as likely to suffer from non-physical health problems as people who have a negative outlook.

Psychological problems often have a physiological or biological basis, and can’t just be thought away, which is what this debate is all about; people being penalised for problems that are beyond their control, difficult to quantify and widely misunderstood.