Hello everyone--
Long story short, we had our intake appointment yesterday with a psychiatrist at the university who has agreed to do extensive "psychometric testing" with difficult child. Not sure exactly what it all entails, but the testing will take place over several sessions in 2 1/2 hour intervals.
Overall, I have a great feeling about this doctor. She seems very intelligent, experienced and understanding.
However, this psychiatrist does some "equine therapy" and said that most kids love horses and she would take difficult child out to the stable and expected to really bond over taking care of the horses.
Naturally, husband and I shared our experience with difficult child and horses. We told her that our attempts to get her involved with horses had gone horribly bad because difficult child was all attitude and ended up having more fun throwing rocks at them and chasing them over anything else. And this was just a few months ago!
And though the psychiatrist was very nice about it--we could detect that slightly smug "O well, clearly you two didn't know what you were doing and I know that I could get her very excited about working with animals" attitude.
In light of this, I am thinking about having difficult child come off of her medications for these tests. I think this psychiatrist should get a feel for the "real" difficult child instead of the highly medicated one.
I do understand that there are risks of increased depression by stopping these sorts of medications.
But at the same time, what will the value of this assessment be if the psychiatrist does not get to see the child's true nature?
What do you think? Am I just over-reacting to a psychiatrist's smug attitude? Or does this seem like a reasonable strategy to get an accurate diagnosis?
I'd love to hear your opinions and experiences...
Thanks!
--DaisyFace
Long story short, we had our intake appointment yesterday with a psychiatrist at the university who has agreed to do extensive "psychometric testing" with difficult child. Not sure exactly what it all entails, but the testing will take place over several sessions in 2 1/2 hour intervals.
Overall, I have a great feeling about this doctor. She seems very intelligent, experienced and understanding.
However, this psychiatrist does some "equine therapy" and said that most kids love horses and she would take difficult child out to the stable and expected to really bond over taking care of the horses.
Naturally, husband and I shared our experience with difficult child and horses. We told her that our attempts to get her involved with horses had gone horribly bad because difficult child was all attitude and ended up having more fun throwing rocks at them and chasing them over anything else. And this was just a few months ago!
And though the psychiatrist was very nice about it--we could detect that slightly smug "O well, clearly you two didn't know what you were doing and I know that I could get her very excited about working with animals" attitude.
In light of this, I am thinking about having difficult child come off of her medications for these tests. I think this psychiatrist should get a feel for the "real" difficult child instead of the highly medicated one.
I do understand that there are risks of increased depression by stopping these sorts of medications.
But at the same time, what will the value of this assessment be if the psychiatrist does not get to see the child's true nature?
What do you think? Am I just over-reacting to a psychiatrist's smug attitude? Or does this seem like a reasonable strategy to get an accurate diagnosis?
I'd love to hear your opinions and experiences...
Thanks!
--DaisyFace