Posted by Tabitha on August 2, 2016, at 0:55:37
In reply to Re: Fact Checking Some Anti-Psychiatry Claims, posted by baseball55 on July 30, 2016, at 19:24:56
Hi baseball, I just wanted to say I appreciated your long and thoughtful comment. It's so long and thoughtful, it's difficult to figure out how to reply. :-)
I think my comment perhaps came off more dismissive of psychiatry than I actually feel because I was reacting to a perceived accusation of being a psychiatry cheerleader. Part of my gripe is not with psychiatry itself, but rather with the rest of the medical & insurance system that has failed to integrate psychiatrists. I'm in a large city with an excellent health care network. They have doctors, specialists, labs, imaging, in-patient, surgical centers, the whole enchilada. Yet they have no psychiatrists in any of their facilities. They don't even make referrals. So I have to find my own pdoc and coordinate record share with my GP. When I need bloodwork for my pdoc, I have to call around and find an independent lab, because the one I normally go to won't take orders from doctors that aren't affiliated with them. And insurance coverage is similarly carved off from my other health care. It makes no sense to me to have that separation.
Similarly, when I was doing talk therapy, there was no integration between my therapist and a psychiatrist. My therapist, despite being licensed, wasn't competent to diagnose or refer me for medication. Perhaps some are, but mine wasn't. Physical therapists can't treat patients without diagnosis and referral from a medical doctor. I would like to see talk therapists similarly tethered to a psychiatrist if they're claiming to provide care for people with major diagnoses.
Regarding psycho-social care, I don't disagree that people with current or previous mental health problems need support and other inter-personal care. I think people with any debilitating or life-threatening condition need psycho-social support. I just don't think that psycho-social support by itself is an effective intervention for severe long-standing mental health problems.
Admittedly I'm biased toward biological treatment, as it's been dramatically more helpful to me than a boatload of talk therapy.
poster:Tabitha
thread:1090941
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20160713/msgs/1091071.html