Posted by thuso on July 5, 2005, at 23:48:54
In reply to Wait a minute!!! » thuso, posted by Emily Elizabeth on July 5, 2005, at 23:12:10
I was trying not to get into too much detail in my original post so that it didn’t turn into a novel. This is what I get. :-P I’ll address all your concerns though.
> Whoa! Did you say that the child pdoc was your EMPLOYER that said you were AS??? In my opinion (and I believe the American Psychological Association) that sort of behavior is extremely unethical. If he is not your doctor, he should not be giving you a diagnosis. That sort of dual relationship is a problem b/c since he knows you in a different context, he is likely to be biased in a unique way. He has his own (probably more complex and less neutral) opinions about you that are influencing his diagnosis.
>My employment ended with him on NYE. I finally got my results in Feb. I sat down with him to go over my results in March, so he was no longer my employer at that point. He offered to sit down with me to go over my report to answer any questions I might have. He didn’t sit down with me to diagnose me with anything. That wasn’t the intention.
> As for the grad student who did testing, in probably all cases they are supervised by an experienced licensed psychologist. And, as a grad student who has done a lot of these type of assessments, I can tell you that they are typically MORE thorough than your average assessment. AND at least two (if not more) people are thinking about the information that the testing provides. It is possible that the grad student did a poor job, but I'd say that it was also pretty unprofessional to be so dismissive of another professional's work. Perhaps it was part of the pdoc's insecurity?
>He didn’t dismiss her work. In fact, he agreed with the dx’s she made, but thought she was way too conservative and said she should have also added a couple other dx’s. And in regards to the AS, that was not what we were testing nor did it ever come up. We focused on whether or not I had certain specific LD’s that I suspected myself of having. He definitely didn’t dismiss her work. Based solely on the scores of some of my tests, he concluded that I had a couple more dx’s that she didn’t include in her report.
> A side note...there can be a lot of hostility between psychology and psychiatry. Each seems to always want to prove that they are better and they can be pretty rude to each other. I myself have experienced a lot of disrespect from pdocs (not my own, she is great--pdocs that work w/ my clients). I know that is something that psychologists at all levels of education complain about.
>Don’t worry, he is not disrespectful in any way towards psychology. He works very closely with psychologists in treating patients.
> I know I've gone off a little here, but I REALLY don't want to see you hurt by someone's lack of professionalism. As I mentioned, I am a grad student and I work with psychologists. In pretty much every example I can think of--when a colleague or boss throws out their own diagnosis it is destructive. My advice is that if you want a 2nd opinion you should go see a private psychologist and/or pdoc.
>
> As for your question about "official dx"...my sense is that it matters what you need it for. For somethings you need an MD to sign off, but I would think that most mental health professionals would respect a well-written and thorough report (assuming that is what you have).
>The whole AS thing came up at the end of our meeting. I found out that he had strong suspicions about me and AS for months (never mentioned anything to me), but it was looking at my test scores that sealed the deal for him (very different V/P scores with 2 individual scores standing way above the rest). That’s why he mentioned his feeling that I had AS. The whole written thing by him was not a report. It was basically a page long note for any future psychologist or psychiatrist I saw as an addendum to the report written by the grad student, not to replace her report.
>If he is not your doctor, he should not be giving you a diagnosis.
That’s my quandary. This note he gave me isn’t a diagnosis in the sense that most people get one. That’s why I’m not sure if I should take it as “I have AS (dx’ed)” or “a pdoc thinks I have AS (not dx’ed)”. That’s why I was asking what people think constitutes a dx.
Does this all make sense? And I hope this helps your alarm bells calm down at least a little bit. :-) I know this isn’t the traditional way of doing things, but this is how it happened for me.
poster:thuso
thread:523892
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/524085.html