Psychologist says yes, psychiatrist says no

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My first appointment with my Psychiatrist lasted about 15 minutes. My monthly visit lasts about 5-10 minutes. This lady still doesn’t get it. That’s fine. She’s just the prescription vendor in the office.

I trust what the Clinical Psychologist who specializes in children and adolescents with many spectrum patients says allot more!

I'm not anti-doctor. I go when I need to. it's just that in my experience, family practice doctors aren't qualified to dx mental health conditions but they do anyway, MDs in general prescribe too many drugs, and unless a psychiatrist specializes in ASDs then they aren't qualified to rule out, especially if they can't even take the time to listen to their patient.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors, and medical doctors are taught that the human body is a lot like a machine, which can be repaired a lot like any other machine by using medication to adjust its workings. That's true, to a point; but they are in danger of ignoring the cognitive, emotional, and social aspects of mental illness to a much greater degree than psychologists and counselors. The reason they try many antidepressants is that any given antidepressant only has to be proven to work more than placebo; and that can mean it only actually works for a minority of the people who try it. The antidepressant merry-go-round doesn't make them or their patients very happy; but thanks to individual biochemistry and the individual nature of depression, there's no way to tell which antidepressant will work. Ever heard the saying, "If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail"? Well, when all you have is medication, everything starts to look like a physical dysfunction. Over-emphasizing that aspect, at the expense of monitoring the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of mental illness, is something that psychiatrists have an unfortunate tendency to do.

Since when do ethics matter at all in today's society? It's all about money.

Well sure, but how does that prove that they don't get major kickbacks? If anything, that further proves the point.


That has nothing to do with anything. The problem isn't that companies are making money, the problem is they are bribing doctors so that they will make MORE money - at the expense of the general public.


No one said that they wanted to kill people, I have no idea where you got that idea from. Drug companies profit on people being "sick", and I put sick in quotations because of all of the BS diseases going around that are invented purely to market drugs. They try their best to make you *think* that you're sick, and need drugs. And since drugs almost always have caveats and side effects, it takes often takes MORE drugs to counter-act those side effects. See where this is going? They try to get you on as many drugs as possible, so that you can stay sick and give them more money. The doctors are purely catalysts...They diagnose you with something that they KNOW will require medication. It's a very easy concept to grasp, and doesn't take much thinking.

Besides, I've had a couple doctors admit that they get kick-backs from pharmaceutical companies. It's pretty much common knowledge in this day and age. Go to a doctor, and 9 times out of 10, you'll walk out with a prescription.

Anyways, this is getting pretty off-topic.

LISTEN to the Psychologist!! !! I agree mine is just how are the meds (gives the prescription I leave) My Psychiatrist I saw once said "You couldn't have that that's something diagnosed in children and there's no pill for that and this is a place that gives pills." I was like oh. My new Psychiatrist says perhaps otherwise he didn't go further.

The only reason I obtained a diagnosis was so that I could have a piece of paper on which I could rely when asking my workplace to accommodate my particular needs.

So far no-one has doubted my self-identification, but I like having the paper in my back pocket in case anyone challenges me.

When I was 10 my parents thought I might have AS so I got tested for it and my doctor said no I didn't have it. So my mom didn't know what was wrong with me but then in 5th grade my speech therapist calls and says I might have it and my mom says no I don't because I was tested for it so my therapist said I might have symptoms of it then but not enough to be diagnosed. Then my psychologist thought I might have it so she had a psychiatrist look it over. He didn't really think I had it but said I'm on the autism spectrum but placed me in the AS catagory anyway because it was a closest match for a diagnoses. He said I meet the criteria sometimes I assume because my mom says so.

I think it's based on opinions by doctors about rather you have it or not.

I'd definitely go with the psychologist. Perhaps I've had bad luck but I've never met a particularly competent psychiatrist whereas most psychologists I've met are at least reasonably skilled.

Diagnosis is based upon analysing someone's past and present actions then comparing these actions to the typical actions of autistic people. You do not need a medical degree for that. It helps, though, to have an understanding of the interaction between thoughts and actions, to move from the actions to what causes someone to act in that matter.

As a caution though, consider that bipolar is definitely the domain of the psychiatrist with its various drugs available. By contrast, AS is the domain of the psychologist, with no specific drugs but AS fitting cognitive psychology nearly perfects (far too perfectly if you ask me). So if they give you different diagnosis, they might not be contradictory but talking about two different thing, the psychologist using different concepts to talk about causes, behaviours and action which work in different domains than those the psychiatrist is analysing.

Wow, looks like America really sucks!! I mean I already knew that, but now it seems as if it sucks even harder!

Your medical system over there is a joke, same goes for your so called medical 'professionals'. Kick backs and pill pushing, that's disgusting!

I still have my doubts tho, I mean that link of proof that someone posted was more tin-foil-hattery then I've seen on many other sites, I don't trust some randoms blog as a reliable source of information.

I also asked one of my Psychiatrists about this whole America thing and she said it does have ALOT more shmucks. But she also said that alot of people with self-diagnosed AS have a grudge against psychiatrists because they refuse to diagnose them (not because of lack of knowledge on the subject, but because of lack of knowledge on the individual) but apparently Psychologists are alot easier to manipulate. Basically, if you go into a Psychiatrists office and say "I think I have AS" the doctor will still thoroughly asses you and make an informed decision with AS in mind. If you say "I think I have AS" to a psychologist they will simply run with that if they can and not perform their job function properly. Basically, psychologists give hypochondriacs what they want alot of the time.

Someone said this forum is anti-psychiatry and that people choose the dx their whimsy desires, I hope that actually doesn't happen as I find it quite disturbing.

I know of two psychiatrists in my town who I know personally who do not accept "perks'. I know this because it was told to me by someone (a childhood friend)whose job it was to wine and dine the docs. She worked for all the major Big Pharma companies and later turned whistleblower. Long story. Both of these men work for a non profit mental health facility in my town.

go to a third and break the tie.

ruveyn

I agree 100%!

2 weeks ago I had a psychiatrist tell me "...you can't have Aspergers, you understand humor!" And went on to say that he wasn't going to think about autism, because our son wasn't rude. I'm assuming my son interrupting every two seconds saying "...Mom, Mom, Mom...Mom, Mom" repeatedly so I'd look at the picture he drew of a squirrel while the Dr. was attempting to explain Sensory Processing disorder, didn't appear rude to him.

But that's ok, rather than being a kid with say PDD-NOS, he's now;
ADHD along with..
Anxiety...
Tics induced by stimulants...
Sensory processing disorder...
a learning disability in Expressive Language...
has a difficult time with reading sarcasm & understanding jokes (although he's getting a bit better, now at 12)...

....and he sucks at math.

You must be in America too then???

I'll take a pill-pushing psychiatrist over an alternative "medicine" quack any day. At least the mainstream meds have half a chance of actually working.

Besides, it's not like I have to agree to every medication they suggest. I've said no plenty of times, and made suggestions about medicine when I did take it. I'm not stupid and my psychiatrists, sooner or later, tend to get the point that I'd prefer to make my own decisions. That's all it takes. You want to blame psychiatrists for pill-pushing? Blame the patients, too, for not even trying to make their own decisions.

Psychology remains the most subjective science, so much so that I can scarely see how it's a legitimate science at all. Many "qualified professionals" don't even believe Asperger's is a real disorder. All I seem to hear from the "mental health community" amounts to little more than mutually respectful (usually) in-fighting. I've been diagnosed with every mental disorder under the sun (slight exagerration, but you get my point) I don't know WHO to believe or WHAT i'm supposed to believe about myself.

Roughly 25 years of this nonsense and these twilight groppers, these latter-day witch doctors, have me more confused than I was the first time I ever set foot in psychologist's office.

Do I have a narcissitic PD?.....Dr. X says yes and Dr. Y thinks Dr. X is a quack and claims I have schizotypal PD instead.

etc,..... ad infinitum/nauseum