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The Beck Discomforts/Dysfunctions Checklists Story
In the early years of my Family Medical Practice I found that Mental Health problems were much the commonest cause of serious suffering in the suburbs of Perth. I developed a passion for helping the people who suffer most through no fault of their own. They are mainly people who suffer from Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Problems. Most of their problems are Genetic and were passed on to them before they were born; or were due to horrible things that happened to them in the innocence of childhood.
In the early days, with Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol Problems, I first listened carefully to my patients’ complaints and then asked them questions.
Then I found I was much more likely to get a patient’s whole story by first opening up their thinking with a Checklist - a systematic set of carefully chosen and carefully worded questions about all of the important areas in Mental Health. People usually think they only have one or two problems but in Mental Health if you’ve got one problem you always have several other problems as well; and your most serious problems can be something quite different from what you thought they were; and you never get completely better until all of your problems have been discovered, explored and fixed; preferably the most serious ones first.
I also found that the Discovery Process could be made much more interesting, meaningful and motivating for troubled people if the Checklist questions were about the ways in which those people were Uncomfortable, Incapable or Dysfunctional; what made them “feel bad” or caused them pain; and what they couldn’t do that they needed to be able to do to have a good life. So our Checklists are DISCOMFORTS/DYSFUNCTIONS Checklists.
All the existing Psych Checklists I could find were either too long, or too narrow and specialized. So then I developed a new Checklist that could be done by distressed people, on their own, with an attention span of only 20 or 30 minutes, and that asked questions about the full range of Mental Discomforts and Dysfunctions. The development of our main Checklist, the Mini DDC, stabilized with 36 questions after much adding, testing, culling, and fine-tuning over a 10 year period, as we were treating thousands of Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol patients.
After 3 or 4 upgrades of our Printed Checklist we moved on to a Computerized Version with Multiple Choice Answers which are Scored according to their Importance. You choose your answers with simple mouse clicks and the software then calculates and displays your Scores in your downloaded Report in descending order of importance. It displays your Total Score, your score for each Group of DISCOMFORTS/DYSFUNCTIONS, the Question and your score for each Relevant Individual Answer, and also a graph of all of your Total Scores if you have done out Checklists before.
With your DISCOMFORTS/DYSFUNCTIONS Groups printed out in Descending Order of Score (Importance), we can immediately go to the beginning of your Report and focus treatment on your biggest problems. That gives you faster relief from your suffering and faster improvement in your functioning. I can now get further with a patient at our first meeting than I got in the past by the 3rd meeting, when I was using traditional consultations. With each Checklist any changes or lack of changes in your Group and Individual Question Scores show exactly where your treatment is working and where it hasn’t worked. We then know exactly where we have to strengthen or change your treatment.
Our next step was to develop www.DrBecksChecklists.com so that our patients and anyone else anywhere at any time could do a Comprehensive First Assessment and Progress Assessments of their Mental Health and any Substance Abuse. This empowers you to do highly effective Self-help work on your Mental Health immediately, whenever you feel the need and have the time, and without having to wait for anyone. When you feel a need and are focused on finding solutions you concentrate and understand things much better and make much better progress. Days or Weeks or Months later when you have been able to book an appointment with a Specialist Healthcarer you may not be as motivated and focused, or may have got deeper into trouble.
I then added a summary of The “Big 7” Mental Health Disorders which you can download at any time. Now as soon as you discover that you have a Mental Health Problem or Disorder you can immediately read and learn about that problem or Disorder ant its Disorder nature, causes and treatments. This is highly productive self-help learning about your main Mental Health because you are Disorders in a state of maximum motivation and concentration.
We are now adding more specialized Checklists for more difficult problems. The Compact Comprehensive Mini Checklist that lays out all of a person’s problems in descending order of importance, putting everything in perspective, is of great value and is where everyone should start. You repeat the Mini DDC weekly until many of the problems have been fixed. Then if more difficult DISCOMFORTS/DYSFUNCTIONS Groups remain the MAXI Specialized Checklists ask more questions about those particular areas. As you read and then answer those more detailed questions you both understand the Disorders better and also understand your personal difficulties in those areas of Disorder better.
I have made these MAXI checklists an important Educational/Treatment aid so that repeating them is Therapeutic as well as Diagnostic. Asking and Answering Questions is one of the best ways of learning, and repeatedly reading and answering an online list of questions is a convenient and comparatively easy way of doing this. People can easily make a start on their Mental Health problems without having to wait for and be dependant on the experts. Their own initiative, self-reliance and confidence in Mental Health then grows, they make progress at a rate which encourages them to keep going and which generates momentum. The whole process snowballs and with Maxi Checklists they can then progress rights the rough to tackling difficult problems.
Apathy, despair, resignation and street drug self medication may be the alternative if you feel you can’t do anything until you get an appointment with an expert in a few weeks or a few months. This is especially so if a lack of money forces you to go to a public clinic where you very often see a different Healthcarer at most consultations and have to explain yourself over and over again. You may then make so little progress that you think that you will never get better, so you don’t get better. You may then turn to street drugs or go on the Benzodiazepine roundabout with a busy G.P.
With www.DrBecksChecklists.com the momentum that Patients can achieve when they can go at their own pace between consultations and counseling sessions gives rapid relief from suffering and dysfunction and a rate of improvement in Quality of Life that keeps Patients engaged, motivated and moving forward. I have never seen this rate of success achieved in any other way.
Click here and START doing the Beck Mini Checklist NOW!
Helpful links:
www.BetterMindHealth.com
www.ADDselfhelp.com
www.BeatingAlcohol.com
www.BeatingBenzos.com
www.BeatingHeroin.com
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