Reply #107: Well, mental health professionals have tried to shake me off

[EFerrari]

more than once by using the privacy issue. My response was to let them know I didn't need a release to GIVE them information. And then proceeded to report behavior they would have to act on.

I'm not claiming these professionals are evil but they are part of an abusive system. Once, I was only able to get a meeting with the head of the Edelman Clinic in Los Angeles because I mentioned that I was turning my journal into a book, I kid you not. My husband had been there 18 months without one single moment of appropriate meds monitoring or appropriate therapy. I was at physical risk the entire time as he was decompensating once every 5 - 10 days.

And, I was only asking for 3 basic things: better meds monitoring, appropriate therapy for his personality disorder and a family emergency plan. Had the system not been broken, I wouldn't have needed to go to the clinic director for these things. :shrug:

It's true that clinicians are sometimes hindered by the privacy laws as they are written. That must be frustrating. But I'm very clear that in the CA public system, this issue is a way to lose the family and to neglect the client.