View Single Post
 
Old Apr 06, 2007, 04:31 PM
Genevieve Genevieve is offline
Veteran Member
 
Member Since: Sep 2004
Posts: 312
</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
psisci said:
You have the right to it's contents, but not the file itself. ask him to copy it for you, and if he declines, then call a lawyer who will get it done and bill the doc for his/her time.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

At least in the US, that's only partly true. Mental health records are treated differently under the law than other medical records. As a patient, I can ask to see my records, or for a copy of them, but the mental health practitioner can decline to provide that access if he/she considers it not to be in the best interest of my mental health.

What the law specifies in Canada, I can't say.

Frankly, though, I'd discourage most people from reading their files. Even with a great therapist/psychiatrist, who really likes you, whom you've worked well with, there will still be things written in there that can be upsetting. If you feel you have ot access those records, I strongly recommend you do so with a therapist, and make examining those records part of a session or sessions.
__________________
There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also, it may be said there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
Thomas Carlyle in essay on Sir Walter Scott