An active blog focused on claims relating to CBT and IAPT, by Dr Mike Scott.
http://www.cbtwatch.com
It describes itself as 'An Independent Mental Health Watchdog and Discussion Forum'
It's not anti-CBT, but is anti-IAPT. There's a lot of well referenced material there that is likely to be of interest to those concerned about IAPT.
From the 24 Feb 2021 blog 'IAPT: Suicidal and give online CBT'
From the 17 Feb 2021 blog 'IAPT fails to rebut charge of a tip of the iceberg rate of recovery'
http://www.cbtwatch.com
It describes itself as 'An Independent Mental Health Watchdog and Discussion Forum'
The casualties of our mental health system are varied, examples detailed on this blog include: a mother who has been and continues to be denied access to her 3 children because of an unfounded diagnosis of a personality disorder and the plight of CBT practitioners, one half of whom believe that they are depressed. This site could be like a Field Hospital offering succour to all those in need but who are also protesting about the ‘war/failed system’.
It's not anti-CBT, but is anti-IAPT. There's a lot of well referenced material there that is likely to be of interest to those concerned about IAPT.
From the 24 Feb 2021 blog 'IAPT: Suicidal and give online CBT'
Oftentimes a client with thoughts that they would be ‘better off dead’ are passed back to their GP. The GP is then obliged to contact the patient to discover that the ‘suicidal thoughts’ are most often passive and without any active intent or planning. In such instances IAPT had not taken the time to discover whether there was any active planning of suicide. The reaction of the Organisation is that ‘we do not want egg on our face’, so bounce it back to the GP. Unfortunately GP’s don’t complain to their Clinical Commissioning Groups about IAPT, content that they get a break from these ‘non-medical’ cases whilst they are being seen by IAPT, albeit that it is a revolving door.
From the 17 Feb 2021 blog 'IAPT fails to rebut charge of a tip of the iceberg rate of recovery'
The British Government is looking at the matter of making NHS England accountable, to date the latter has allowed IAPT to mark its’ homework, with no involvement of the Care Quality Commission. Having spent over £4billion on IAPT the time for change is long overdue.
Kellett et al (2021) claim that it would be too expensive to have a high quality, ‘gold standard’ effectiveness study with independent blind assessors using a standardised semi-structured diagnostic interview. But set against the £4billion already spent on the service over the last decade the cost would be trivial. It is perfectly feasible to take a representative sample of IAPT clients and conduct independent blind assessments of outcome that mirror the initial assessment.
Indeed the first steps in this direction have already been taken in an evaluation of internet CBT [ Richards et al (2020)] in which IAPT Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners used the MINI [ Sheehan et al (1998)] semi-structured interview to evaluate outcome, albeit that they were not independent evaluators and there could be no certainty that they had not used the interview as a symptom checklist rather than in the way it is intended. Further the authors of Richards et al (2020) were employees of the owners of the software package or worked for IAPT.
Tolin et al (2015) have pointed out that for a treatment to be regarded as evidence-supported there must be at least two studies demonstrating effectiveness in real world settings by researchers not involved in the original development and evaluation of the protocol and without allegiance to the protocol. Kellet et al (2020) have failed to explain why IAPT should not be subject to independent rigorous scrutiny and their claim that their own work should suffice is difficult to understand.