So you’ve finally made the leap and sought out help for a psychiatric or mental health concern in your life. You’ve gone to the psychiatrist, who has asked you a lot of questions over the course of the past hour or so, and you feel a little exhausted.
The psychiatrist turns to you and says, “Well, we could approach your treatment from a number of different ways. We could do this, or we could do that. There are pros and cons to each…”
You try to listen, but you really don’t understand the differences, or what the likelihood is that one treatment is more beneficial than the other. Your eyes begin to glaze over as the psychiatrist keeps talking, oblivious to your zoning out.
“So how would you like you to proceed with your treatment, this or that?”
At the end of his little talk about treatment options, you’re left a little dazed and confused. You have no idea how to proceed with treatment, so you ask the question millions of patients before you have also asked, “What would you do if you were me, doc?”
Will the psychiatrist answer honestly (e.g., what he, personally, would actually do?), or professionally (e.g., give a standard treatment recommendation based his experience and the research)?