Who can diagnos ADHD?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

Well I asked my mother if she could make an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist but she set up sessions with a therapist instead. My first session was about a week ago and I told the Dr. about my symptoms and she said I met some symptoms of ADHD. It makes total sense, actually, that I could be ADHD. It explains my whole life of living and all the stress I’ve gone through to finally get me here. BUT, I read somewhere that a therapist cannot diagnose this disorder. Is this true? I haven’t been evaluated yet and I’m not sure when she’s going to test me. Right now she is just talking to me and my family about my behavior and how they can accommodate to it and be patient with me. Are we going down a path to a diagnosis or just simple talk-therapy?

I don’t see her until Tuesday so I’m dying to know if I’m wasting my time with her or not.

Thanks people!

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[Anonymous]

When I thought I might have ADD, that’s the first question I asked my psychologist, and he said no, he couldn’t prescribe meds, and he didn’t know anything about ADD. My family doc wouldn’t diagnose it either, I was sent to an ADD psychiatrist who only specializes in diagnosing ADD, I can’t work with him going forward as a patient.

As far as I know, you’d need a psychiatrist for the formal diagnosis. But it could be very helpful to work with the therapist going forward, since meds are only one part of the solution. Cognitive behaviour therapy is supposed to be very helpful.

I would ask these questions to your therapist directly. Can he/she refer you to a psychiatrist? If not, does he/she know of anyone who specializes in ADD and can he/her write a letter to your doc if that’s the person that needs to do a referral? Try doing a google search in your area for ADD specialists and see what comes up. Some ADD docs have websites.

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[Curlymoe115]

Depends on what training your therapist has. They can diagnose but often they need to send you to a doctor or psychiatrist for medications. But with diagnosis in hand it is often easy enough to go to your family doctor and find appropriate meds to try. I know in Alberta, if you are referred to a psychiatrist by your family doctor then the visits cost nothing. But if you want to wait and see one of the “specialists” that specialize in ADHD then you are paying for that out of your pocket. And they charge $200.00 for 50 minutes of their time.

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