Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Supporting Minds NHS Service

[Shelly06]

Was just wondering if anyone had experience of contacting and referring themselves to this please?

It's says the treatments available include:
Guided self help
Counselling
CBT
Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy
Stress control

Has anyone ever done any of these through them and were they any good?
I've had CBT last year and even though I liked the talking to someone, it didn't really help me in any other way.

Going crazy right now though with anxiety so really need to do something.

[MyNameIsTerry]

If you are in England & Wales, these are the people your GP will always refer you to. They were put in place by NHS England to reduce waiting times because before they existed the only people you could see were the Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT). The CMHT's still exist and can be accessed after exhausting the IAPT route, but only via a GP referral or other doctor level referral, but they exist more for refractory cases (the treatment resistant people), the severe cases or more complex mental health disorders like bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders, etc.

So, when you had your CBT you probably had it with one of these providers as IAPT has been around for some years now.

IAPT work to NICE guidelines. NICE have a Stepped Care Model which is based on the severity of the anxiety disorder.

Guided Self Help is classed as Level 2 (your GP is Level 1) and these are for mild anxiety. They are short sessions and not very many of them.

CBT fits into Level 3 and this is where you get the traditional therapy, which should be more around the 12-15 sessions mark but some services offer much less and there are different NICE guidelines for OCD which alter the number of sessions usually offered.

EMDR is for PTSD. It is branching out into other disorders but it was primarily for this.

Counselling can be for anything. I'm not sure where that fits in as I expect it's more mentioned in the NICE guidelines for depression than anxiety. It's different to CBT though.

I don't know what the stress control is. That may be a short course so it fits into the same level as Guided Self Help? If it's Applied Relaxation, then that's at the same level as CBT and features in the NICE guidelines for GAD.

The thing about IAPT services is that you access them quicker but the trade off is that the people delivering them won't be as highly trained & experienced as the CMHT people who are the traditional psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, etc. Certainly, nurses often retrain to work at the IAPT level but IAPT is otherwise a step down for a psychologist/psychiatrist.

Anything is better than nothing. Some therapists are really good, some are not. If you don't gel with one or think they are not performing in your best interests you can ask to change therapist and they should arrange that for you. That's a basic part of the code of ethics they tend to adhere to.

IAPT have a main website if you want to read more about their services as a framework in England & Wales. That might tell you a bit more about them.

[KeeKee]

I've had CBT twice with them and am the same as you, I liked talking to somebody but the therapy itself didn't work. I've been discharged and on my referral to a different service it states they can no longer offer me any treatment. So having just finished CAT therapy, I've no idea where I'm at.

You can self refer to some places, a quick Google search should give you some info on what's available in your local area.

[Shelly06]

Thank you so much for both replies xx

I really don't know what to do. Should I call the IAPT people or the Single Point of Access as I've heard that you can self refer to them?

I don't know if the IAPT people are just for milder problems, I've been struggling all my life and am really at rock bottom now and don't think just talking for a few sessions is going to do anything, I think my head needs more help than that. So not sure which of the above to do?

I don't know how to find anything else. And can't afford anything privately. But I really really need to do something.