Quote:
Originally Posted by QuietMind
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.
She should have sought supervision and/or peer consultation!
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.
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Thank you, it seems strange to me in retrospect. I was fairly bad, struggling and low functioning all of the time I saw her (5.5 yes) but it got worse and worse. I just find it odd she kept basically telling me to snap out of it. I'm doing hospital outpatient clinical psych and seeing a pdoc there too and I feel like I'm actually getting better. I probably would have needed some convincing to do this a few years ago because I was so attached to her, but I wish I had gotten this help sooner. They care about my safety and health --my anemia is finally gone and it's good to have people who take my safety fears and self-harm seriously, encourage me to go for stitches and liver test following OD and such. Working slowly on stuff like eating and cleaning, and I need to do it... It's hard to do stuff like work and school when you aren't coping with life.
All I did with ex-T was talk about my fear of abandonment, which was my choice to talk abt because I'm obsessive
but i feel like it would have been good if she'd told me I needed more help a long time ago. I would have done anything she asked.