Jaded towards psychiatrists, but hopeful

The one who I mentioned was disbarred is now dead. I saw him usually in a group setting for 3 years in the 70s.

I had no idea he was making me worse or milking me for cash and illegal claimable medical items. @NikNik I had no sense of self really .. or that a doctor was supposed to "get me". At that age I did not know how to click with another person on a feeling level just how to perform tasks or jobs.. ie be obedient. Responsibility was always put on patient to try harder which I did .. I had already stopped drugs 2 years prior to starting therapy. One good thing was that they started me on quitting smoking ,, I was informed of his disbarring 10 years after those sessions by a family therapist pediatric psychiatrist who I found ethical and committed and saw with my children.

The other person is too well respected and guarded and bad-mouthed me recently 7 years ago to a GP .. which stopped me getting proper health care .. I will chalk it up to experience ...I had no idea of his low opinion of me ... I thought I had left on "reasonable" terms ie transferred to family therapists ...... I tried to sort it out by email once ... he was very aggressive and clear he was no longer my doctor ... I knew that ...he was originally my exhusband's doctor and a prominent teacher ...I think because Protective Services had been involved and my ex-husband took his ex to the Supreme Court he was very antsy of him and afraid of being sued ... but that all jappened right at the beginning and he knew ... I had put this guy on a pedestal for 5 years and he was my treating psychiatrist throughout my most intense grief years etc...on reflection ... there were a few very odd things ... and little actual treatment for me. Certainly no reccommendation for hospital admission ... and I was off my rocker and really should have been ... he had been a hospital director ... he should have known .... there was no strong attempt to argue that I needed medication ... I was worried about breast feeding and that was that ...so I did do without drugs until recently .. he fobbed me off with a lot of positive thinking nonsense ...I figured out it was developmental issues and grief myself. it was the time I was studying part-time with little kids ... he knew I was at uni and played Scarlatti on his piano ... which apparently impressed his daughter ... hmmm .. it was before I started teaching piano.

Part of the problem is I just had no idea of what being treated properly was like .. I adored anyone the slightest bit polite ... talk about transference. He is the one who was offended that I took my kids to a family therapy place to be assessed because I was afraid for them and catatonic at times ... and he simply didnt get it ..I would force myself to drive ... or study or cook etc ...I was a danger on the road ..... so glad I can finally stop driving ...I really appreciate being able to share this story anonymously with the forum ... thank you.

& we really appreciate you sharing @Appleblossom You raise such a good point about not knowing how you should or shouldn't be treated.

You have so much insight, which I hope has helped in the healing process. No one deserves to be treated that way.

Thanks NiK Nik,

The reality is though, complaints to the HCCC involving mental health issues lead to nowhere and there are never repercussions for the Psychiatrist/s etc.

All HCCC hearing outcomes are visible to the public and if you lookup their hearings you will see that none of them ever end up in the favour of patients with mental ilness.

The HCCC generally only prosecutes issues that involve obvious outright incompetance or impairment (eg:if a doctor is taking drugs,commiting sexual assault towards patient/s,or a surgeon leaves an instrument in a patient,inappropriate doctor-patient relationship, or prescribed patients narcotics without sufficient review/supervision)

Issues involving abuses of power by Psychiatrists (or other service providers) remain unprosecuted and without consequences.

Wow! A lot's happened here since I was last on. I won't be able to address everyone, so sorry for anybody who misses out.

@Jacques, I must say I was appalled at what your father was told, though not really surprised. So much for college education being an environment for the expression and exploration of free thought. As I've often suspected, it's really all about brainwashing.

With a system based on an education regime like the one you describe, it's no wonder it's in such a crummy state. And where are the impartial overseers who are checking and insuring that this age-old wisdom the professors at the front of the lecture hall are spouting is both sound and ethical?

Lest we forget that once upon a time, to be gay was to officially be mentally ill. Obviously some faction within the therapy industry had enough presence of mind to notice the failings of this conclusion by their "wiser" forebears and push for a change in the official policy. Where would so many gay people be today if this prejudice was aloud to continue unchecked? If the footsoldiers of the therapy industry simply marched mindlessly in formation as their commanders ordered?

Tragically, we actually have an answer to this question in some degree. I've read testimony from actual therapists who state that there is a loophole within the rules of mental health care that allow homosexuality or bisexuality to be classified as something like a "miscelaneous sexual disorder" (or words to similar effect). Essentially, if you are gay and your therapist is homophobic, he/she has tools at his/her disposal to turn his/her problem in to your problem! The therapist who wrote this statement personally attested that she had had several homosexual patients who had been "wrecked" because a previous therapist's homophobia was able to intrude upon the therapy process and attack the patient's perfectly legitimate, respectable orientation and identity!

And all this has taken place decades after the official stance on homosexuality was corrected!

@Jacques, I believe every word you've said, but at the same time I can hardly believe that such arrogance and self-righteousness can be maintained so sturdilly with a system that is demonstratably flawed. It boggles the mind that this is the world we live in!

@NikNik, In addition to @Appleblossom's very valid points about self-doubt about our own assesments of the quality of our therapy, for some people (including myself) there's also an "Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"-element to lashing out at the therapist.

When my therapy finally finished, I utterly despised the worst & longest-lasting of my therapists - I still do. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't, on numerous occasions, thought long and hard about causing her some professional grief through a complaints process.

But then, I realize that I sat through 7 years of awful, soul-crushing misery with this woman, and if I do say so myself, I think I bore it all with admirable grace and dignity. All that's been done - it's beyond correction. As I said before, I don't have a time machine with which to correct the horrors of the past. So now, I am faced with a choice of whether that pain and suffering will end where it is, or whether it will beget pain and suffering for someone else - namely, the therapist, in the form of a troublesome/stressful inquiry, a tarnished name, a fine, or perhaps even a ruined career. Will hurting my enemy help me? Or has there been enough pain dealt in this ordeal? If the product of all that pain and suffering is simply that I was able to get out of that office without regurgitating any of that pain back on to someone else, then maybe that's the happiest ending that the story can possibly have.

I know a lot of people mightn't understand this, but my ambition in life has always been to be something good. I want the product of my life to be to make the world a better place; I want my effect on the lives of the people around me to make them better & more enjoyable. And maybe this is a bit presumptuous, but I'd imagine that a lot of "mentally ill" and "depressed" people have similar ambitions, because these people know more intimately then anyone just how dark and ugly the world currantly is and how desperately it needs the best of humanity to make it a place worth living.

That's why I don't want what may well be my biggest effect on the world around me to be to negatively effect the life of another human being, no matter how much I might hate her. Regardless of whether I would be an irritating mosquito bite, a thorn in her side, or an anvil that crushed her like a bug, there's enough pain and suffering in this world and I have no desire to add to it. Maybe some other damaged patients feel the same way?

Chibam-This wasnt adressed to me but i just wanted to offer another way to look at it.

Im not suggesting what you should or shouldnt do though.

Complaining about a person doesn't need to come from a place of revenge or spite.

It can come from a place of justice and wanting to prevent others/new patients suffering what you have suffered.

Sometimes it can even help the person being complained about because it can be a catalyst for self-reflection and character change.

Some people will only change this way.

Personally,i dont feel comfortable taking inaction because it might cause another person to be harmed.

In the same way as for example if i witnessed a Police Officer being violent/heavy handed with someone unnecessarily,i would complain/report them because if i didn't, how many others would be affected by him/her?

Yes I tried to have a harm minimisation policy.

Am never big on complaints or special requests. It just doesnt enter my mind, though I am trying to be more assertive. I really cant contemplate a complaint re doctor .. its been enough to gather my wits and my story re the Royal Commission and enquiry into clerical abuse.in institutions.

@ivana, Sorry for missing you earlier. 🙂

Yes, there is that side of it, too. The "sparing the next victim"side, as you say. I'm not trying to imply that this is a simple issue.

But I think what @Appleblossom alluded to earlier comes in to play here, too. Watching a cop beat a suspect is a bit more clear-cut: we all know it's unacceptable behavior. But who am I to say that the therapy I recieved was indecent? Maybe I'm the one who is being indecent. The line between right and wrong is less clear there.

Besides, I came to realize that most of the misery and disillusionment that my therapist dished out ultimately came from the system and society that she was a mouthpiece of. So this is where I've chosen to focus my efforts to help others. A system doesn't have a face and it can't feel pain, so attacking one is less ethically troubling then attacking a human being who is capable of suffering. Maybe this is a naieve point of view, but it eases my mind.

Also, in terms of"saving souls" then surely far more good can be done by addressing the faulty system that will fail so, so many of them, as opposed to a lone individual who may only effect a small portion.

It is certainly a complicated issue which I have wrestled with for many years now and I wonder if I'll ever truly figure out what the right solution is.

@chibam, you asked:

"Incidentally, I'm wondering, for people who can sympathize with this point of view, do you find yourself reluctant to say anything because your afraid that if you do, everyone will side with the fancy-degreed, successful therapist instead of the "mentally disordered" patient? I often wonder what the clientelle of mental therapists' odds really are of being able to get the problems with the industry acknowledged and dealt with. Who are the people in a position to fix things more likely to listen to?"

If i shared the long version of my ordeal with the psych from this year, this would have been the theme, right from the beginning to this day. What happened was that i wrote a complaint to the hospital about some somewhat minor but persistent issues i was having there with trying to get referred and getting led down rabbit trails, mainly customer service failures, but at that time in my life dealing with a dying relative, job insecurity, financial issues and impact of others addictions on top of my mental health stuff, it was giving me second thoughts about having my baby at that hospital. Instead of the complaint being address, it was referred (without my knowledge) to the psychiatrists, placed on my client file (against their complaints procedures and privacy policies) and that information was used against me in the one psych appointment i had there. It resulted in prejudicial treatment toward me by the psych, and she made a point of raising the complaint with me (i had not raised it with anyone in the hospital) and then she wrote to my three external health providers dedicating two paragraphs in her letter to the complaint i made as if i brought it up and it had nothing to do with anything psych related. So yeah, i felt that the hospital's way of addressing this with me was making it a "psych issue" to do with my mental health rather than their flaws that could be improved upon and then addressed in that manner. Oh, and the psych wrote in her letter than i "self identified" as critical. Well, i guess that's an easy thing to say about anyone who makes any kind of criticism. I learned my lesson though. Don't make a complaint against a hospital, it just alienates you and p*sses people off.

Sorry... that's my rant from this year. And that was only the half of the issue with her.

I am not against therapy per se, or psychiatrists, and i can say i have genuinely benefited from therapy and medications, but there are serious systemic problems and attitudes in mental health culture that won't be addressed until patients have a true voice and are not vilified or "diagnosed" when they try to use it.

Going to a new psych can feel like Russian roulette when you are desperate. If you get lucky, you will have a nice one. Rarely one that you feel like "gets" you, or understands you more than most, but if they are a nice person it's certainly a start. But i think for even some of the nicer ones, the power can get to their head eventually.

Again, i feel conflicted sharing honestly about this because i don't want to discourage a desperate person from seeking help, but on the other hand this is a conversation that needs to be had. I need to be able to relate to others on this, and i hope that one day, mental health professionals will have a breakthrough and start a conversation about this or ALLOW a conversation on this to occur and validate it.

Ivana, I had some brief dealings with the HCCC this year about my situation with the hospital and the psych, and my experience of them were that they were hopeless, they didn't even understand privacy 101 let alone issues of ethical or legal importance.

However, one org did deal with who i did find helpful was the Mental Health Coordinating Council. I was put onto them through a friend who works in public mental health, and the MHCC is able to offer advocacy (eg people who can attend meetings iwth you or help you resolve issues/complaints you are having with mental health professionals). Unfortuantely in my particular situation, the psych i saw wasn't technically part of that local mental health district, they were strictly employed by the hospital in some particular capacity, so it fell outside their ability to be involved. Which is a shame because they would have been great, they were so helpful to talk to when i rang them.

Another mob is the Official Visitors Program, however they can only step in when you are an inpatient at a psych facility.