I have two therapists currently and one psychiatrist.

I don't find the psychiatrist to be helpful beyond the fact that it's good to have a specialist to prescribe medication. He's not very open to negotiation when it comes to his decisions around medication.

The psychiatrist told me that long term therapy is bad and that I needed medication, then he told me that medication wouldn't help someone like me, there was nothing he could safely prescribe and that I just needed to "dig deep" in therapy, then he went back to saying that long term therapy is a bad idea and that I need to stop. I once asked for a very short-term dose of something for some very serious anxiety issues around a particular situation that I really couldn’t cope with and he insisted over and over again that there was nothing I could safely take. I had nothing left and I ended up in tears (even though I never cry like that in front of anyone). While I sat there, broken with nothing left and just wanting to get the heck out of there, he said okay he would prescribe something very short-term but only if I increased the dose of my antidepressant and then he kept insisting that I would get addicted if he was willing to hand it over easily. It was the second time he’s insisted that he couldn’t and wouldn’t help me with medication before mysteriously changing his mind.

So, the psychiatrist is very definitely only for medication management!

And honestly, I'm a pretty straightforward patient.