Posted by Joslynn on August 9, 2004, at 22:59:46
In reply to Re: Good therapist-cop/Bad therapist-cop » mair, posted by gardenergirl on August 5, 2004, at 8:17:49
Sorry I am late to this. Gardner Girl asked: "For those who see a pdoc and a T, how does it work for you? Any conflict between the two?"
Yes I see both a pdoc and T, and unlike some situations, my pdoc also does therapy with me. I see my T every other week for therapy and my pdoc once a month for med check & an hour therapy.
How it works: I talk to them about very similar things. Since I am single, and a lot of my situations involve the, er, challenges of dating, I like to have both the male and female perspective. My pdoc is a very kind person who is somewhat protective of me in the way he asks questions about someone I am dating. Sometimes, as a man, he will call a another "guy" on his behavior when that guy is not treating me well in a way that my female therp may miss. It's hard to explain.
You know how sometimes, your guy friends or brother will ask questions of whoever you are dating in a protective, big-brother kind of way? It's sort of like that.
My female therp, on the other hand, is great at making me realize the options I have and reminding me that I am a survivor and will continue to survive. She helps me stay out of catastrophizing and fantasizing. But sometimes, she misses little things about men in my life that the male pdoc picks up on. My therapist also has a more confrontational style (in a tough love way, which is good) whereas my pdoc is more reflective of how I feel.
As far as I know, they don't talk to each other about me (shocking that I am not a case of constant fascination to them!), but they both have each other's numbers. My pdoc told me to tell my therp that he wants her to call him if I seem to be "slipping," if that is ok with me, which it is. So far, I don't think she has made a call like that.
What is nice is, if my therp is on vacation, I can call my pdoc, and vice versa. I don't have many crises where I feel the need to call them, but the few times crises have occurred, they have always happened when one of them has been on vacation!
My pdoc saw me firsthand when I was in a very severe depression and he was by my side through the first weeks of that. So, I don't think I could just use him for meds and see my female therp just for therapy.
I feel that because he saw me at my worst and helped me through it, there was some sort of "imprinting" there, like the goslings do, and I still like to see him as well as my therapist. (I went to her a few weeks after the height--or rather, low?-- of the severe depression.)
Sometimes I will talk him about a comment or theory she had about something or I will talk to her about something he said, usually about meds or something like that.
I would not give either of them up and I think that both of them enhance, rather than detract, from each other.
That said, I think it was not nice or effective for your new pdoc to say you were acting like a child! Especially when she was just in the "intake" phase. How can she even know you well enough to even say those things? Plus, there are better ways to communicate!
But if she has tips for procrastination, do share!!!
poster:Joslynn
thread:373917
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040805/msgs/375831.html