Hello,
Jnani's thread 'Trillion pound horror story' got me thinking about how feasable is would be if our society suddenly began to recongise emotions and treat people holistically, like someone said in the thread the government don't deal with anything at grass roots level and are only interested in short term solutions which create an even bigger mess than the one we started off with.
I was watching a repeat of the Matthew Paris experiment on TV a few nights ago, you may recall he was the MP who went to live on unemployment benefit in a run down area for a fortnight to see what it was really like for people who did it all the time I think it was in the 80's but it may have been the late 70's, anyway he's done this updated version and he was living in this massively deprived area where 98% of the population are on anti-depressants and it (along with Jnani's post) has got me wondering what would happen if the government did a u-turn and decided to give such issues a go from a grass roots level?
I've always said that the person (mind, body and spirit) should be treated but watching the TV programme the other night I don't know if it would work for everybody, using myself as an example I have shunned the traditonal route to healing this last 8 years (western meds and quacks) and have spent a fortune on all kinds of therapy in between all this I have had long periods of unemployment when I have been too emotionally ill to go to work so I suppose on the one hand it would not do if everybody did that, especially over such a long period of time but on the other hand having a huge percentage of the country on meds and benefits for far longer is not the answer either.
There was an appalling article in the newspaper earlier this year; a pair of twins aged 18 one of them was an alcoholic on the top rate of disability living allowance and the story was about how her twin recieved quite a bit of money for being her full time carer, the article just went on and on about the waste of money, money, money and nobody stopped to question what an 18 year old girl was doing being an alcholic in the first place and not just your garden variety alcoholic but one who's liver was already in serious trouble and she could not get out of her bed in the morning without at least 2 large drinks of straight spirit.
I have personal experience of how the governments refusal to look at anything other than meds is a waste of time and money, two years ago they were happy to pay me over £12,000 a year in incapacity benefit, housing and council tax benefit but would not pay £60 for two sessions of counselling, my dad paid it instead and I returned to work a week later, they were willing to stick me on a waiting list to see a CBT but the waiting list in our area is 1 year+ and being a person centred/existential counsellor myself I have no time for CBT.
So now I am divided would the economy collapse tomorrow if the government said "we are going to scrap meds and CBT and we will all now talk about our problems, explore all our issues, deep hurts and emotional stuff blah de blah".
Would be very interested to hear your views.
Love
Rebecca x