I agree that the options of so-called experts is often valued much higher than patients themselves who are actually the number 1 experts.
Also,as the article states when there is a clash of opinion from a Psychiatrist vs a patient/s- the Psychiatrists viewpoint is always held up as the true/ correct reasoning or opinion.
Granted,not all Psychiatrists are this way but there is a culture infrained in public hospitals where more "reasonable" Psychiatrists or nurses often lack the courage to speak out about the "dysfunctional or impaired Psychiatrists".
There is also a widespread faulty assumption that the mental health staff (Psychiatrists,nurses etc) are the healthy "normal" ones and there is zero recognition that some of them can be greatly flawed,or sometimes even narcissistic or power driven,which in turn then influences their decision making and leaves some patients being the "victims" of their decisions and without the patients having any effective avenues for complaining as no one is willing to challenge the Psychiatrists,HCCC are overworked and disinterested in Mental Health type cases,and in many instances the patients concerns are dismissed or even faultily misattributed as part of their delusional thinking/as an illness symptom.
You asked "why dont Psychiatrists consult with their patients?"
Lets not forget that some people go into the field of Psychiatry for wrong,in fact bad or twisted reasons, and actually go into it because they feel they can hold a form of power and make decisions for people.
They just need to pass their exams-there are no checks and measures to make sure they aren't ego driven or have a form of narcissistic personality etc.
Unfortunately,some of these types "get off" on feeling that there is a distinction between them and the patients.They view their patients through the lens of mental illness and not as a full beings.The mental illness is their identity (so to speak) in their view.
The idea of being on the same level as "weak mental patients" is quite abhorent to these types,or to put it more kindly,they are unaccepting of the idea.
These types of Psychiatrists strongly resist "change movements" such as implementing peer support workers in hospitals as they feel very threatened by it.
Then there is another type of Psychiatrist who is often well meaning but holds a view of having excessive responsibility for the patient and believes they should make the decisions for them.
This viewpoint isn't helped by the fact that Psychiatrists are sometimes held to be excessively responsible by the law if an event occurs such as when we hear news stories of a person with a mental illness killing someone.
Having this excessive legal responsibility hanging over their heads creates a "stress head' type personality in this second type of Psychiatrist and in turn they may be less likely to work "as a team" with the patient.
