dear doctor...

Today I was thinking how I would approach a psychiatrist if I didn’t have a good working relationship with him or her. This is what I came up with.

Dear Psych Doctor,

It’s my understanding that you have spent many years in college learning theories about how the brain works, theories about jumbles of symptoms and the categories that encapsulate them. You are undoubtedly an expert on theories about how to lessen the symptoms of mental illness. I respect where you are coming from. I recognize that you are less concerned with how these symptoms impact the daily living for people struggling with them. As I understand things, you are more concerned with reducing the existence of these symptoms. The impact of these experiences to hour way of thinking is enter left go the therapists, social workers, peer specialists, and do on.

Sometimes I wonder though if this kind of compartmentalization of the healing process might be counter intuitive. I mean, I know how a person’s symptoms impact the quality of their life could play a significant role in how those symptoms are treated. So, for example, if I am dealing with the debilitation effects of major depression and one aspect of it is related to my obesity, then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to prescribe me an antidepressant that causes significant weight gain. Yes, hypothetically I could exercise regularly and eat well to counter the effects of the antidepressant, but how likely am I to do that if my pattern is to sleep 12+ hours a day and eat carbohydrates and sugar?

I also recognize and respect that there are times when you are tasked with complex responsibility to bring a person out of a dangerous place of crisis into a more level place of stabilization. I know that there are times when this is a matter of life a death for the people you work with. As a person who has been diagnosed with a mental illness I have been in that predicament. However, once stable how long should that level of care be maintained? At what point should people be supported in moving past crisis and back to living, back to thriving? Who should broach the subject of pulling back on the meds? When do we start the conversation about adjusting the dosage to fit the situation and address the trigger of the crisis?

Of equal importance, who is responsible for educating your clients that they have a say in their treatment? Who is responsible for teaching them how to respectfully talk with you about what they want for their lives and how what you do with them impacts their life goals. Do you tell them they have a choice of co you simply write them a script, check for medication compliance and send them on their way? Do they have time to ask questions or process what you’ve gold them of are they ushered away after 45 minutes of medical interrogation where you type their responses into an electronic chart rarely looking up at them?

What I’m getting at is, that as a client of mental health services and as a peer specialist in the mental health community I see a gap in services. This gap has to do with underutilized opportunities. In this field we can actually assist individuals in transforming their lives into something extraordinary. We work with people who have lost hope and purpose. Often they have lost choice. They are told where they can live, what they can accomplish and discouraged from living a life with purpose. 

We have the chance to empower them to live their one and only life exactly the way they want go. So I say let’s make the most of the time we spend with them. Even if it is only 15 minutes every 30 day lets beef up that 45 minutes and make it meaningful. Let’s look people in the eye. Let’s put a face to that name. Let’s identify one trait that makes each person unique so that they are more than a medical chart filled with forms, demographics, problems, etc. We are do-gooders, why not embrace that? Together we can have a great impact on the lives of the people we serve. We just have to adjust our thinking and remember that we are here for service to others. We need to remember why we got into this field in the first place, tap into the ideals that sparked the fire in us to want to help, to want to empower, to want to serve.