Today was my first ever meeting with a psychiatrist and I was thoroughly appalled and indignant. Here are some SERIOUS issues I have found with psychiatry.
First warning sign to me; the psychiatrist and my therapist had hardly communicated AT ALL. My therapist had far more in depth information on my condition, and the fact that they were not in constant contact and keeping each other up to date on symptoms was just…that should be a basic thing!
The questions meant to “diagnose me” were right out of some psychology textbook. I’ve taken online quizzes that went more in depth than that. I knew what ALL of them were looking for and it was almost insulting to my intelligence. I realize not everyone has a greater knowledge of psychology, but regardless those questions were VERY vague and expansive, some I’ve sought the answer to for numerous years, and would require months or more to fully explain.
After 40 minutes, yes 40 MINUTES I was randomly slapped with the title of anxiety and non-specific psychotic disorder. This is a title that means absolutely nothing to me, especially after SO LITTLE exploration was done into my condition on behalf of the psychiatrist. The result meant as much to me as the results I get after taking those brief little “do you have a mental illness” quizzes online. Nothing. She went down a checklist of symptoms and checked them off when she heard them. (Not literally, but that’s what it was like)
After this BRIEF discussion of my symptoms, of which I BARELY skirted and most of which she did not understand and kept repeating back to me incorrectly, she told me to go get a million tests done and tried to prescribe me two different antipsychotics. This PISSES me off. These are very serious drugs, with very serious, and often permanent side effects. They should be used in situations which they are ABSOLUTELY necessary and after a patient has been THOROUGHLY examined. If she had consulted with my therapist at ALL she would realize that my symptoms have minimal effect on my ability to function, and that I am absolutely no danger to myself or others. They may be of great personal distress to me, but if she had actually done her research would have understood those drugs would do me far more harm than good.
I am completely outraged by what I have experienced today and how quickly I had serious and life impacting drugs shoved at me after such little investigation and being offered such little information. (Trying to describe an entire lifetime of experience in 40 minutes! Ridiculous!!)
This is incredibly dangerous and only makes my desire to be a mental health advocate stronger. Several reforms that should be taken into account are 1) Psychiatrist and therapist should be COWORKERS and act as a team to treat patients
Unless the patient is an immediate danger to themselves or others, every other option should be explored before life-effecting serious medication. Just because someone experiences psychotic symptoms does not necessarily need they need pills shoved down their throat.
I’m just disgusted right now. Medication for many is certainly necessary, but it should not be doled out like candy after a useless survey.
i agree theyre far too quick to perscibe phyciatric drugs my sister says she must have turned down the offer of anti depressants 75 times in her life.
basically your too in telligent for them LOL
Psychiatry is a necessary tool in today’s world. It has various uses, mostly to pacify the masses. I have no idea if I’m actually schizoaffective, but the psychiatrist I saw summed it up as a fancy way to say that you have bipolar depression with psychotic features. So essentially I am not my label, I just deal with these symptoms. But did they ever once question the cause of them? This is just maintenance treatment. I have yet to be cured. I have yet to realize my full potential. That I’ve gotten this far is very good considering that I was completely broken on the inside when I started treating my condition. I hated it with every ounce of my being.
I hated the medication warping my moods and integrity, and I hated the idea I had to depend on a substance instead of losing my mind to mental illness. But now I take it less seriously. I’ll never know who I would’ve become if I hadn’t lost myself so many times. I don’t want people to know that I’m not suffering from any schizophrenia symptoms, I’m just completely depressed and cynical. I feel purposeless and I am starting to hate the way people treat each other. In just watching the news you can see examples of how messed up the world has become. People are agitated so it’s not the best time to be living with a mental illness either.
You’ve made a lot of important points. Improving the hospitals and intake services for people who seek help or need it will increase awareness and boost the economy. Peddling should be illegal also. If psychiatry is about public safety, than don’t prescribe controlled substances to minors etc.
It will probably always exist in some form or another. Psychiatry has a sociological purpose, and when the truth about the mind is discovered, people may finally be free from this controlled chaos.
The first time I saw a psychiatrist she said nothing to me and just gave me a prescription for Risperdal. I was back in two weeks as I couldn’t cope with the side effects. I then asked her what was wrong with me. She told me that I suffer from delusional paranoia. It was only months later when I saw on correspondence from her to the medical aid that I was diagnosed with paranoid sz. I’m now almost five years with her and never has she mentioned the word schizophrenia to me. She will discuss my delusions and paranoia and negative symptoms. Maybe she is just one of those people who do not use the the stigmatized word schizophrenia.
Psychiatry is a fuzzy practice, everything about it is usually vague - lots of guess work involved -BUT - you will find good doctors and bad doctors and everything in between. Having an incompetent psychiatrist can be down right dangerous - I mean diabetes and liver damage are no joking matters. I am very lucky to have found a top notch psychiatrist who only prescribes when necessary and even then at lower doses to start.
The way they diagnose these illnesses are a joke - some questions and observation - I mean really.
I am not antipsychiatry - just think that there are way too many bad doctors out there
I am not convinced that a therapist and a psychiatrist should discuss a patient In detail before each of them has consulted with the patient individually. I think separate consultations may help to eliminate observer bias.
If you are not happy with the rest of the consultation or the way it proceeded, you are free to say so to the doctor. It is a consultation. That means you both get to ask questions, as well as contribute.
Your comments do raise the question though, if your MI is not affecting your functioning, what were you there for exactly? What were you hoping to gain? Did you make that clear to the psychiatrist?
I completely understand, Anna. My very first contact with a psychiatrist was not beneficial and most certainly was an insulting experience. Would you consider getting in contact with another psychiatrist, either private or via your family doctor? No one deserves haphazard mental health care. I’m sure you are grateful that you have access to care, but a better experience is warranted. What did this person prescribe you after a 40 minute session?
I hope you can correspond with a better suited doctor soon. Take care!
She wanted me to try abilify or seraquil? (S one probably isn’t right name I don’t remember it very well)
I actually had a meeting with my therapist right after so I told her how frustrated the appointment had made me and she completely agreed that it wasn’t right and she’s going to go talk with the psychiatrist about what’s up.
I like my therapist. She actually listens. I don’t think I need a psychiatrist.
I went to the psychiatrist largely for my anxiety. My therapist had talked with me about getting anti-anxiety meds to use during my episodes to help calm my symptoms, which I agreed with. She apparently emailed the psychiatrist this AND I brought it up with her after she tried to prescribe me anti-psychotics, and she just completely ignored me.
I do experience a constant psychosis of sorts, but it’s entirely manageable and runs in the background of my life UNTIL I experience high levels of anxiety and then things get scary. Now that I’m learning ways to fight my anxiety, it should make my weirder things manageable again.
Basically the main thing that causes me pain and greatly affects my functioning is the anxiety, the psychotic symptoms are more just a weird part of my life that I felt would be wrong to leave out. (I tried leaving them out at therapy before and it just didn’t work out.)
I see your point with the bias as well. I think it would be a good idea to have separate introductions and first impressions, but afterwards move toward collaboration.
You have the right to refuse treatment. I would think long and hard about going on anti-psychotics, because once you are on them they are hard to come off. If you take a drug that suppresses dopamine in one area of the brain, that area will be flooded with dopamine when you come off it. I remember seeing Kate Millet - a writer - on a talk show discussing her experience with psychiatry. She said that she was taken and presented to this person who had known her for all of five minutes, and that person had to make a life impacting decision on whether or not to commit her. If you do get committed you have the right to ask for a mental health trial in most places, unless things have changed.
I agree with Hatty, that it is not necessary for the two to collaborate. Remember a therapist cannot diagnosis your illness only a medical dr can. I think therapists/social workers/whatever you call them, often overstep into the medical world and they don’t have the knowledge to do so. A dr cannot prescribe you meds based on a conversation with a 3rd party. The diagnosis and prescribe based on the symptoms they are observing. But then on the other hand, from what i’ve learned in my nursing courses, is that the dr’s goals for you need to be the same as the patient. So in his mind the first course of action is to manage the psychosis whereas you think it is the anxiety. Who knows who is right, you or him? You need to make it clear to the pdoc the specific issue you want treatment for.
the first ’ shrink rap ’ i saw tried to lock me up…and give me a chemical lobotomy.
that was 20 years ago…
my second and third ’ shrinks ’ were great , so perhaps seek a second opinion.
take care
It sounds like this psychiatrist jumped the gun, but should your psychosis ever affect you more than you can handle, those two meds are generally well-tolerated. I’m not making suggestions or anything, but just so you know; a low dose of Seroquel, for example 25 mg, helps my future wife with her anxiety-induced psychosis. For comparison, I take 700 mg of Seroquel for schizophrenia.
Yeah I can understand that. It’s just unfortunate for me because I’ve been dealing with the psychotic issues my entire life so that’s basically run of the mill for me. I only started experiencing painful anxiety within that past few years so to me it’s completely flipped, I see this anxiety as the prominent issue and the psychosis as just…a thing I’ve always had.
Like I said before, with the past two people I spoke with I left out my psychotic symptoms entirely because I didn’t think they were relevant. Now I realized in the long run it would be unhelpful to myself and my treatment to leave such a huge part of my life out.