Medication ‘not the answer to mental illness’

OVER-RELIANCE on medication by the health service to treat people with a mental illness is hampering their chances of recovery, John Saunders of Schizo-phrenia Ireland has claimed.

There was clear evidence that the chances of recovery from psychosis and schizo-phrenia increased threefold when psychological interventions were included in the treatment regime, he said. But people were waiting up to nine months to receive psychological help.

“There needs to be rapid investment in terms of resources and manpower to ensure we have a psychological service that will allow multiple interventions over and above just medication,” said Mr Saunders.

Schizophrenia Ireland hosted a conference in Dublin yesterday to review the evidence supporting psychotherapy in psychosis and schizophrenia cases.

Mr Saunders said people had been advocating for years for an improved range of psychological interventions in conjunction with medication.

But the Irish health service has traditionally only responded with medication.

He said the conference was held to show the evidence for effective treatment with cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and family intervention.

“The evidence shows that CBT and family intervention, in conjunction with appropriate medication, increases the chances of recovery,” he stressed.

“The message from this conference is that the Health Service Executive (HSE) needs to take urgent action to ensure that the psychological interventions are provided along with medical and social interventions.”

Mr Saunders said there was a shortage of clinical psychologists working in the mental health sector — with the number of just more than 200 needing to be doubled at least.

The workload of clinical psychologists that had CBT training made it impossible for them to devote enough time to get the best results.

He said the plan to develop community mental teams was “on ice” owing to the HSE recruitment freeze.

“Vacancies for which funding has been received cannot be filled,” he said.

“Mental health services are suffering as a result of overspending that has happened in the general physical health service.”

Improvements promised in the Government’s Vision for Change were not happening either.

“We still have people going into hospital unnecessarily because there are not sufficient community services to care for them.”