Please speak to your doctor for advice about your situation. Subject matter experts, people with lived experience of mental illness and carers all contributed to this fact sheet. This website needs JavaScript enabled in order to work correctly; currently it looks like it is disabled. Please enable JavaScript to use this website as intended. Back to Psychiatry explained Home Psychiatry explained Finding the right psychiatrist for you.
Finding the right psychiatrist for you Australia View print friendly version of this info. Having a good relationship with your psychiatrist is very important. Can I choose my psychiatrist? Usually, your GP family doctor will choose a psychiatrist when they write your referral. Not only did this not make for a good look in the carpool line at school, but it could have had disastrous effects on the safety of myself and my children.
A quality psychiatrist will take your lifestyle and daily responsibilities into consideration when prescribing a new medication. At the very least, they will inform you of the potential side effects, encourage you to have a plan in place should you have an adverse reaction and slowly taper you up to a therapeutic dose.
Being sick, whether physically or mentally, does not make anyone broken. It simply means we are occupying a different state on the spectrum of health. They imply you are at fault for your illness or shame you in any way, shape, or form. Furthermore, if a psychiatrist makes you feel bad about yourself because you have a mental illness or implies you should be ashamed of your mental illness — that is a dangerous environment to be receiving treatment.
Recently, a psychiatrist asked me to sign a treatment plan he had developed during our initial intake appointment.
This would have been appropriate except when we consider that I had no part in creating this plan of action and my opinion about my treatment had been distinctly removed from the evaluation of the plan.
No treatment plan can ever be effective without the input and consent of the client. A psychiatrist may have an advance degree in the study of mental illness, but they are not all-knowing or all-powerful. They will make mistakes at some point or another. The more they can own up to their errors and be humble before you as a client, the more realistic they are about the practice of medicine.
Figuring out what psychiatric medications are helpful to a particular person in a given environment is educated guessing at best.
It is a process and ongoing negotiation amongst a multitude of factors. But there was something about his relaxed posture, his complete attention, and most importantly, his consistent eye contact that totally disarmed me. My last psychiatrist back in Michigan seldom looked at me, only to greet me and say goodbye. She stared at her computer, rapidly typing as I spoke, saying very little to acknowledge what I had said.
In hindsight, I realize this is why I always found our interactions to be cold and why I always held back on the details when speaking to her. Something as simple as direct eye contact can change the entire temperature of a room. I went from feeling invisible to being seen.
In my work as an advocate, the most common complaint I come across is that folks feel their appointments are always cut short, or that they never have enough time to say what they need to.
The pace of the conversation and allotted time ultimately makes them feel like a burden, and they ask fewer questions, share less information, experience significant anxiety, and ultimately receive subpar treatment because they feel rushed. I realize this varies widely depending on the clinic and clinicians you have access to, but I encourage folks to explore their options as much as possible. Check in with yourself during your appointments. Do you feel rushed? He made a few recommendations about resources that I could choose from, but then went on to tell me he trusted that I knew what I needed.
He believed in my self-determination, and affirmed that I was in charge. He gave me choices. Not once has my psychiatrist made a recommendation for me without giving me other options and asking me how I felt about the options I was given.
My psychiatrist told me that he strongly believes in collaboration and self-education. In other words, he believes in my agency. This approach is both humanizing and, yes, anti-oppressive, as it upholds the belief that mentally ill people are truly the experts on their own lived experience.
And we are. It is printed on a small roll of paper and inserted in the box of medications that the pharmacist receives. There is a lot of technical jargon in the insert but the information is more thorough than the fact sheet. There are also a number of good books that can help you get answers to your questions. If you have access to the Internet there are lots of resources including these: Dr.
Strategy 2: Learn to think differently about yourself Trust yourself. You know more about yourself than your psychiatrist will ever know. Begin to trust yourself and your perceptions. Sometimes I found it hard to trust my perceptions after being told that what I felt, thought, or perceived, was crazy. Part of recovery is learning to trust yourself again. Even during my craziest times there was a kernel of truth in all of my experience. If you are experiencing unwanted drug effects such as a feeling of apathy, constipation, loss of sex drive, double vision, or the like, trust your perception.
Chances are that you are not the first person to have these drug effects. Even if you found a drug helpful, look at all the things you have done to get well and stay well. A drug can sometimes open a door, but it takes a courageous human being to step through that door and build a new life.
Your questions are important. Anyone who has been on psychiatric drugs for a period of time is probably going to ask these important questions: What am I really like when I am off these medications?
Is it worth taking these medications? Are there non-drug methods I can learn to reduce my symptoms instead of using medications? Have my needs for medications changed over time?
Do I have tardive dyskinesia that is being masked by the neuroleptics I am taking? There are no long-term studies on the medication I use.
Am I at risk? Do I want to take the risk of not knowing the long-term effects? Am I addicted to these medications? Has long-term use of these medications resulted in memory loss or decreased my cognitive functioning?
Strategy 3: Think differently about psychiatrists Most psychiatrists are too busy for our own good. In an age of managed care psychiatrists have less and less time to spend with more and more clients.
Many psychiatrists have never read the full case record of the people they prescribe medications to. Even fewer could identify all of the various drugs and drug combinations that you have tried over the years and what the outcomes of those drug trials were. In light of this I have found it important to begin to keep my own record of what medications I have tried, for what symptoms, at what dosages, and for what period of time.
Psychiatrists often have conflicting interests. It would be comforting to think that psychiatrists were serving our individual interests.
But this assumption would be naive. Many psychiatrist complain of the competing interests that tear at the ethical fabric of their practice. In other words, some psychiatrists receive their paychecks from managed care corporations that require them to prescribe one type of drug rather than others that are expensive. If this is the case, we should have this information!
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