Tag Archives: psychiatrist

Therapy Pt. lV: Alz R Us #EndAlz

Posted in May by

Since Dr G’s referral for a therapist for Miss Cathy didn’t work out my next call was to Maureen Charlton, the Helpline Program Coordinator of the Fairfax, Virginia Alzheimer’s Association® National Capital Area Chapter.

The Alzheimer’s Association is a wonderful organization and I highly recommend them to anyone who has been touched by the disease. They have a wealth of resources and information.

The first thing I was grateful for was that they helped me to realize that I was not alone.

Their mission statement reads; “The Alzheimer’s Association is the world’s leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care, support and research”.

But (like everything in life) I have found it best not to depend on them completely and to think of them as just ‘one’ of your resources and not the ‘only’ one.

After talking to Maureen and explaining what I needed she emailed a list of doctors and therapists.

Unfortunately, as I learned a couple of years ago when I requested a list of ‘Elder Lawyers’ (no, not ‘old lawyers’, rather ‘lawyers’ that specialized in legal issues for the ‘old) I’ve learned that Alz.org’s information and referrals are not always up to date or current.

I found more than ½ dozen of the physicians on the list that she gave me for referrals was outdated.

Was I mad (no), did I get frustrated (yes) but considering the help that they’d already given me and the fact they were mostly a volunteer organization where everybody was doing their best I couldn’t ‘not’ cut them some slack.

Besides, they were kind enough to feature my journey with Miss Cathy as part of there “World Alzheimer’s Day Story Project” in 2011.

So, I took it upon my self to compile my own list of names that needed to be deleted from their list and emailed it to Maureen.

But, that still left me with more than enough professionals to contact so I got work.

As I worked my way down the list of doctors and therapist that were available to me I had to consider the very real possibility that this could all be a huge waste of time. I mean lets face it, I was looking for a therapist to help someone with problems that she might not remember having let alone remembering the solutions once she got up off the couch.

But, if Miss Cathy thought therapy might help then it seemed to me to be worth the effort to find her a good doctor, no matter the outcome.

Later that day I received an email from Maureen. She couldn’t have been more apologetic and wrote ”We do make every effort to keep our lists as accurate as possible, but as you can imagine, we cover a large territory and things change”.

She said that she was very appreciative of the info, but for me not to feel obligated, she knew that I had a lot on my plate already.

I wrote back that I knew they were doing their best and I was happy that I could help.

I just wanted to make sure that they updated their system so that another caregiver (or heaven forbid) a person with Alzheimer didn’t spend the day as I had trying to contact doctors that were either no longer in practice, had moved or in one other case needed to be removed for an entirely different reason.

http://www.alz.org/index.asp

Therapy Pt.lll: The Three “P’s” plus One

Posted in May by

Even though I was perturbed, I’d not yet written off Dr G’s referral (but I was turned off by what I’d learned so far).

Before I dove into the mountain of paperwork required to see the doctor I decided to call back to ask what type of therapy the doctor practiced. When the person answering the phone couldn’t answer what I thought was a perfectly reasonable and simple question I tried to help her by asking, “Does he follow Freud, Yeung? Is he a Behaviorialist?”

You can’t really hear silence but it’s not like she was saying anything so that’s all there was on the other end of the line. When she did speak it was to mispronounce the names of the two long dead fathers of what we now call ‘talk’ therapy.

I went from being frustrated to disturbed that she couldn’t answer me.

But, realizing that she probably wasn’t get paid enough to know more than how to say “Doctor’s office” and “Please hold” I cut her some slack and asked if there was anyone else in the office who could help me.

So, using one of the skills she had at her command she put me on hold for a moment, after which another female voice came on the line and introduced herself as the office manager, understood that I had a question and asked if I could “please repeat the names I’d said earlier.”

“Sure”, I said and parroted my query.

“Fried?” “You who?” was her response and that pretty much told me all I needed to know (if not about the doctor, then about who he surrounds himself with and who he chooses as his representative to the unsuspecting and often unbalanced public).

“Umm,” she stammered, “I’m not familiar with those names she said, “but I think it’s the last person you said.’

“You’re the first person who’s ever asked that question. I’d ask the doctor but he’s in with a patient at the moment.”

“Think!…you think?!” I thought to myself. (Horrified) that she identified a type of thereapy that a doctor practices (behaviorism) for an actual person, I wanted to ask if she was pulling my leg but what I said was, “I think that’s all the information that I need, thank you.”

Setting aside the fact that she was the ‘office manager’ and the one person in the practice who should know the doctor’s credentials and methods I wondered, “Hadn’t she ever seen a Woody Allen movie or any Rom-coms based in New York City?”
They’re filled with therapist humor. Someone is always; either going to a shrink, making fun of shrinks…or is a Shrink.

I clicked off the line knowing that I wouldn’t be clicking on their website, wasting anymore of my time or printer paper anytime soon.

Update: I was later corrected by a clinical psychologist (who just happens to be a dear friend) who told me that the doctor I was referred to (and was asking about) was a “Psychologist and not a “Psychoanalyst” (a disciple of Feud) so I was asking the wrong question.

Okay…my bad, so the “Freud, Yeung, Behaviorist” query didn’t apply….but still?”

Not to absolve myself of my personal responsibility but shouldn’t they have known that I was barking up the wrong type of analyst’s tree?

Fortunately the following link can explain the Three ‘P’s” (The Psychiatrist, Psychologist, and Psychoanalyst) so that you don’t sound like me…the fourth “P”(a ‘Putz’) when you’re shopping for a therapist.

The Psychiatrist, Psychologist, and Psychoanalyst: The Differences Between the Three P’s