I made further appeals following receipt of Sally Mungall’s ‘CAMHS closing letter’, first to Gail Gray and then again to Sally herself on the 21st March, 2022. The response from the CAMHS Team Secretary, Gail Gray, failed to address my concerns while another response from an unidentified ‘duty clinician’ was simply confusing. Sally remained inexplicably silent.

Then, at 09.03 on the 22nd March, 2022, I received the following email

‘Dear Mr Stock,

Thank you for your email and letters, these have been passed onto me as the General Manager for CAMHS as your daughters case is now closed to our service. I wanted to acknowledge receipt of them. I am looking into the situation and will update you by 5pm on Wednesday 23rd of March.

Kind regards

Wanda’

I was initially consoled by Wanda’s words. ‘I am looking into the situation’ led me to believe that she had no prior knowledge of the issues surrounding my therapy with Sally Mungall nor of our mutually agreed meeting. I assumed a fresh managerial perspective would iron out an obvious misunderstanding. I was wrong. Evidence disclosed much later following access to medical records, including Wanda’s own belated admissions, confirmed that she had been intimately involved in the ‘situation’ since January, 2022. This email was the first attempt by Wanda Reynolds to manage me by duplicitous and disingenuous means.

As promised, Wanda updated me by way of a letter the following day. The letter is published here

‘23.2.22

Dear Mr Stock,

Thank you for your emails and letters, as I mentioned in the email yesterday these have been sent to me as your daughters' case have now been closed to the service. 

I can see from your letters and emails that you had an in-depth therapeutic relationship with Sally Mungall - Art Therapist at Basingstoke CAMHS.  This was to support you in the parenting of your daughter who was also receiving psychotherapy from Mark Birbeck Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist.  My understanding from reading the notes and discussion was that the work ended with yourself in 16.12.21 and there was a final meeting between Mark, Meg, yourself and Sally on 13.1.22.  I appreciate that in your final session you discussed the return of your art work and you agreed with Sally that you would make contact when you felt ready.  Unfortunately, whilst this was agreed with Sally we are unable to facilitate a further appointment to hand the art work over as Meg is now closed to our service.  We know that endings and transitions can be difficult and do recognise the importance of the work that you did with Sally and would be keen for you to have your art back If you wish.  We can organise for it to be delivered to your home or you could come into the clinic at a pre-arranged time and the Team Manager would be able to give this to you. 

I can see in your letter and emails that you developed a strong level of trust and attachment to Sally and I can read that you are distressed that the promise of a further appointment has not happened.  Unfortunately, this should not have been offered and we are unable to facilitate this.  I have spoken with Sally and she is now aware that this cannot be facilitated.    I would like to recommend some services that can support you at this difficult time.

Your GP will be able to offer you support.

111 offer MH support to both adults and young people and have Mental Health Nurses within the service.

I understand that you have been referred to the Adult Mental Health Team and I understand that you can contact them on 01256 316300 should you feel that this would be helpful.

Kind Regards

Wanda Reynolds

I was later rendered incredulous that CAMHS General Manager, Wanda Reynolds, in full possession of the facts, deemed it appropriate to casually dismiss me with such trite counsel, referring me to my GP and the general auspice of the NHS 111service. Wanda Reynolds had absolute managerial oversight and was either completely aware or should have been completely aware of the inappropriate nature of the psychotherapy delivered by Sally Mungall  during ‘parent work’. Wanda Reynolds would or at least should have been aware of the psychological damage done to me and should have initiated action to remedy that damage. Wanda Reynolds chose, instead, to ‘pass the buck’, to shift responsibility to other agencies and attempt to absolve herself and the clinicians under her managerial oversight. In the meantime I encapsulated my distress in my immediate but understated email reply to Wanda.

‘Dear Wanda,

Your letter dated 23 March has left me devastated and completely heartbroken.

It seems like it would have been a small thing for you to grant me one last opportunity to meet with Sally. I am so desperate for closure and am utterly distraught contemplating moving on without being able to say goodbye.

I take some grain of comfort imagining that she would have honoured her word and kept our appointment if she had been allowed but protocol forbids and I am damaged and made all the worse for that.

I hope that Sally was not reprimanded as a result of this and no taint nor blemish affects her reputation because of my actions. I was, undoubtedly, difficult to work with and my emotions and demands were a test for even the most skilled therapist. My distress over this matter is completely attributable to my own mental health challenges. Sally acted with absolute integrity and I would be grateful if you would acknowledge these points.

I would like to pick up my therapy drawings from the Team Manager sometime next week . I would also like to write one final, private letter to Sally, to thank her and to say ‘goodbye’ and I would ask that I be able to deliver it via the Team Manager at the same time. Perhaps you would ask Sally if she was willing to accept it and let me know that it would be passed on without intervention.

Kind Regards,

Mark Stock

My email to Wanda Reynolds proves that I was utterly deluded. I was under the illusion that Sally Mungall had acted honestly throughout and desperately wanted to shield her from recrimination, offering myself as the scapegoat. I later recognised, with deep sadness, that there was no honour or integrity on Sally’s part.

On Thursday the 31st March I found myself waiting in the CAMHS reception for Dora. While waiting I caught the receptionist’s nervous eye. That same receptionist had been really friendly with me over the previous year but her newly acquired apprehension made me feel like an intruder. It wasn’t just the receptionist that had changed, though. The whole atmosphere of CAMHS had changed. Even the colours looked different, somehow darker-hued, unfriendly. What was going on? And then Dora emerged from the same room that Meg and I had sat in back in February, 2021 when she was first being assessed. Here was the other bookend, the other parenthesis that propped up just under a years’ worth of failed and damaging therapy in chapter book installments of pain and disappointment. Dora handed me a large brown envelope containing my art therapy drawings and I handed my personal letter to Sally Mungall. The exchange felt conspiratorial, like we were trading state secrets. It was a total antithesis to the meeting that should have taken place. This wasn’t closure. This was unfolding trauma. And so I left CAMHS for the last time, striding through the car park, never looking back although it was highly likely that I was being looked at, monitored to make sure I had actually gone. I walked back home, passing through the top of town, along the London Road. I eventually paused about a third of the way down Eastrop Lane and considered the large brown envelope. Surely there would be something other than my art therapy drawings in that envelope, something from Sally, a letter, Post-It note, some hastily scrawled explanation, something…anything that might offer consolation. I tore into the envelope and pilfered the contents There was nothing but my thoughtlessly folded and creased drawings hastily packed along with the ‘intergenerational trauma family tree’ started by Sally but long ago aborted. All that I was aware of was absolute emptiness. I had been aborted, fly-tipped like a used, stained mattress, abandoned in the street like a flea-ridden dog. I packed the art therapy drawings back into the envelope and walked a few steps further before throwing up in the gutter.