cyan_blue

So sometimes my therapy clients ask me for referrals to local psychiatrists, when they are wanting to try medication to help with their depression or anxiety or whatnot. Recently I set about to widen the pool of psychiatrists who I refer clients to, and I asked colleagues for some suggestions of who in the community is good to work with.

A woman just phoned and said that she heard I was looking for psychiatrists to refer clients to, and that she is a psychiatrist and she would be happy to take referrals. So we chatted a bit and I asked her various questions about her practice. And then I asked her, candidly, about how comfortable she is working with people from different alternative sexuality subcultures. Because a lot of my clients are bi, gay, lesbian, trans, poly, leatherfolks, and whatnot. And I want to know that whomever I refer them to is not going to pathologize their lifestyle.

Turns out she isn't all that comfortable with some of those categories, and she seemed to overly equate "having sexual fetishes" with "having trauma history." She mentioned a time when she was working with a client, and the client gave her some pamphlets so that she could educate herself more about their lifestyle, and she felt very uncomfortable at that.

Grrrr. Fortunately I've all ready found the names of some psychiatrists who are more lifestyle-friendly, but it's jolting and saddening to come up close and personal with such overt prejudices as that.