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Originally Posted by PinkFlamingo99
I have been thinking about this in regard to a post on another part of the forum.
Do you think at a certain point a therapist has an ethical obligation to reccommend a higher level of care if you need one and he/she is not helping you, or you are getting worse? I don't mean abandoning you but reccommending outpatient treatment, PHP, groups, inpatient, or even referring you on?
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Yes, in my basic counseling course, my counseling lecturer has always stressed need to refer up to higher levels of care if one doesn't think one can provide competent level of care, especially if patient is getting worse.
If she wasn't helping (as in your functioning, self esteeem etc wasn't improving in general), she also should have referred you, in my view.
Ethics for psychologists are generally stricter than those for counsellors too.
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In the fall she made a comment about how I only seem to get worse, and eventually during our painful rupture in Feb made a comment about how I am "too sick" for her to know how to help me alone. But she never referred me anywhere or talked to me about how badly I was doing except these times.
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She should have sought supervision and/or peer consultation!
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Now that I'm doing therapy at the hospital now where they are more used to people with more serious mental illnesses it makes me wonder why Ex-T saw me for over 5 yrs without reccommending I get additional help
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I'm sorry, I think your ex T really should have referred you up way way way earlier than 5 years.
Treating beyond scope of therapist competency is unethical. Slightly out of competency be might be ok, but definitely not when patient deteriorates significantly in functioning.
My first T was a primary care counselor who referred me out to hospital outpatient clinical psychology when I took a dip in functioning though I remained pretty dang high functioning.
"Do no harm!"
I'm quite shocked at your ex T! What you describe, that increase in symptoms over a year(!!)...I'm really shocked she didn't suggest more intensive care.