What is one thing wrong with mental healthcare?

1. Healthcare practitioners don't seem to have the time to help a patient fully define what is really wrong. They can see the more obvious symptoms, but what about more subtle things? For example, depression could be caused by social anxiety or OCD, and bipolar could be comorbid with or confused with Borderline personality issues, etc. etc.
2. Short term stabilization is pretty good, but longer term follow up care can be lacking (see point #1 also).
3. No, there is NOT a pill for every problem!!! Biology is one part of a triangle - the need to objectively improve distressing circumstances and lingering psychological issues (such as ingrained fears / phobias / negative core beliefs) are not addressed enough imo.
4. What the healthcare system calls high functioning and what patients call high functioning can be two very different animals.
5. Meds can be pretty affordable - therapy, not so much, even with insurance.
6. Insurance companies abruptly deciding to change what meds they will cover, and by how much. This is not good for people who find their "perfect" med(s) are suddenly not covered - and maybe no longer affordable.
6. People's problems are not always addressed holistically enough - see point #3.
7. (Based on hearing other people's experiences) incorrect diagnoses tend to stick around longer than they ought to.
8. (Again, based on other people's stories) some diagnoses carry stigma even in the behavioral health field.
9. Lack of adequate training for first responders in crisis situations (law enforcement involvement, ER visits, etc.) My impression from news stories is that this is improving a lot, however.

Every patient's experiences are different. I think these issues are real, but don't affect every single person or occur all the time.

I think the worst problem in America with mental healthcare is for the poor or badly insured. Our Mental Health Center in my area is total crap. My friends who have had to go there due to lack of insurance or lack of money get treated poorly.

I'm lucky that my parents have always made sure that I was insured and had the $ for treatment (even when going through times of unemployment), so I have always had a top-notch pdoc. I wish that for everyone who needs treatment.

Thank goodness that they repealed preexisting conditions from keeping you from insurance. That's a plus at least. I'm very grateful for that.

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the police

Use of benzodiazepines.

Here I agree very much with this. Right now I have a very good psych nurse, but I have no idea how long I'll have her bc most of the really good ones only work at the clinic I go to until they get some experience under their belt and leave to go to a better clinic that pays more or they go into private practice. That's just one thing wrong. The good pdocs and pnps move on from the state funded clinics. Imho....

Very true, I'm on Medicaid and I've dealt with some really set in their ways pdocs and psych nurses that were very overwhelmed. Until I got this new pnp I was pretty much my own Dr bc they were giving me meds that were causing me major side effects. So I started researching on my own. It didn't end well. This new pnp is great but I bet she won't be there long. She'll move on once she has enough experience and credentials under her belt.

Same here. I've ended up researching so many drugs just so I had hope of getting better. I got lucky two years ago and found a really bright pdoc that only takes medicaid. Now I'm only on Medicare, but again I found a good pdoc. I've been fortunate the last two years. Prior to that I was going from one psych nurse to the next as they rotated out of the clinic, and I was getting worse not better

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I live in Canada, and we have a shortage of doctors. Getting into see a P.doc cannot be done unless you have your family's doctor approval and can be up to a six month wait.

Sometimes, sadly, people only get the help they need when they show up at emergency.

I was locked up against my will for being manic. I had not indicated I would hurt myself or another. I was able to care for myself. How they could legally confine me just because I was manic is beyond my comprehension and terrifying.

For me it's the stigma I get from MH professionals when I need to go IP. I've had pdocs give me the wrong meds and a lot of grief because they don't read the chart that also says I'm BP. They seem to think that even though I've been depressed for two weeks (or longer) that I'm having a BPD episode. Or as one pdoc called it, a temper tantrum.

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get locked up in the first place?

I don't know what wrong with mental care, but I need help picking a version
of Windows7. Windows10 is the same POS that quitted on me. It tried today again.
Please, suggest what version.

that a pill can "fix" a "disorder"

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The fact that there are no biological indicators to mental diseases and yet they're still selling that story about bad neurotransmitters like it's confirmed, while it was just proven to be wrong. The fact that meds are not better than a placebo and often they do more harm than good, yet they're selling it like it's a candy and the children end up drugged with antipsychotics because some guy "thinks" they have bipolar. They're gonna be addicted to these drugs their whole life! The side effects are bad even for adults, not to speak about a child. Also, the fact that psychiatry is totally subjective, some guys sitting together, drinking tea and making up names for another aand another disorders like they're Gods.
The fact that therapeutists are so hard to find in small towns, at least in my country. And that they charge you with a lot of cash for every hour. An average person must work many hours to be able to pay for those 50 or 60 minutes.

from my experience, i think if you're not in direct chrisis (about to attempt suicide this second), they tend to skip you on the list- and devote more time to those who actually need it.

i've seen it happen a lot.. you get the people who say, " oh i'm suicidal, i'm depressed", but are not taken seriously, then you get the people who are actually ready to act on their thoughts who get all the help and care in the world.. it annoys me.

just because someone's not, "acting on their thoughts" at that particular moment, does not mean they are stable and it will just pass

i think something else is how 1 method of getting well is drilled in to everyone (i'm not talking about a certain method), what i'm saying is.. well, i had this patient- they had this work for them, and this, it will work for you too

no, no, and no

everyone's diffrent.. and diffrent things work for diffrent people

Bluebycycle, my mother and son were concerned because I was manic and not sleeping. They insisted I go to the ER to get some Haldol or something to bring me down. I went, and instead of the Haldol, some lady said I was behaving aggressively and they held me and had guards so I couldn't leave. They strapped me down in restraints for the ambulance ride. Because of the stress of the environment, I began hearing and seeing things. They wanted to hold me, but because my husband worked in mental health for years and is now retired and doesn't mind providing me with round the clock care, I could receive better care at home and they could not deny this fact so they released me after 2 days. My paranoia, mixed with so many people and constantly being watched and being held against my will was very traumatizing to me.

Being manic does not mean you automatically need to be locked up. They over stepped boundaries in my case. My trust is minimal, and made even less by the chronic reactions I'm having to these meds they give me.

Having recently fallen into the cycle of revolving door medicine by the time my mind had gotten around what had happened and what the system was feeding me now I am paying the price for not knowing the drugs and effects they now have on me just because it is standard practice to deal with everyone the same way for the expediency of the medical profession.

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what is one thing that is NOT wrong with mental health care?

i have to think about that one... really not sure

I can't think about anything that is not wrong with mh care in this jungle ...

Given numerous meds at the same time. How's one to know which one is making you eat your furniture due to nonstop zombie unrelenting hunger.

The mentality that meds are going to fix everything .

More info should be given about med free ways to help cope and function .

I think the number 1 thing wrong with Mental health care is Big Pharma and its greedy ways .

i live in australia and i must say cost wise it seems a lot better as the care you do receive is free unless you go to a private hospital where is can be around $1000 a day unless your insurance covers it. care wise the public system is not great and they pretty much do nothing unless you are half dead and you have to wait for hours once you are in the system so to speak it is ok but getting in the system is very difficult. but it seems very different to america

Wait times

The unquestioned assumption that you will have to be on meds for the rest of your life. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I think the mental health field takes it too for granted.

Adding meds when in an episode when (hopefully temporarily) increasing doses may well do the trick.

Adding meds unnecessarily: not every change in mood is an episode needing medical treatment; sometimes other modalities (i.e. therapy) may be enough for some issues, especially if they're not BP-related.

Not being forthcoming about side effects and/or what to do about them aside from adding another med.

More pdocs with true expertise: I live in a small town and travel over 2 hours to see my pdoc because she's part of a well-known/regarded teaching hospital. There might be a pdoc in town, but I wouldn't trust one around here to have expertise in BP.

Poor intakes: jumping to conclusions about diagnoses after short interviews. According to many studies, BP is sometimes underdiagnosed, but more recently the pendulum has swung the other way, and now it's often overdiagnosed. Pdocs need to be more responsible --misdiagnosing someone and then pumping them full of meds with horrendous and long term side effects is not the answer.

Pdocs not spending enough time with patients in terms of follow-up appointments. I haven't had this problem, but many here have very rightly complained about it.

No doubt there's more in my opinion, but I've already taken up more than enough space!

Being told that every symptom you have is normal until you end up in hospital.