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Looking after ourselves

CurlyLocks
New Contributor

Privacy

Our family has been trying to assist our daughter and sister over many years of her depression and anxiety. We feel shut out, and that we could be more helpful if we were able to have a round table discussion with her as well as her psychologist and psychiatrist. However, we feel that we are excluded because of the privacy issues. We feel that if we could be involved, that the people who are helping her are understanding of our family and how much we want to do to help her. How can we move forward if her treating practitioners don't involve us and help us as well as our daughter to come together in her treatment?

4 REPLIES 4
Ali11
Community Builder

Re: Privacy

Welcome to the forum @CurlyLocks, it's great that you want to support your daughter. Have you been able to chat about wanting to support her directly? 

Re: Privacy

I am not sure about what you mean by wanting to support her directly. She seems reluctant to want to talk to her sisters and her parents. I am thinking that maybe she doesn't want to trouble us. My point is that I think that her treating professionals need to understand her family in order to help her. If we can't talk to them, how can this happen?

Former-Member
Not applicable

Re: Privacy

@CurlyLocks 

It is well documented that appropriate family support leads to better outcomes for patients.

Treatment and care teams are bound by patient confidentiality and unless your daughter gives permission for them to liaise with you, they are not able to give out any patient specific information.

 

Perhaps letting your daughter know you would like to support her better and asking her how best you could do this. You could ask would she be happy for you to accompany her as a support person at her pdoc appt and if she would be happy for you to go in at the end and perhaps ask some questions. 

 

I am wondering if you feel you have pertinent concerns that she may not have mentioned to her pdoc.  The treating team are however at liberty to receive correspondence on these, but be aware it would be a one sided conversation and they may reveal to the patient that they are in reciept of this which may not go down well with your daughter.

 

There are many ways you can be supportive, information is readily available for carers via Sane fact sheets, "Your health in mind" website of the RANZCP and other reputable sites like Beyond Blue.

 

The other thing is that supporting someone with MI can be very draining and it is important to take care of our own mental health.  Support is available through groups like Carers Australia however the govt is restructuring carer funding at present and providers are in transition until they know if they will get ongoing funding. The Carer Gateway lists current supports.

 

Re: Privacy

Apologies @CurlyLocks, we meant have you been able to sit down with her and explain how you want to support her through this? Feeling like burdening others is a common feeling and it may take some time for that to disappear. How have you and your family been this week?

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