Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose76
If your boyfriend's diagnosis is from a therapist and not from an actual psychiatrist, then don't take it too seriously. These diagnoses are being handed out way to freely. An eminent psychiatrist told me that he needs 5 years of knowing a patient to feel confident he understands what diagnosis is applicable. Prior to that, he says he is making an educated guess. Non-doctors are making uneducated guesses.
|
No offense intended but that is not at all my experience. I work in mental health and the psychiatrists spend five to ten minutes MAYBE with the patients. It would take them five years because they spend very little time with them. They don't have nearly enough information to make diagnoses beyond history. The medical director where I work, a psychiatrist, relies on the therapists to inform him of behavior and 100% of our Axis II dxes come from either history or the therapist informing the doctor of behavior in group.
All/any diagnoses of mental illness are educated guesses - by doctors too. The key word being educated. You need to go to medical school to be considered
educated? I think all the PhDs, physicists, and lawyers in the world would disagree with that. I took entire classes on the DSM and differential diagnosis. You have to know what's wrong with someone to be able to treat them. I've never seen a psychiatrist but I feel confident that the PsyD that diagnosed me is beyond competent. There are crappy therapists just like there are crappy psychiatrists but dismissing entire fields as not being
educated or able to diagnose is naive and in the case of the psychiatrist saying so likely based on ego more than fact.
Quote:
|
You are quite invested in labeling people. Try to thing about them without the labels. If your family of origin are not nice people to be around, you might be best off to avoid them.
|
Labels, like diagnoses, allow us to understand what we are working with. My preference for them is a personal preference, no more wrong or right than any other. Unfortunately we encounter not nice people everywhere, but we can't always avoid them.