[Banjolin]

Anyone do therapy and meds with the same person or have any thoughts on it? I always used to to therapy with an MFT and meds with a doctor separately. I’d never had a psychiatrist show any interest in talking for more than 20 minutes, even for an initial eval. Now I moved to a new state and almost all of the psychiatrists I tried to schedule with required that their patients do weekly psychotherapy with them. It’s kind of nice to have the one stop shop kind of deal, but also seems strange.

[Elio]

My T is a pDoc. I do only psychotherapy with her. We tried to do meds for a bit after seeing her for almost 2 yrs and I didn't like how it felt, the switch in her when we started med talk. It is nice though to be able to think about and talk about meds when I want to with her and know she knows whatever. She can also prescribe me something for a trial if I want to try that again before switching to my pcp for meds.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

My T is a psychiatrist. We only do talk therapy currently, but when I'm struggling sometimes he offers the possibility of meds.

[ScarletPimpernel]

My ex-Pdoc would do a little therapy with me. She was not a therapist. But she liked to talk to me, find out what was going on, and help me with my DBT skills.

I just found a Pdoc for both my H and me. The Pdoc also does therapy! I find it strange, but I think it will be awesome for my H. My concern for me is that the Pdoc will require therapy with him when all I want him to do is give me meds.

[starfishing]

I see a psychiatrist for both therapy and meds, and it's great. So much so that I've come to strongly prefer it. We don't talk about medications explicitly all the time, but I think his prescribing and adjusting of meds is much more fine-tuned because he sees me for therapy and gets a much fuller picture of how I'm doing than anyone could get in shorter, less frequent visits.

There have also been a couple of occasions when he suggested a medication change that turned out to be EXTREMELY helpful in response to a problem I mentioned, when a medication change definitely wouldn't have occurred to me as something that might help, and where therefore I never would have scheduled a separate appointment with a psychiatrist to address it. So if I hadn't been seeing the same person for both, there's a good chance I would have just kept struggling and suffering when a new medication turned out to make things tremendously better. He's also not overly quick to look to meds as an answer though, and takes a very collaborative approach in his prescribing. And he's an excellent therapist, so for me it's all win-win.

[Deejay14]

I would seriously love it if my psychiatrist did therapy. He is awesome!

[Banjolin]

Thanks guys! This makes me feel much better, I’d never even thought of the possibility. I’m hopeful that it’ll make both my medication and my therapy more effective.

[growlycat]

If you can find a psychiatrist interested in doing therapy and meds that is ideal. Most don’t seem to want to do therapy or they are too expensive to use beyond nd med management. It always felt disjointed to see two different people who never consulted each other. I haven’t been on meds in awhile as I found it frustrating to find something that worked without losing efficacy over time. Good luck!

[skeksi]

I think if you feel he’s good at therapy, then it can be a great combination.

[captgut]

My T is a psychiatrist, it's a common thing here

[Anne2.0]

My first therapist was a psychiatrist who focused more on therapy than medication, although he used that too. He was really good. I have a psychiatrist friend who also puts therapy above medication, so these folks do exist. I think the only downside is that they tend to be the most expensive compared to other licensing.

[possum220]

My P'doc does do a couple of forms of therapy. Mostly family Therapy therapy. I see him for about 50 mins every fortnight.