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Advice needed on my first diagnostic appointment please.

shoekitten

I finally have my letter of referral from my GP to Community Mental Health Resource Centre!

 I am so glad my GP actually took my request for a referral seriously. But now, being a creature who gets anxious about face to face consultations I'm panicking about blowing my chance of a 'formal' diagnosis.

Please, please, please can anyone give me any advice on how to handle this appointment? I know that without some useful pointers I will get flustered, mumble unintelligbly and forget to say what I planned.

What sort of questions will I be asked? Will I have to take a test?

It's on the 16th and already have sweaty palms!

Parents

  • I don't know anything about this style of diagnosis, but I can tell you this much - GAD7 is an assesment form for General Anxiety Disorder, PHQ9 is a screening form for mental health disorders, and IAPT stands for 'Improving Access to Psychological Therapies'.

    So it sounds to me, and this is only a guess, like they're trying to screen you for a whole load of things, some of which you'll probably have some signs of having (even if you don't actually have them).

    Probably because they've still got the "A person with autism can't possibly work" mindset.

    But I could be wrong.

    Keep this in mind, particularly when answering any mental health questions (don't lie, but think carefully about what they're trying to ascertain by the questions they're asking (a classic example of this is if a psychiatrist asks you "do you hear voices in your head?" (or even just "do you hear voices?"!) - the obvious, logical, answer to this is "yes" - but to a psychiatrist that means 'schizotypal or worse' - but, of course, the vast majority of 'normal' people have an 'internal dialogue', and hear their own voice, and sometimes the voice of other people, like their mother, in their head all the time - but they're not schitzotypal, they're normal)).

    Oh, and insist on seeing a psychologist that is trained in the diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Reply

  • I don't know anything about this style of diagnosis, but I can tell you this much - GAD7 is an assesment form for General Anxiety Disorder, PHQ9 is a screening form for mental health disorders, and IAPT stands for 'Improving Access to Psychological Therapies'.

    So it sounds to me, and this is only a guess, like they're trying to screen you for a whole load of things, some of which you'll probably have some signs of having (even if you don't actually have them).

    Probably because they've still got the "A person with autism can't possibly work" mindset.

    But I could be wrong.

    Keep this in mind, particularly when answering any mental health questions (don't lie, but think carefully about what they're trying to ascertain by the questions they're asking (a classic example of this is if a psychiatrist asks you "do you hear voices in your head?" (or even just "do you hear voices?"!) - the obvious, logical, answer to this is "yes" - but to a psychiatrist that means 'schizotypal or worse' - but, of course, the vast majority of 'normal' people have an 'internal dialogue', and hear their own voice, and sometimes the voice of other people, like their mother, in their head all the time - but they're not schitzotypal, they're normal)).

    Oh, and insist on seeing a psychologist that is trained in the diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

Children
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