What twisted logic socialists advocate!

It’s not “Medicare” that funds the health system, but money taken, in many cases without consent, from productive individuals, then handed over to others, many of whom are unwilling to take responsibility for their own welfare. It’s the most iniquitous and de-motivating system imaginable.

To then express concern about GPs not seeing the proposal as stealing their income … words fail me.

I couldn't agree more. As a mental health professional I often feel frustrated that clients are unable to received counselling due to the cost. Private psychologists are prohibitively expensive. Waiting lists for low-cost counsellors at Community Health Centres are long. Counselling centres such as Relationships Australia charge around $50 for an individual on minimum wage (earning under $25,000 a year). Psychiatrists often only provide supervision of medication and a 15 minute appointment slot. It makes A LOT of sense to me for clinical psychologists to be covered by medicare for short-term treatments. Perhaps then more people would be compliant with their medications, perhaps they would discover the underlying causes of their depressive or anxiety symptoms - and no longer need so much medication.

Stephen Leeder's article which asked for psychologists to be funded by Medicare puzzles me. Psychologists simply study natural human behaviour, it is Psychaiatrists who treat patients with recognised mental disorders.

Mr Leeder should be asking for Psychiatrists to be funded by Medicare, not Psychologists. If Mr Leeder is a psychologist himself, perhaps he is simply touting for business on behalf of his profession?

Winston Smith,
If only all posters were as honest with their posts, you have no idea, and are prepared to say so, that is a positive attribute.

Redneck,
You are correct and incorrect similtaneously, Psychiratrists do try to find the root of the problem and pescribe medication which may be helpful to the particular mental illness, in my case Chronic Major Depression, with accomping chronic illnesses. The Psycologist is a vital partner in the exercise, as they can offer behavioural ways with which to try to beat the situation these two health professionals work in tandem, one in theory, and the other in practise.

They are both vital to any chance of a recovery from mental illness, and with 20% of our population suffering a mental illness at any one given time, resources should have been out there 10 years ago to help with early intervention.

Shonga is correct.

Once a mental illness has been stabilised - usually by drugs prescribed by a psychiatrist, a person still needs help with getting their life back on track. This is where techniques such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy provided by psychologists can really assist a person to turn their lives around by learning new ways to respond and perceive the world. While medication assists with mood, to proceed with our lives often require letting go of our old ways of reacting (for example, responding to bullies) and learning new ones.

However, while it is possible to receive Medicare for Psychiatric treatment, psychologists are not subsidised yet they are the ones who provide the skills for people to cope with their lives.

As someone who has attended both professionals over many years. I can report that psychologists play an important part in recovery, with out their skills it is difficult to make a full recovery.

It is one thing to suffer from mental illness and quite another to learn to live and progress from that illness.

Dorothy Rowles (noted psychologist) made an interesting observation in her book "Way out of Depression" that it is generally the caring people who are the ones who get depressed. Those who don't care about doing 'the right thing' tend not to get depressed.

Sufferers need to learn about to become more detached from the problems life throws at us. Medication can't achieve this, pragmatic coping skills can.

GPs are generally not well equipped to deal with folk with mental illness. Psychiatry is a strange profession whose main role seems to be doling out drugs - not a bad earner really. My experience is that it is folk such as the psychologists who do the main work in getting to the essence of problems and precipitating events, and helping in the development of coping skills and other behavioural strategies. It would be helpful to break the medical world's stanglehold on health services.