Going to the psychiatrist for the first time: what you will find and what you should do

There is a certain fear when hearing the word "psychiatrist". Popular culture has led us to believe that the psychiatrist is a somewhat fearsome professional, a man or woman who prescribes pills that stunned us.

Because of this myth, going to the psychiatrist for the first time is very scary, despite being very necessary in many cases. What can we expect in this first session? What is it going to do to us?

With the intention of reducing a little the fear associated with visiting the psychiatrist for the first timeNext, we are going to find out what to expect on this first date.

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What is it like to go to the psychiatrist's office for the first time?

It is totally normal to have doubts and feel uncertain about what the first visit to the psychiatrist will be like.

However, if you have already accepted that you may have a psychological disorder or that you require some type of psychiatric intervention, it is essential that you go to an appointment with the specialist. But first of all, it is necessary to know what a psychiatrist does.

Psychiatrists are doctors who are responsible for diagnosing and treating people who are experiencing various problems related to mental health.. All of these problems can include anxiety, depression, psychotic disorders, personality disorders, and more, disorders of varying severity, both present in the patient's family history and not present in the family.

Being physicians, psychiatrists approach mental disorders from a more physiological perspective. The vision of psychiatry on mental health is based on the idea that mental disorders are due to imbalances in the levels of neurotransmitters and other phenomena in the brain, which are to be corrected by prescribing drugs or using interventions medical. Psychiatrists try to balance the brain biochemistry of patients with a mental disorder.

This is not to say that they focus solely on biology. Psychiatrists also take into account psychological variables that may have influenced the appearance and maintenance of the mental disorder and, therefore, they also take into consideration tools to improve these aspects.

Reasons why it would be advisable to see a psychiatrist

On many occasions, people are not aware that we are suffering from mental health problems. This is because either we have considered them unimportant or, and this is the least desirable part, we have been suffering them for so long that we have normalized them, considering them normal. However, they are not normal, they are not healthy and we must do something to overcome them.

Some problems that can motivate us to go to a psychiatrist for the first time are:

• Big changes in our life that seem overwhelming to us.
• Changes in eating habits: diets, excessive food intake ...
• Sleep problems: excess or lack of sleep, trouble sleeping, excessive tiredness despite having slept.
• Memory failures.
• Concentration problems.
• Emotional instability.
• Personality changes
• Neurological problems
• Anxiety.
• Depression.
• Trouble making decisions.
• Fast or very slow thinking.
• Strange ideas, delusional thoughts.
• Hopelessness
• Obsessions, hallucinations, compulsions and paranoia.
• Development of excessive fear and experience of panic attacks.
• Sexual problems: lack of sexual stimulation, paraphilias or constant need for sex.
• Some cases of addiction.

We may have been aware of these problems for a long time, but in most cases they happen to be the people around us, such as family and friends, who notice our dysfunctional behavior and worry. Our loved ones suffer because they have to deal with situations that we may not be aware of or consciously do, but that harm them.

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What are the differences between psychiatrists and psychologists?

Although today there is not so much confusion between who are psychiatrists and who are psychologists, it is worth reviewing their main differences. What there is no doubt is that both professionals watch over the mental health of their patients, trying to improve their lives by reducing their symptoms and, as far as possible, cure such disorder.

Psychologists and psychiatrists intervene on their patients in very different ways. Psychiatrists often prescribe drugs with the intention of changing brain biochemistry by adjusting the neurotransmitters believed to be responsible for the development of disorders such as depression or anxiety. Instead, psychologists opt for strategies focused on emotion regulation, behavior change, and belief system readjustment.

The training of psychiatrists and psychologists is also very different. As we have commented, psychiatrists are doctors, therefore have completed a medical degree and subsequently specialized in psychiatry. On the other hand, in Spain clinical psychologists studied the degree of psychology and later they may have given different situations, including studying a master's degree in clinical psychology or having taken an examination to become a resident intern psychologist (PIR).

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The first visit

There are several situations that can lead us to visit a psychiatrist. Whatever the reason for which we have had to go to one of these specialists, what should be clear is that it is a great stepbrave and admirable, since deciding to improve mental health involves making a very overwhelming decision, a great a step that, although it generates some uncertainty, in the long run will give us security, well-being and growth personal. It is always admirable to want to improve, in whatever way.

Some of the most common situations is that the patient, after a season in which he has presented problems at work, studies and his personal relationships, he is flooded with questions, doubts about what is going on in his head and why it does not “work” as well as before. Everything in this life has an explanation, and it may be that our dysfunctional way of behaving is due to some problem at the brain level, a problem that must be treated.

Another of the situations for which we end up going to a psychiatrist is because another professional refers us to him. It may happen that we first went to the psychologist with the intention of improving our mental health. After making the evaluation, the psychologist considers that some of our problems cannot be solved with his training or their tools and that, therefore, it is best that we also go to a psychiatrist for treatment complementary.

The first appointment with a psychiatrist consists of an initial evaluation. In it, this doctor will want to meet us, understand the reasons why we have come to his consultation and what difficulties we have. These professionals learn to understand and diagnose very complex disorders but we do not necessarily have to be suffering from one of them, something that they understand can happen. That is, psychiatrists understand that not all psychological problems are disorders, although They can resort to pharmacology to reduce problems that deteriorate the quality of life of the patient.

Normally, appointments with the psychiatrist last between 40 and 60 minutes, but this time can be very variable in the first session. This is because, depending on the case, the urgency required to make the evaluation and the difficulty the psychiatrist is going to make use of tools of evaluation and diagnosis more or less long.

What is the psychiatrist going to ask you?

In the first session the psychiatrist will try to collect as much information as possible about us. He will ask us about what problems concern us, and to what extent they are affecting our life. He will also ask us what has been the problem that has made us end up coming to his consultation or if there is another reason that he has forced us to be in front of him, as it may be that they have referred us or our relatives have us held down.

The professional will ask us about a variety of symptoms, and how we have tried to deal with them. If we have decided to take a drug on our own to reduce the symptoms, it is very important mention what medications we are taking, how many daily intakes, the dose and how long it takes to take in shot.

It is very important that the psychiatrist knows about any problem or medical condition that we have had in the past or through which we are going at the moment. It is also important that we mention if we have visited other mental health professionals previously, both other psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, in addition to mention if we have resorted to alternative medicine, since some therapies of this type can interfere with the effectiveness of the treatments psychiatric.

The psychiatrist will want to know all the medical history of your family, since it has been seen that there are certain mental disorders and diseases that have a high hereditary component and it is common to find several members of the same family presenting the same disorder. These mental health problems include ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depression or Alzheimer's disease.

How does the psychiatrist make the diagnosis?

Once the psychiatrist has finished collecting all the necessary information in the first session, he will proceed to analyze the results and will try to establish a diagnosis, in addition to seeing which therapeutic route to apply. Depending on the data we have given you, the results of the interview, our behavior and the state of mind in which we find ourselves, the psychiatrist may recommend that we consult a particular specialist or that we undergo laboratory tests to rule out some problems doctors.

The professional may schedule other appointments, in anticipation that he or she will be able to solve our mental health problem. It is possible that psychotherapy is suggested, added to the prescription of some medicine to alleviate the symptoms, such as, for example, anxiolytics for anxiety, antidepressants for depressive symptoms or, in case we have a psychotic disorder, antipsychotics.

It is very important to keep the rest of the appointments, since the therapeutic power resides in them, not in the first. The first session with the psychiatrist helps him to make the diagnosis, which is not always the definitive one because in the rest of sessions can identify symptoms that make you rethink what is the real problem that has impaired our stability mental.

It is essential that in all the sessions we have with the professional we ask the questions that we consider necessary, in addition to inform you of new problems that may have arisen or those that already occurred before the first session but of which we are now conscious. Any information that we give the psychiatrist in the rest of the sessions will serve to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment you are applying to us, or if you need to change your approach therapeutic.

Recommendations for the first visit to the psychiatrist

Like all first visits, the first appointment with a psychiatrist can be quite overwhelming. To go a bit calm and feel safe, below we give some recommendations on what to do when going to the psychiatrist for the first time.

• Write a list of the symptoms you have had.
• Write down the names of the medications you take, as well as the doses.
• Bring any medical records that you think might be helpful to the psychiatrist.
• Don't be afraid to ask about the diagnosis and the treatments it offers.
• In the first session, the exploration and knowledge of the problem is carried out, therapy is not applied. You must have patience.