Starting Therapy with my new pdoc

I was assigned to a new pdoc at my psych hospital some months ago. Right from the start he made it clear that he didn't do therapy, that he was all about meds management, and that his primary focus was research. That was ok with me as I have a wonderful T who I see for therapy, and frankly this pdoc has all the therapeutic warmth of a dead carp. But as some of you may know, my life is seriously messed up at the moment with a relapse, a car crash that was at least subconciously a SU attempt. Well my pdoc and my addictions Dr. got to talking, with my permission and they both agree I need more psychiatric support. So my pdoc now wants to see me for an hour every Thurs. throughout the rest of the summer.

On one hand I'm glad to be getting the extra support, and since it's covered by provincial health insurance it's not costing me anything, but I am seriously uncomfortable with this guy & I have a hard time openning up and trusting new people. This is going to be excruciating. And I know I have to go along with it, as I have to do everything I can to show that I'm trying to get sober and stable so that he doesn't report me to the ministry of transportation and get my licence pulled. So every time I see him, I feel like i have that threat hanging over my head.

He is a super competent psychiatrist and a wizzard with meds so I know I'm lucky to have him, it's just the idea of therapy with him once a week all summer is really scary.

--splitimage

Hi splitimage, that sounds hard, but maybe you can take some reassurance from knowing that this weekly therapy with your pdoc is time-limited and will only last a month or two until summer is over.

Also, your therapy with your pdoc need not be like your therapy with your T. You don't need to talk about all the same things or work on the same things. You can see what these guy's strengths and aptitudes are and lean toward those. Since he is strong on meds management, which is essentially symptom relief, he may want to focus his therapy too on symptom management by other means besides drugs (to supplement them) and not delve deeply into trauma, family of origin issues, etc.

I have worked with a couple of other mental health practitioners since beginning with my current T, and neither are anything like him and they each have offered something beneficial. They are not replacing him or trying to duplicate his efforts with me. I approach them with curiousity--how will this T work on this issue? How is this T different from my own T? Interesting! It's not threatening at all because I know I still have my tried and true and beloved T in my back pocket and am continuing to see him regularly. It is always up to me what I share with any practitioner, so I am in control.

I see a PNP in addition to my T, for meds. But I often end up seeing her for 50 minutes, which is billed as meds management + psychotherapy. We work on really different things than I work on with my regular T. My main meds need is for ADHD. In addition to prescribing, she asks me about symptoms and helps me find solutions to dealing with things in my environment that can exacerbate ADHD. For example, I get very distracted at work and she tried to get at some causes for this by asking a lot of questions. And then she helps me find practical solutions to these environmental factors--for example, how to deal with and minimize my boss's constant interruptions.

So my PNP is really useful but what we do therapy on hardly ever overlaps with the difficult issues my T and I work on. Therapy with her is much easier. We aren't as close. It's fine.

I hope your first session of therapy with pdoc goes well. Maybe it's OK he is not the warmest doc out there. Maybe you don't need to be close to have him help you. Maybe you don't need to open up and share the hard stuff to still benefit from these sessions. And perhaps most importantly, you still have your own T--this guy is not meant to replace him. Through these summer sessions, you and your pdoc will get to know each other better and this will help him to help you better and help you to trust him more. Good luck!

((((((SplitImage))))))



I hope that the sessions well with your pdoc go well.

What is it about him that makes you evaluate him as being "super-competent"? There must be some factor that is not the same as having qualities that make you like and trust him...?