Thinking About Dumping Your Psychiatrist? You Might Not Need To

It’s tempting. I’ve been there. You hit a rough patch with your psychiatrist and you think, “I’m outta here.” There may be some things you can do to not only get your relationship back on track but also give it a turbo boost. I want to explore just a few of the things we can do to improve our relationships with our doctors. First some basic facts. Psychiatry is a rare discipline of medicine and the population of psychiatrists is aging and not being replaced quickly enough by younger physicians. There are many areas of the country, small town and rural particularly, that have few to no psychiatrists. Some of us get our psychiatric care from a clinic or public health facility. Our choices are limited in these settings also. Maybe you’ve heard of the phrase “doctor hopping.” That’s when we bounce from one psychiatrist to another looking for our perfect match. The problem with doctor hopping is that many of us don’t have a lot of options to jump to. Also, doctor hopping destroys our continuity of care and puts us at risk for relapse and misdiagnosis. What if I told you that we can create the match we want with our current doctors? No, I don’t have a magic wand, but I do have some ideas you can try that may empower you. Our relationships with our psychiatrists are exactly that, relationships. We are 50% of the partnership, and our psychiatrists are the other 50%. We are a team with the goal being the best mental health possible given our illnesses. The ...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Bipolar Communication Personal Psychotherapy PTSD Schizophrenia Psychiatry Source Type: blogs