CrazyCatLord wrote:
Reading "professional" in this context makes me cringe a bit. A neurologist, for example, is a professional medical scientist. A psychiatrist, on the other hand, is a guy with a diagnostic manual, a prescription pad, and delusions of grandeur. Only a few decades ago, psychiatrists were busy strapping gay people into chairs and showing them photos of naked men while administering electric shocks. They called it aversion therapy. In many countries, psychiatrists were still performing lobotomies and forced sterilizations when I was a child, and they are using electroconvulsive "therapy" to this day.
This is not meant to be an attack against you, I'm merely thoroughly disillusioned with this medical profession. Perhaps it is different in other countries, but around here, many so-called professionals seem to have no idea what AS is....
At this point, it seems like a self-diagnosis is my best and only option. Not that I need a diagnosis for anything since I'm already on disability. I just want to know what's wrong with me, and AS is the only diagnosis that fits my symptoms and my life experience. It might seem less credible or authentic to some, but in the end online tests employ the same diagnostic criteria that specialists use (or would use if they had a clue about AS).
Maybe we should clarify a few terms here. In the US, a Psychiatrist is a person with an MD (Doctor of Medicine) degree, and then jumping through whatever hoops are needed for a specialty in Psychiatry. He/she can write prescriptions. A Psychologist has advanced degrees (not just bachelor's in Psychology, That person can't write prescriptions, though he or she may work with an MD or DO who can. A Therapist, (leaving out Musical Therapists, Physical Therapists, etc. Is most likely a Psychologist. I don't know whether the Therapist is also an MD or not. The Psychoanalyst is usually a Psychiatrist, I believe, with MD, but maybe not . He doesn't use prescriptions very much, anyway. He's been through Analysis himself, and gone through training. He's usually a disciple of Freud, Jung, or the later ones. He's the "mystic" of the group. A Neurologist, though I'm not entirely certain, is an MD who has specialized in Neurology, the physical nerves. They are good examples, all of them, of the proverb that "When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Many of them, though, are better than that, and have learned each other's tools, when dealing with something cross-disciplined like Autism. Dr. Asperger was a Pediatrician, an MD specializing in children.
The lady who diagnosed me was a PhD Psychologist specializing in Autism. No one at my Mental Health Center felt qualified to diagnose Asperger's or HFA in an adult. Our symptoms are "purer" as a small child. She didn't give me many tests, it was mostly conversation about my history and memories, together with my psychologically sophisticated daughter about _her_ memories, while she was observing my behaviors and style of discourse.
When I came back to the center and gave the Psychiatrist there a copy of my diagnosis for his files (He's the person who writes the scripts for my antidepressants), he said "I can't do anything for you with this one". He's smart enough to know what he can't use his hammer for! My therapist there is very interested, and we incorporate the Asperger's frequently into our sessions. She's learning about it, probably more slowly than I am, because she has lots of other clients and two children of her own to take care of. I'm "Psychologically Sophisticated" enough to do the reading on my own. I didn't suspect it (my daughter did, but a family member can't diagnose, and she doesn't have the requisite degrees anyway) because I hadn't paid any attention to the field of Psychology for thirty years or so.
_________________
Asperges me, Domine
21 Jan 2012, 1:40 am
I know nobody who laughs like they have a stutter, or epilepsy.
But I said I didn't want to go.
