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klmno

Active Member
I called the place and now I know how to track the record- this lady gave me the exact location and box number it was archived in- from 1983! I couldn't believe it! But- she had no idea whether or not it contains any notes from therapist. Well- at least I can contact this other place tomorrow that warehouses archived records and hopefully, get them to tell me over the phone if my record has therapist's notes or just info stating that I went thru therapy and dates. If that's all it has, it proves NOTHING in my favor. Hopefully, therapist at least kept something in there that stated I reported family trauma. The lady I spoke with said the records dept doesn't remove anything before sending a record to archives so as long as therapist sent that much to the records dept, I should be good to go. And hopefully, I'll end up with a MH professional that has enough sense to know that if I reported this 20+ years ago and changed for the better after rec'g therapy and my family- who has never gotten therapy- is claiming I am permanently psychiatric damaged to the point that I'm causing my son to be this way- (who by the way- if my family thought this , why didn't my mom EVER take me to a therapist as a teen?) will determine that maybe it's not me that is so bad or in denial. Shooouuuiiiieee....on the other hand, if they don't have therapist's notes that say this in there, they could easily default to thinkking I'm lieing. Especially if she has some notes but left that part out.

I have one mopre avenue I need to check-
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Not to bust your bubble but psychiatric records are probably pretty vague. They are not allowed to send therapist notes to anyone including the next treating therapist. They send basically a thin file with an intake form, maybe a psychiatric evaluation, statements that you attended therapy regularly, progress was made from date to date. They will never say what you said, what therapist said, what someone else said.

Just the nature of the beast of psychiatric records. They are not like medical records.
 

klmno

Active Member
I was told that it might include that I reported the family issue because of the situation. I'm not expecting or needing every detail of therapy. And these are military medical files- not typical private therapist files. In the military, this type of therapy goes in a medical record not the service record in order to protect the veteran later in life from having details like this revealed if a potential employer asks for a copy of a service record.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
You are fortunate that they are military records. At least around here tdocs only keep records for 7 years after you stop being a patient. There is often NOTHING available after that. I am careful to get a copy of my records a couple of years after we stop seeing someone. I doubt the military gets rid of anything unless something like a flood or fire happens.
 
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