I personally feel that they are necessary and they do play an important role, but as a whole I do feel that the profession is a bit outdated. We absolutely need meds that are less harmful to our bodies that actually work against the positive symptoms and we need meds that actually work on negative symptoms.
I also would like to see more competent psychiatrists - my past experiences with them have not been a very good one overall. I am lucky to have found a very capable doctor who doesn’t sugar coat anything.
What has your experience with psychiatrists been like? How do you really feel about them?
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I’ve only had one decent psychiatrist who was genuinely trying to help me and he is my current one. All the rest were five minute sessions and the same pills that never worked.
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In my 20 years of having this illness, I’ve only had 2 or 3 GOOD pdocs. The rest were just big-pharma drug pushers.
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Some are OK. Some aren’t. I’ve never met one I would trust with my life.
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I skype with my pdoc at the non profit mental health clinic here in town. It’s been the majority of my pdoc time with this clinic. She gives me what I ask for, (as long as it’s not benzos) and I just chit chat with my pdoc. She’s addicted to chocolate and I’m addicted to cigarettes. We have a really nice relationship.
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Personally I think psychiatrists would do better if the patient in some cases were openly trying to communicate. My experience with psychiatrists is like they write the script to what keeps me stable. And I accept that. I agree too that meds need to improve. It’s not just their duty to do their job and make sure you get the best of what is available. It’s your duty too that you express your concerns to them.
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Well…in my experience not everyone dealing with mental illness for the first time is necessarily able to communicate effectively what is going on as it’s something they have never been familiar with. I know for me especially before I began to experience overt symptoms of psychosis I knew something very wrong was going on but couldn’t for the life of me seem to convey this with any effectiveness.
I am not THE biggest fan no…but I acknowledge that it is a nearly impossible job to be great at…there can be much frustration on both sides of this treatment relationship…
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Because of the name “university hospital”, the psychiatrist is only taking care of serious in-patient case, those serving out-patient are medical officer, and it is a heavy burden for them for one medical officer to meet over ten out-patient either in the morning or in the afternoon. As a out-patient, unless I know how to communicate, it will be another 5-minute session for the appointment. Overall, psychiatrist is a must.
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I highly dislike pdocs… they dont help me at ALL.
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There’s such a variation in how one psychiatrist acts compared to another. Some of that has to do with personality. But what I’m talking about is method of treatment.
A while back I went to a new psychiatrist who wanted to dump all my meds and start from scratch. I told him that wasn’t an option. I said “I’m on the right meds now. They work for me.” But he wanted to dump my Seroquel (which I took back then) and put me on Trazedone. I told him no way! Why would I want all those side effects? Then he wanted to fiddle with my diagnosis because he thought I was acting manic. I don’t get mania. I’m Schizoaffective with Depression! That relationship lasted about two months, and I found my current pdoc.
You’ve got the “old school” mentality and some more progressive docs. The old school types want to treat the Dx and not the patient.
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A cold heartless ice man that drops his glasses to his nose. Then he sticks his nose up in the air.
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I’ve been seeing them for 30 years and I really couldn’t say how they helped me. I like some more than others. I had one who was easy going. I had another who looked like a stereotypical psychiatrist with the Sigmund Freud beard, the glasses hardly ever talked. I saw him for 7 years. I went in once a week and blathered for 45 minutes. “Seinfeld” was a show about nothing. My experience with this psychiatrist was a study in “nothing”. I told him I don’t like to talk and I always prodded him to ask me questions. Nothing. Nice guy though. Most of my psychiatrists were nice guys.
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Agreed they are behind the times
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Mostly negative. Before I was admitted I thought they were good people then I had an incident with one that changed my view. I had a crisis over being told I was being sent to make dolls’ houses ( I have very poor constructional skills) panicked and was pulled from the path of a hospital bus. Instead of getting support and asked why I had reacted that way I was castigated and told I was an awkward troublesome teenager. That changed my view.
I too the pills but found it hard to open up to them. Things deteriorated even further when they disapproved of the person I left hospital with who eventually became my wife.
Then when I started to get over that and felt able of asking for more help which they were reluctant to give I got told I was awkward,demanding and troublesome because Insisted I needed more support.
Eventually I got a care co ordinator because I was dealing with a wife with dementia but what she did was put me down while telling me I had low self confidence…
Things changed when my wife died but by that time things had hit rock bottom and I was changed from a schizoaffective disorder to a stand alone personality disorder(at one point twenty plus years before I had been dxed sz with personality disorder) . Although I would have understood a PD being tacked on the schizoaffective what they did was tantamount to saying we don’t like you and lay all the blame for the breakdown on you.
By that time I was worn out and grieving so decided to give in. From that point on as much as possible I’ve avoided asking for help and deflect questions about how I am with throwaway comments like ‘not bad’ and ‘so so’. I fear that asking directly for help will cause the awkward and demanding accusations to resurface.
On the surface they’re ok with me but deep down their continuing disapproval of me is evidenced by attaching the very negative paranoid PD label
As said elsewhere I have much more time for research psychiatrists than ones that work with patients
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I would like to see the world of pharmacy and mental health separated. The only people who should ever receive mind-altering drugs should be people who are a danger to themselves and society. Doctors are still studying why exactly the drugs they use even work! Therapy should be about explaining what the individual is experiencing and teaching them coping mechanisms, rather than trying to medicate everything away. Medication is a dangerous band-aid solution.
I haven’t been to a psychiatrist yet, but when I read people’s experiences where they go talk to one for 10 minutes before getting prescribed a new drug it makes me so angry. I’ve been to a therapist for my anxiety issues (leaving out my psychotic symptoms because they embarass me) and the treatment she gave was…ok. She listened, but rather than try to treat me based on my individual experience, she tried to fit me into a category and help my anxiety through a textbook method of treating it. Some of this was a bit helpful, but I could have done a lot better with more individualized treatment. (Ex. She told me to do an exercise where I taste a food and name all the different tastes and textures in it. But this is an exercise merely meant to distract one from one’s anxiety. My anxiety stems from things I need to get done or large events I have coming up, thus trying to ignore the issue only builds up my anxiety. I found it far more helpful to tell myself things like it would be over soon and everything would return to normal, or doing everything I can immediately when I get it, etc. Since people don’t fall under the same category and experience issues for different reasons and in different ways, you need to have very personalized treatment for it to be effective.)
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That was my first psychiatrist. Anyone after that had to be better.
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One of my first psychiatrists was abusive towards me, he told me to take extra antipsychotic medication (as needed) whenever I felt out of control or anxious - we are talking about Navane here, a very potent typical antipsychotic - you just dont do that
That’s good that you know some of your issues + want to work on them.
I take myself the way I am, which is staying away from the can of worms. I don’t ask for treatment - just prescriptions which keep me happy enough. I am training my new Dr to listen to what I have to say about how I take meds. As I have others in the past. That’s my job -to teach them.
If the psychiatrist provided by the state. Don’t expect any good, they can even cause more harm than good, but if you are paying cash to see psychiatrist than expect everything.
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i wish i were blessed with a good psychiatrist before they scted good but never explained the horrible side effects that can occur that we needed to be vigilant about with this like gynecomastia severe weight gain or tarditive dyskinesia. im on the verge of suicide from the tarditive dyskinesia, and when i was still taking the medicine i told my doctor " at night i get a piercing feeling in my brain like the top of my brain is losing all its blood" that should have been a read flag there but instead three more months on the med
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