Time Squid

My mom is also a mental health and substance abuse therapist and I've been raised around some truly good and caring therapists who were my moms best friends and were like parents to me so I do know what it means to be a good therapist and what things their coworkers tried to get away with (my mom was the director of the inpatient and then the outpatient units at multiple locations so she had to check therapist's work and make sure everything was done according to the books. Big surprise: about 70% of therapists fail this regularly.)

Anyway the point im getting to is without going into too much personal detail I have had some serious mental health issues in the past and required the need of therapy and medication. This means of course I needed both a psychologist (someone who focuses on diagnosis and treatment using coping techniques and providing thinking exercises to do at home to help with changing thinking patterns and behavior through, essentially, training yourself) and a psychiatrist (a medically trained professional who should be looking at the therapist's diagnosis and notes and determining what, if any, medication should be given to alleviate symptoms. In a majority of cases these should be considered a crutch, not a permanent solution. It is to get your brain in a position where you are capable of doing your training exercises for therapy and eventually get better. Of course there are exceptions depending on your condition but I'm not getting into every detail here). If either one of these, psychologist or psychiatrist, is incapable of accurately accomplishing their job as they should, you will not see improvement and will quickly believe therapy is a waste of time and medications only drug you up.

Because of this my intake sessions (the first session you take with a psychologist to determine your history and what you're trying to focus on and gain out of therapy) are a lot more like me interviewing them. I ask them if they take proper notes after every session and if they review them before they have a session with me. A therapist should not be asking you repeating questions or asking you where you left off last time, this should be in their notes that they should have looked over to not waste your very little time with them. I also ask if they give me weekly assignments to work on as part of my treatment. I'll ask them what they personally specialize in or what types of mental illnesses they've had experience with treating successfully in the past. Therapists who don't do their jobs HATE this. They will noticeably either attempt to shift the conversation back to you at which point you need to make clear you are asking this to see if they're a good fit for you so as not to waste yours or their time. This should not offend a psychologist they know that the connection between them and a client is important and sometimes you don't click with a patient and that's not saying they're bad it's just a personal thing. If they get offended or if they continue to talk down to you like you don't know what you're talking about, you get up and leave. You tell them it will not work out and you walk out the door and request a different psychologist or find another office. You are permitted to do this as often as you want no one will stop you and this is normal to do.

As a result of my relentless poking and prodding I did eventually find a perfect pair that helped some so much that my previously "treatable but not curable" mental illness became "fully in remission" in two short years. I've had other psychologists tell me since then that that is impossible I was clearly misdiagnosed because I can't go into remission. They don't even know the whole story by the time they say that they repeat what the most recent DSM says and don't even look at differential diagnoses or recent studies.

“Paulownia Mall”

how measurements work in canada (ie/ badly)