Despite our sincere and constant efforts to deliver world-class mental health care services, some clients feel they do not get the services they want in the way the want it. Some of them leave unfair reviews, comments and criticisms online, this disheartens us in our efforts.
To help us to continue to deliver great mental health care, here are few things I want you to consider before you read the reviews here or before writing one yourself.
Instead of writing a Google review we recommend that you write an email to us at info@centreofmind.com or to me personally dr.jp@centreofmind.com with your grievance, so that we can resolve it.
1. A mental health service is not a hospitality service. You will be treated with respect, that we promise, but we may not agree with all that you say. Because it is our business to find the faults in your thinking, the very same faults that have created the problem for which you have come to us. If we agree to all your reasoning, we can’t help you overcome your problems.
2. To understand the complex psychological issues behind your troubles needs time and a lot of discussions. We need to approach the problem from various angles to understand it fully. some angles of questioning, however softly put, will be unpleasant, but we have to do it. We are always ready to listen to you, but what you say alone will not be sufficient to arrive at a treatment plan. So bear with us for questioning you.
3. Please feel free to tell us what you think about the consultation, right then and there. Going home and writing a review with a different name will not help us correct our ways when we are wrong.
4. Mental health care is a very different field, do not equate it with other medical consultations where your thinking, value systems, behaviour are not analysed. Worse still, do not equate it with reviewing a hotel or shop. We know that everyone finds it difficult to have their behaviour questioned and analysed. You are not ready for a consultation till you are ready to look at things from a different perspective.
5. Mental health services are all burdened for time, there are only 5000 psychiatrists for 1.3 billion people. But we don’t charge for our rarity, but only for our time. Being direct and precise about the problems and following our line of inquiry saves time for us and money for you. We try to avoid long winding conversations till we have identified your problems. Then you can have all the time when we are addressing the problem.
6. We cannot give replies to all the bad reviews about us, first because we do not know which client has written the review, secondly even if we did know, we cannot give explanations due to issues of client confidentiality. Your identity and private information is safe with us even if you call us names.
7. Manathin Maiyam handles more than 6000 consultations per year for the past six years, including 1200 new clients per year. We are still growing only because of the good service that we offer. If we ask those with positive experiences to write reviews like a Google Play app, we will have many of them too, but we don’t. We do not want people to compromise on their privacy by writing reviews about us.
8. We take lots of care to make your mental health care experience as easy, effortless and valuable as possible, from booking appointments to reducing waiting time to offering all mental health services under one roof. Therefore your feedback is welcome, but not as Google reviews, which give us no scope for improvement. Feedback forms are available at all our facilities, please use them to help us improve standards of our services.
9. Apart from giving us no scope to improve, the other problem with bad reviews is that, harsh reviews deter those who are looking for mental health services, from getting it. The stigma, misunderstandings and the myths surrounding mental health care are already big road blocks to those in need of help, do not create one more block with your review written in anger.
10. We are currently two Psychiatrists and three senior psychologists in the team. If you want we can always transfer your case to another consultant, to help you. Everyone need not like a particular consultant or their unique ways.
11. Yes, we have bad days too, we are sorry to have hurt you in some way, but not all days are bad, if you come back we can talk it over and get on with helping you.
We have over the years come to understand that not everyone who comes to us wants a solution. Some just want us to listen. Some want us to listen and reflect. Some only want us to analyse and only a few want to find solutions and help with implementing them.
For these varied needs we are creating a host of services:
For those who only need friendly listening, we have Nesam , a free emotional crisis helpline, with the philosophy of befriending anonymously.
For those who need dedicated listening and reflection of their problems we have our counseling services by junior psychologists at Centre of Mind.
For those who want to find solutions and help with implementing changes for a better future, our senior psychologists at Centre of Mind are available.
If the behaviour is not one that is under your control, Psychiatrists at Manathin Maiyam can help you with medications.
Finally, we belive that it is wrong of Google to keep health services at par with other retail services, open for review. In health services we are not selling a product or a service, with each patient we are trying to help where nature has wronged them with diseases, disorder and disabilities.