Weighing in for Southern European mental health care, family support and abuse support. Believe me, you will be better off talking to friends or fellow sufferers online or offline than trying your luck in the public system. Pills is all you get here, and prescribed somewhat hit-or-miss after what amounts to a 15 min interview, most of which are spent by the doctor typing your data into his computer.

If you need help for domestic abuse, be prepared for hours of bureaucracy while reliving and retelling your trauma to a host of police and social security professionals repeatedly. Then relocated to somewhere where you receive the bare minimum of care. I was lucky to never need it but have witnessed it, and frankly would consider any offers from unknown van-dwellers before this.

The only way to get the help you need is to research your stuff well beforehand, and then wheedle out of the system what you need by annoying the bureaucrats till they give up.

Maybe some non-Europeans could weigh in with their perspective as well.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Heard similarly bad stories from Scandinavia, of all places. If you're vulnerable, it's very easy to fall between the cracks, with doctors who abuse their power or make bad mistakes.

Also, the replication crisis really undermines psychology's claims to scientific knowledge.

Of course, I'm not a scientologist, so I'm not going to claim that people shouldn't go to see a mental health professional. Anti-depressants do work, therapy can and often does work, but as you say you really need to do your resaerch beforehand, and preferably have family or friends to defend your interests. Otherwise you'll fall between the cracks just when you're at your most vulnerable.

Same goes for elderly homes. Personally, I think I'll kill myself before I ever get that far. If you don't have family to check up on you, you're quite likely to be neglected, exploited or abused.

[–] vexikron@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah this actually sounds very similar to the American system, generally speaking.

Short interview by uncaring overworked 'professional' who is basically just checking off some boxes to summarily prescribe mind altering medication (when that kind of stuff should actually only be administered after many many discussions between a patient, therapist and qualified psychiatrist?).

Check.

Trauma victims being continually retraumatized and frustrated and stresses out further by being forced to now do critical analytic comprehension of a Byzantine amount of paperwork while they are more or less in shock to prove they were traumatized, making everything much, much worse for them mentally, in a system that supposedly exists to help them?

Check.