Today a psychiatrist I follow on Twitter (who happens to have treatment resistant depression himself) tweeted his concern about a non-clinician misusing the term to spread fear and misinformation. I unfollowed and muted Jessica well over a year ago, because I was fed up of my timeline being clogged up with her pointless petty fights and increasingly dubious takes, so I couldn't see the tweet he was quoting...but just from the description I knew it had to be her. And it was.
This is one of the areas where her habit of posing as a clinician is actively dangerous, because the things she was writing could cause people whose depression has been described as treatment resistant to become despairing. To anyone who has heard their difficulties described in that way:
1. The term 'treatment resistant' means that your depression has not been significantly improved by any of the options that are typically used first (guided self-help, low-intensity cognitive behavioural approaches, medication).
It does not mean the professionals think you're never going to improve or feel better.
2. Treatment resistant depression has a well-established link with trauma. One of the first things clinicians should do if those first line treatments don't work is to re-assess your needs and consider whether a longer-term therapy is suitable. For example, there is evidence that acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can help people with depression who have not benefited from other approaches, which is particularly suitable for people with a trauma history. A small-scale feasibility study suggests that compassion-focused therapy (CFT) might also have potential, but further research is needed there.
3. Psychiatrists know the above. In fact a lot of research into the most effective psychological therapies for people with treatment resistant mental health conditions has been carried out by them, so Jessica's rant that women are being labelled as treatment resistant and offered euthanasia by psychiatrists (!) is once again not grounded in fact. Why would they bother identifying therapeutic interventions that help this group of patients, publish the findings so that other clinicians can know what help to offer, and then turn round and say, "Actually, you're better off dead"?
She is once again trying to position herself as the rescuer and champion of vulnerable people, at the expense of those very same people - by sharing information that is factually untrue and telling them that the people who might be able to help them don't think they can be helped. It's cruel. To anyone in this position: you absolutely can be helped, and please don't be persuaded by Jessica Taylor that no one actually qualified to treat you would be interested in doing so. She has no training in therapy herself, has never worked directly with patients, and her ignorance shows on topics like this.
Was thinking if there was any concrete proof amber's legal team contacted her....
Amber's team was comprised of professional, old school type lawyers and experts. It doesn't sound right to me that they'd scrape the bottom of the barrel trying to hustle up a tv dr with no clinical experience
I very much doubt it was true. If they wanted an expert witness to support their case, why would they look across the Atlantic for one? It's not as if the USA has any shortage of psychologists with an interest in domestic violence and trauma. I suppose it's possible that they stumbled on JT's website and initially mistook her for a serious researcher on the topic, in which case they might have conceivably asked to see her data on victim-blaming, but given the only academic research she's ever done is a small-scale qualitative PhD study in Birmingham, UK, it would hardly have been applicable.
As an aside, do any of the former VF employees know if she has ever applied to a doctorate in clinical psychology or any other practitioner training? I used to think she had never applied because she was too afraid of the high chance of rejection/the scrutiny and push for self-reflection that comes with working under supervision, but the fact that sometimes makes false claims about clinical psychology as a discipline is making me wonder if she tried and failed to get in.