Blogging for Mental Health Day, May 18th

I am not against treatment of genuine mental disorders by either a psychiatrist not a psychiatrist, however the fact is there is more than "stigma" that may be attached to a single visit. In the United States thousands of individuals have been denied gun permits based upon a single psychiatric consult. Many had the decision overturned after a lengthy expensive trip to court. The Veteran's Administration, without consent of the veterans, transferred the names of all veterans receiving PTSD treatment to ATF, who promptly added them to the "banned" list of those who can legally purchase firearms. Congress wrote into the law a procedure for having one's name removed from the list and anti-gun advocated promptly refused to fund the personnel to proces waivers.  In New Jersey a bank executive who was ordered to attend "couseling" from a psychiatrist following a bank robbery, ended up with being denied the right to purchase a shotgun. It took him thousands of dollars to regain that right. There are many jobs that may be denied based upon a psychiatric history. If you lie on the application you may end up being dismissed or prosecuted years later. If you don't lie, you may end up with an expensive court appeal, plus release of all your psychiatric records for evaluation to your prospective employer. Security clearances are always affected by psychiatric treatment. All that being said, I do not want to discourage people from seeking treatment, however psychiatric histories do follow a person, can adversely affect their means to earn a living, and the problem will become worse with computerization of medical records.

There are laws that say that people can not be discriminated against because of disability, etc.
I don't believe that a lot of those people, and others, should have guns.  I don't believe that there is a need for many individuals to have guns.  What do they need guns for?

I don't see much point in seeking mental health support when many mh professionals, here in NZ anyway, are inept.  Can be hard to access good care when individuals and systems are so defended and narcissistic.

In general I would advise people to seek psychotherapy but in my own experience it has been extremely damaging.
I have had one good therapist though so that gives me confidence that there must be other good ones out there as well.

  I want to encourage the medical doctors out there to be sensitive to the fact that many with mental health problems can have legitimate health concerns and  very real physical problems .  Rather than marginalize or be dismissive of patients who have mental health issues, as I think so many doctors can tend to do, I hope you will be a physician who practices due diligence when presented with a health concern of those patients, regardless of how you view the patient's mental status.  

  You may help alleviate some of your anxious patients' minds by showing you care & practicing the same due diligence you would on a patient you consider mentally healthy presenting with the same symptoms.  When tests are exhausted, some patients just might seek further spiritual counsel and/or seek psychiatric help.  I wonder how many doctor visits would be avoided and money saved in the long run if every doctor would take those patients, admittedly with some mental issues, seriously.  And how many would be surprised to find a number of patients they wouldn't have thought would have something medically wrong, actually do.