Mental Health Professionals in all Schools

I've been a LibDem supporter all my life but their Party's latest idea that they are championing concerns me (see their LibDem Facebook post). Here's my response, based on both personal experience as well as my education in psychology and philosophy research. 

Psychologists have a poor record on LGBT+ rights and, as a profession, are responsible for misclassifying being gay and trans as a mental illness and performing abusive and dangerous practices on them, dressed up as therapy. 

This has also caused endless discrimination and hate crime ever since, one that still continues to this day, even beyond declassification. This can be seen by the graffiti attack hate speech which said 'mental disorder detected' on a merely rainbow coloured artwork in Kingston town centre within the LibDem area of Kingston upon Thames/Surbiton.

© Liba Kaucky 2023 All Rights Reserved 

And although this graffiti was cleaned up it only lasted a couple of weeks before words were scrubbed out and more has appeared since then, including homophobic slogans, holes in the rainbow coloured section and brown coloured liquid splashed over it. I have taken photos of the latest violent, homophobic damage to the artwork I spotted this week. 

© Liba Kaucky 2023 All Rights Reserved

© Liba Kaucky 2023 All Rights Reserved

© Liba Kaucky 2023 All Rights Reserved

Kingston has many local schools, some of which are highly academic and close to the town centre. And note that Kingston is also a university town! 

To continue: 

these mental health professionals (whatever that means, it's a vague term that encompasses various specialisations) are the very ones who, until recently, were conducting conversion therapy. These still remain in the profession and conversion therapy is still not banned in any way by the government. Indeed, it depends on who these mental health professionals are working for/affiliated to as to whether they have an obligation not to undertake conversion therapy.

And the religion they belong to also affects the way they deal with people and their so-called mental issues. It's not just being gay that may cause bias but also, given the response by some people to the terrorist attack on Israel, the health professional may discriminate against Jewish students. 

I wouldn't trust them and didn't use them, even when they were a free service at uni! This despite having stalking problems, institutional bullying and physical violence at uni. It also taught me that people start conflating needing mental health support for mental health reasons with just needing victim support and a functioning justice system within educational establishments. Institutions try to evade responsibility and avoid having to take appropriate action against perpetrators by misdirecting individuals to mental health professionals, probably so they can dismiss any harassment cases and worse. Furthermore, they actively prevent the victim from continuing support from an empathic member of staff they trust and have chosen to confide in. It's up to the victim to choose who they wish to talk to not have an institution take over and bully them away from the only useful person who is keeping them afloat! Besides, staff also need to know what's going on in the institutions they find themselves in! So, it would appear that institutions are only interested in protecting themselves, not truly supporting any student. 

Mental health professionals certainly shouldn't be in any educational establishment. There's a huge discrepancy of power. It's one thing if you choose a person you trust to use as a sounding board to talk about stuff that's directly relevant to the uni/school setting but quite another when someone is foisted on you simply because it's their job and the pupil/student has no voice, no choice in the matter. This is a huge problem for under 16's because they can't fully consent and it's harder for them to figure out where the health professional is going with their series of questions or whether they are quietly crossing the line into conversion therapy eg talking therapy can be very psychologically damaging but hard to spot. 

The school children are also stuck with this situation in loco parentis, making it harder for them to stand up for themselves or refuse 'treatments'. So in the end, you could be escalating a natural, temporary post-trauma response to anti-LGBT+ hate to forced conversion therapy that leaves them suicidal - what's in place to prevent that, especially given no bans on anti-LGBT+ conversion therapy? 

The child may also find themselves caught up in a situation that can run on without them and they are powerless to do anything about it and may just go along with it out of pressure from authorities that have taken over.