I had a visit with a new psychiatrist with the hope that I would be approved for Spravato treatment. I have had treatment resistant depression for most of my life and trying a new category of medication sounded promising to me. During the visit the psychiatrist proceeded to espouse his various views on nearly everything, from supplementation to his ideas on depression and why it exists (he mentioned toxins). Because I listen to BBM I knew some, if not most, of these ideas were questionable at best. I didn’t argue my thoughts as I know I’m not an expert and I don’t feel confident voicing my opinion. My question is, how do I handle this? How do I take medication this person is prescribing me once he’s lost his authoritative voice? He ended up prescribing me Effexor even though I showed him an extensive history of failed psychiatric medications, many of which were in the same category. I felt as though he didn’t listen to me, but I’m in an awkward position of also knowing how little I’m truly educated on the subject matter. It’s difficult to explain but listening to BBM has both instilled in me a sense of knowledge, but also a sense of ignorance. If anything, you have taught me how little I truly know and how much I should appeal to the wisdom of those with the education to back it up. But doing so with this psychiatrist creates a feeling of cognitive dissonance, and I’m left not knowing how to proceed. I figured I should ask BBM directly. How would handle doctors with contradictory (or flat out wrong) opinions?
Hi,
Sorry to hear about this situation. How we might handle it as medical professionals will necessarily differ from how a patient would be able to handle such a thing. In your case, this just seems like a good time to seek a second opinion, since challenging the psychiatrist directly is unlikely to be a productive use of your time.
If I were engaging with this individual on a professional level, I would try to elicit the reasons and methods by which they arrived at these conclusions, and try to dissect those, if the person is willing to have such a conversation.