I had/have an appointment with a licensed psychiatrist here in Texas this week, but he sent me an email telling me he can’t do counseling (or follow-up counseling) unless I authorize him to speak to a direct family member of mine (I assume, so he can verify that what I tell him about my life is true, or something like that.)
Is this normal? It seems a bit red-flag-ish to me. I’ve never had any other therapist demand this.
I’m not familiar with Texas rules, but in California, I had a therapist tell me she could not legally do a video call with my husband in the room, even if I was OK with his presence. We wound up taking my tablet (the device I had at the time that had a webcam) to another room.
Unless you’re a minor or under some form of guardianship, I really wonder about this as far as HIPAA.
Did you ask him/her why they needed to talk to a family member? That’s not an unreasonable question.
His words were, “Speaking to someone who has known you your whole life, such as your parents, will help us better develop a thorough and comprehensive understanding of your psychiatric and medical history.”
Definite red flag. What would he do if you were an only child and parents were dead?
I’m not sure what the violation would be. They’re asking permission from the patient to speak to these people. That said, it’s not something I’ve ever encountered whether for myself or people close to me.
ETA: Oh, wait. This: “better develop a thorough and comprehensive understanding of your psychiatric and medical history” does make me bit uneasy.
Still feels a bit intrusive.
I’m sure you can give consent with provisos, i.e.: you may not talk to them about (subject).
Both my son’s and daughter’s therapists have sent me detailed questionnaires at one time or another. So it doesn’t sound all that weird to me. In both cases, the (adult) child warned me I would be getting it, so the therapist obviously got their permission to ask me.
Actually, my son’s called me and interviewed me about my son, and his behavior as a child.
And how would he know that your parents are reliable sources of information?
Either this is a huge red flag, or there’s another part of this story that hasn’t been mentioned.
Right, but is the idea, “We don’t trust the patient not to bullshit, so we want someone who can back up their words?”
(in my instance, though, the problem is that my family - at least, my parents - are part of the reason for my psychiatric issues.)
I was going to add before that personally, I would not necessarily be against it – I think a lot can be gained in getting the perspective of other people close to me as I am not always a reliable narrator – but it’s not something that’s ever happened to me or from the people close to me where I would be a contact for such a thing.
Not saying anything about the OP specifically, but I can see how this would be useful if patient is in an unreliable mental state, such as having delusions, manic episodes, is bi-polar, etc. Getting a more objective perspective, both historical and current, seems like it could help the therapist better understand treatment options. This might be a standard policy of this therapist so they can reach out if necessary. They may prefer to have that option for patients in general rather than anything to do with any specific patient.
Find another psychiatrist. If s/he did that to my family, there would be six contradictory questionnaires and then you’re back to square one.
This.
As noted, exceptions would include if the patient was psychotic or otherwise appearing significantly detached from reality.
Gathering background from other family members might be preferable to investing total belief in claims of major abuse by relatives (i.e. satanic ritual abuse), but in general, it seems like an unwarranted invasion of the patient’s privacy.
He wouldn’t. And if he’s competent, he wouldn’t assume they were, but he might be able to learn some things from them even if he knew they were lying their asses off.
That said, I have no opinion on whether such a demand is normal, reasonable, or a dealbreaker.
Never experienced anything like this. I’d find a new counselor.
They are trying to establish a norm for you to discover if perhaps you have a psychotic issue, or to see if you were gaslighted by someone close to you. They did this for my cousin, who turned out to have mild schizophrenia. Up till then, we just thought he had the best sense of humor ever.
I’ve been to therapists (psychologists, not psychiatrists, and always on my own dime) four times in my life (only one of them was good enough for me to stick with it until I reached a stopping place). One of them knew my father through work, which he told me right away. None of them ever asked to communicate with anyone else in my family (or anyone else, period) about me.
Two things about this bother me. One is the notion that the therapist has to know “the truth” about facts in your life. That is completely not the point of therapy. It’s up to the client to decide what they need from the psychiatrist, and whether they are getting it. If the client wants to lie and bullshit through a bunch of therapy, the therapist gets paid the same either way.
Which leads to the second thing that bothers me: this is a very un-empowering attitude from the therapist to the client. It’s not up to the therapist to trust you, it’s up to you to trust the therapist. Trust is the biggest thing that gets developed in therapy.
The caveat for all this, I guess, is that if you aren’t paying for the therapy out of your own pocket, the therapist may be required to ask for this kind of information by the insurance (or whatever arrangement) that is paying for it. From the responses here, I wonder if that isn’t the common denominator for those who have had this experience themselves.