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Old Mar 29, 2018, 12:19 AM
AspiringAuthor AspiringAuthor is offline
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Member Since: Oct 2017
Location: Mountain View
Posts: 629
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rose76 View Post
I haven't been to a therapist in a good few years, but I did go to several over long periods of time in the past. It is sounding to me like they have changed in recent years - from what I read on PC.

It used to be that therapists focused on sorting through concrete problems. I guess the insurance companies encouraged therapists to come up with diagnoses, even requiring that in order to pay them. So therapists seem to have gotten into the habit of trying to be amateur psychiatrists. They seem to love to go around "diagnosing" their clients - which they are not truly competent to do. (It takes more than just checking off lists of criteria.) And many seem to love suggesting various drugs. And some seem to love talking about whether you should even be on drugs - as is the case with your therapist. None of this is what constitutes actual therapy. Therapists should "stay in their lane."

You're only in the therapist's office for about 50 minutes, maybe once a week. That is precious time and too little to waste talking about whether the doctor has done his job correctly. Actually, the therapist almost doesn't even need to know what your diagnosis is or what meds you're taking. The therapist needs to find out what problems you are having in living your life. Then the therapist should be helping you come up with approaches to solve or at least better manage those problems.

Getting off meds is not a proper goal of therapy. Living a more satisfying life is. Concentrating on the latter should pretty much consume the time you spend sitting with the therapist.
I almost died because the therapist did not know what meds I was taking and did not spot that I was in suicidal depression due to Risperdal - depression so deep that I lacked the cognitive ability to see that I was depressed as opposed to suffering from bad circumstances.

Considering that you spend 50 mins a week with the T doc and only 30 mins a month with the P doc (it was my case), the T should know what meds you are taking and should help determine if they are a good fit.

I do not take that risk any more and now go to an MD/PsyD who does both therapy and meds, so this problem does not exist for my anymore, and he is so good that I wish I had started with him earlier.

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Totally agree with what the goal is, though. Not going off meds - living a good life.