Milton Keynes Talking Therapies Service (IAPT)

I needed help filling in the form for a self referral, but instead of putting down facts about why I needed it, the advisor chose to add to my notes that I was anxious, which wasn't even close to the truth. I had the form open still & everytime I went to give her my answers, she skipped parts all over the form, being totally unprofessional.I'm too ill to question it, but the assessment will be the important part, or so I thought!I get called & when stating that I'm struggling with a cough that's affecting me being able to talk normally, she dismisses it like it's fine to just carry on.As we start the assessment, it's clear this woman has no idea what she's doing & all she keeps doing is distressing me further, by constantly making wrong assumptions, which includes getting my name wrong, when she has it right in front of her on the referral form!I know some people will find someone decent who helps them only, but my experiences so far leave me even more distressed, than before I contatced them & I don't even have an assessment completed yet.

The treatment I received in 2019 was really useful, but upon trying to get more treatment now I am being forced to explain difficult things multiple times, because either they don't keep notes of discussions that have already been had, or they don't read them.I know that having an assessment is incredibly difficult, but as it usually just happens once I am able to cope. On this occasion I had to speak to someone Wednesday to explain my referral before I could even have an assessment. Then I had to have the assessment on Monday. Then today they called me and had to make me explain my referral for a third time. I didn't receive a call back, so this is going to go on for at least one more day.

They are an absolute joke they don't offer a counselling service and when you ring them they say that they do offer a counselling service

Been assigned to a useless app, so had to go and seek help from private providers.

This was my first attempt of CBT but I cannot say I was left with a positive impression. I was in CBT with one of their assigned therapists for a few weeks but decided to withdraw from their service for the following reasons.During the assessment stage I allowed myself to be vulnerable and spoke about the topics that concerned myself the most. Yet they were brushed off by my therapist as “it’s all to do with how you view yourself” and “I’ve seen those a lot in my career”.Throughout my therapy sessions I was constantly reminded by her that she was only here to provide me with all the tools I need, and it is down to me whether or not I want to get better, which is completely understandable. Though the constant reminders from her I sensed a “I’m here to do my job, providing all the materials as recommended by the CBT guideline” vibe. I was particularly taken aback at her remark in one of our sessions, where she greeted me with “how are you”, to which I replied “good, you?”, and I was responded with “remember this is about you not about me”, as though it was wrong of me to just exchange greetings with her. Another example of her somewhat hostile behaviour would be when I tried to remind her to go through my homework together she told me “you’re ruminating again, do you see what you’re doing there”. I’d be fine with her trying to keep things as professional as possible, but there were occasions where she didn’t even read the homework she told me to send her, or pulling up another patient’s questionnaire and mistaken it as mine. Not to mention she was never on time for our sessions. My understanding is that she’s a private counsellor who only works for the NHS twice a week, therefore I couldn’t waive the thought that she’s putting in minimum effort in a government-funded therapy.I found it impossible to be completely open and honest with my feelings in my therapy sessions with her. More often than not I felt the need to justify my work to her as if I was explaining myself to a disapproving teacher and that I would get judged for the things I did/didn’t do.In my most recent session, she was surprised and sounded slightly annoyed at the increase in my scores for PHQ-9 and GAD-7 questionnaire and that was sort of my final straw. One of the exercises I’ve worked on was to stop reminiscing and rumination and yet I often spent the entire day replaying the sessions in my head after they ended. In the last weeks I actually felt more stressed out preparing for these sessions to a point I’d get nightmares the night  before my scheduled sessions.When I informed IAPT of my decision to withdraw they did not cancel my appointment the first time around. I had to call multiple times before finally getting to address the issues I have been having. They told me they're removing me from the programme and asked me to reapply in a few months should I find myself still in need of their help.It is a shame that the folks living in Milton Keynes don't have much of a choice other than IAPT. If you believe you really need CBT I suggest you try some of the AI CBT apps such as 'iona mind' first, the materials a lot of these apps provide are certainly more up-to-date compared to the ones provided by IAPT, you might find that bots are more compassionate and sympathetic than humans as well which is very sad. I cannot stress more the importance of finding the right therapist whom you could really connect with and this really just happens by luck, but I certainly do not see the possibility of finding the right one from IAPT Milton Keynes.

After about 8 months I was relieved at finally being invited for CBT sessions with a therapist. The first two sessions were mainly spent helping the therapist to understand my background and figuring out how they can help. The other sessions mainly focussed on understanding and working on specific issues. The information and exercises were sometimes useful, however the therapist would get irritated with me, for example if I wanted to discuss something we had briefly touched on before that I wanted to go over in more detail. As I am suffering from severe anxiety I blamed myself for being too sensitive and went to more sessions as I figured they would get better - they didn’t.I then explained this to Milton Keynes IAPT and was told that I would have to reapply to the service if I wanted to see someone else, which would mean having to wait a very long time again. I feel like I had made little progress in the sessions and was disappointed that they had no concerns with why I wanted to see a different therapist. It felt cold, and I would not want to go through all that again.I would recommend not wholly relying on this service. If you are paired with a person that cannot help you and you have waited a long time for help, it can be very frustrating. Some of the information is very useful though, but you need to feel comfortable with who you are paired with.