Let us understand what a psychiatrist is there to help you do:

Generally, there are 3 potential roles that psychiatrists can have in their relationship with a patient.

1) Diagnose the patient to help the patient to understand what the problem is and therefore to have a method of treatment based on the diagnosis. The issues here are many in that there are too many overlapping diagnoses such as those with bipolar 1 which included psychotic features being confused with schizophrenia which are two totally different illnesses as an example. Another would be the confusion of one with Borderline Personality Disorder with  Bipolar because of the mood dysregulation, however, once again there are many differences between the two which would make the differences obvious to one who is skilled in diagnostics, but sadly this is not the case given the many clients I have seen who have been misdiagnosed usually with illnesses they never had.

2) Medication Evaluation and Medication Monitoring to make sure that the medications that one is placed on are doing the job because over time medications can become ineffective. Or, one can be overmedicated which happens in too many cases from my experience where one is experiencing many negative side-effects which can disturb one’s quality of life or worse lead to toxicity because of the damage these harsh drugs can do over time to the patient’s body.

3) Therapy which is really the best because the same person who is monitoring your medication is also helping one to understand how to better interact first with themselves such as building up confidence and self-love and then with others by learning healthier ways to communicate their needs and wants. However, this also can become difficult because sometimes the psychiatrist will tell the patient things that the patient does not want to acknowledge which need to be acknowledged to be able to grow such as how certain defense mechanisms are not helping them and instead harming them in their interactions with others. Other times while giving therapy a psychiatrists may tell a patient what they will never be able to accomplish because of the diagnosis given. However, this is NOT a viable thing to be stated because from my personal experience as well as those of many of my clients who have been able to clear the root causes of their problems have been able to go on to do incredible things with their lives. The other real problem that many in therapy run into is being told what they think and what they feel as if the therapist has a way to enter their patient’s mind to know these things. Obviously, they have no way of knowing either of these things so it would be best if they asked if they may be thinking or feeling these things if the therapist believes these may be on the patient’s mind. 

This was a question by a person on Quora which I found to be rather important. Here is how I answered it: 

This is an excellent question. Thanks for asking it!

1. After 30 years in the world of mental health, I can tell you that the most important thing for clients to avoid is using their mental health diagnosis as a reason for not being able to do those things that one needs to do to take care of one’s self. For example: There are too many people out there claiming to have to ADD/ADHD stating that it is impossible for them to concentrate on many things, however, they have the deep concentration for those things they most enjoy. Well, I have news for these folks: If you can concentrate on one thing, you have the ability to concentrate. So, find a reason to concentrate on those things you would prefer to ignore and you have overcome your problem! I have helped many of my hypnosis clients do just that over the 20+ years I have been a hypnotist.

2. Never allow another to use your diagnosis against you in any way. They are not licensed to use these medical terms so they have no idea what they are speaking about in the first place. People do this to undermine you, so never allow it. If someone is using such terms with you, call them out on it asking them when you employed them to be your mental health professional. The answer would be that you didn’t. Next, tell them that if they have any concerns about you to tell you what they have observed behaviorally. In that way, they can inform you of their concerns without overrunning your boundaries.

3. Never argue for your illness and the dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors that encompass them. Your therapist is there to help you to understand why they are there and give you strategies to overcome them. And, yes there may be some suggestions that are scary to you, and you still need to assess them and most probably do them so you can overcome the difficulties that you have been experiencing.

4. Never allow your therapist to tell you how you are thinking or feeling. They have no way to know and it is a boundary break that makes most clients feel poorly about their therapist. If this happens to you have a frank conversation telling your therapist that they overran your boundary and that from then on they need to confirm what they feel may be going on inside your mind instead of stating it as fact.

5. Every therapist who is worth working with is never going to take anything you say personally. They realize that clients get frustrated and can say some pretty mean things as a result. However, there are times when a client is out of order in making these statements and needs to be called on them to learn how to better communicate. Because it is only to the degree that a client can communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively with their therapist that they will be able to carry those skills out into their world with the people with whom they need to interact.

6. Keeping information regarding how you are feeling or something that you did that you do not feel comfortable sharing. The therapist is not a mind reader and as such can only help you to the degree that you are honest about the events that you need to process during your sessions. If you withhold information because you are embarrassed or worse because you do not trust your therapist to keep your confidentiality, it is time for you to seek out a therapist with who you feel safe sharing everything that you need for your healing to take place.

7. Your therapist is there to help you and keep you safe, so you need to trust that the therapist has your best interest at heart. If you are a person who has difficulty with trust issues because of your history, this is the foundation of the work that you need to do with your therapist, to feel safe disclosing what you need to for your therapist to facilitate your healing because only you can heal yourself.

8. The amount of healing that you receive is in direct proportion to the amount of effort you put into your healing journey. If a client is full of reasons, rationalizations, and excuses, the amount of healing possible is close to zero. Therapy requires the client to be an active participant in the therapy which means bringing up those issues that need bringing up, listening to the therapist, and assessing if the ideas are given work for you and if so implementing them. If not, discuss with your therapist why you feel that the idea is not something you feel will help you out. following through on the homework given. Mainly it takes an active participant in the therapy to gain the positive changes one has employed the therapist to bring into being.

9. Medication may help to alleviate some of the symptoms, but it is never going to help you to heal the foundational causes for your symptoms. It is much better to go without medication and learn how to self-regulate your feelings and thoughts through the process that therapy. The only exception to that rule would be if one has psychotic features that need to be controlled.

10. Therapy can be a great avenue to learn more about who you are, what your values are, and how you can best contribute to this world. However, it takes time and commitment to allow this to happen.

I could probably come up with many more areas that a therapist would want their client to know, but this is a fairly comprehensive list of the most important ones that I speak to my clients about not during their sessions, but before I even decide to take them on as a client. Because I choose to work with those clients that are committed to doing whatever it takes to heal without the need to blame the world for their problems. Every person on this planet has had challenges, some more intense than others, and yet some of those who had the most to overcome did so including a client of mine who had her first baby at the age of 14 and a second at the age of 16 both with abusive partners, raising those kids on her own and becoming a PH.D. tenured professor at not 1 but 2 ivy league schools.

I had another client who had major stomach pain that the great doctors and psychiatrists at Massachusetts General Hospital could not help her relieve, she was in a dysfunctional relationship with her partner who was able to overcome the pain and complete her Doctorate in Education while dropping the 50 pounds she gained after being bedridden for the 5 years previous to our working together.

11. It is the client’s mindset being focused on healing that gains them the healing and a much better quality of life which is as true for most physical health issues as well as mental health issues.

Thanks again for this most important and original question never saw it or one related to it in the 5+ years I have been answering questions on Quora.

This was a question by a Quoran and this is how I answered it: 

There are many ways for therapy to be practiced. It sounds like your therapist is asking you to think about that which you are asking before giving you feedback – making you do some work because therapy is indeed a place for self-reflection to learn more about yourself and your interactions with others.

I am not a psychotherapist, but rather a hypnotist and I ask my clients lots of questions. In fact, the first session is their Detailed Personal History which has 14 questions and takes 2.5 to 3 hours to complete it well enough for me to create a treatment plan that will change their life for the better. And, during the treatment, they will indeed have many more questions asked along the way.

However, I am also more than willing to give them tools, techniques, and advice when it is obvious that this would best help them in moving forward. Because I can attest to the fact that the majority of my clients have found these pieces of information to be life-changing (even after all the change work to help them to get their subconscious mind working for them instead of against them).

So, you make a great point, however, there are always 2 sides to a situation (when there are 2 people involved). So, maybe you could look at this situation from your therapist’s point of view in basically giving you the space to answer your own questions, and then from there, my guess is that he would elaborate on the answer that you gave him. Obviously, I am not him and know nothing about him, but this is what makes sense from my 30 years in the profession of helping my clients overcome emotional issues.

If you are not happy with the situation, there is nothing keeping you from moving on to a therapist that works in a manner that you find easier to relate to. However, I would let your therapist know that the reason you are leaving is because you are not there to not have your questions answered, but rather to get the information that you are requesting inside the questions that you are asking and if he is unable to do that, it is time for you to move on.

I suggest that people do this so that the therapist has the chance to understand what did not work for the patient because they are not mindreaders. That which seems obvious to you, may not be obvious to him.

Thank you for your question.

I wish you the best on your healing journey.