Posted by mair on April 26, 2005, at 22:33:10
In reply to My session yesterday, posted by gardenergirl on April 22, 2005, at 10:32:11
gg
I realize I'm jumping into this thread really late, but I don't understand the whole medical/psych dichotomy.For years I've been sort of going along my merry way with meds and therapy trying to ward off and manage the depressive feelings that arise from any number of environmental triggers. In the last couple of months I've fallen into a deeper more sustained depression that my pdoc categorizes as clearly biological. (she stresses this because I tend to question it)
I've actually argued to my therapist that in this state, I'm not sure I should keep going to therapy because my ability to work on anything substantive is compromised, and the last time I saw her I told her that I thought i should stop telling her about suicidal feelings because it makes me feel afterwards like I should apologize to her. Her view is that regardless of the biological factors, there's a real value to therapy when I'm really depressed. Therapy doesn't lose it's value; it just has a different focus and expectations have to be adjusted.
I've spent many sessions, in varying degrees of mental health, talking to her about meds. Sometimes she's the one who suggests that it's time for me to see the pdoc and look into meds changes - she tends to have a more objective view of how I'm doing than I do, and I don't see my pdoc often enough for her to really monitor what's going on. My T also been a good sounding board for me before some pdoc sessions - helping me process the decisions I have to make, and helping me formulate the right questions. But as important as anything, in my case there are a whole host of emotional issues which surround meds issues. Maybe I need to be encouraged to stick with them or maybe I need to be told sometimes that it was ok to drop a particular drug. These issues tend to loom largest when I'm doing worst, and more often than not it's my T who deals with them since I see her so much more frequently than I see my pdoc. Frankly at low times, I'm not sure I could sustain a commitment to stick with a new med and all its attendant side effects if I didn't have someone I could talk to on a more regular basis about what I was feeling about whatever the medication was.
So from my perspective, your T's comment about not being able to help you if you keep talking about meds seemed really off base and it would really have pissed me off.
I hope you're feeling a little safer these days.
mair
poster:mair
thread:485802
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050420/msgs/490137.html