Can i file a complaint against a psychiatric case manager?

[Nubu]

Because if that's what he's doing? Yeah, I'd be Pissed.Off.

That's what I have been saying since the first post. Not sure how you missed it.

But, based on what you've written, it seems like a leap.

Are you male or female? Do you know when an old man is learing at you and looking at your ass? Or is it a "leap?"

I think we're talking 2 different things with the phrase 'acting out', and if what you mean is to raise this in an assertive, non-aggressive way with your T? That would potentially be a really awesome thing for you to do. But that's not really 'acting out', which would be a much less awesome thing to do!!

I don't see why it should be "non-aggressive." And I don't see why it should be indirect, i.e, through my therapist and not to the offending party directly.

 

[Ata]

Nubu, trust your gut. What you're saying makes complete sense, I know exactly what you mean. As long as you don't find yourself accusing every man of being inappropriate, I say it's highly likely your instinct is correct. We survivors have to learn to listen to our intuitions. Even if somehow he's not being inappropriate (which I doubt most women know exactly what you're talking about,) this is how you feel and in the therapeutic atmosphere you deserve to feel safe. So do what you need to to feel safe whether it's talking to him again directly and telling him to stop or telling your psych how uncomfy you feel. You don't have to justify how you feel. You feel that way and you can request different behavior. Good luck.

 

[Ata]

I meant

(which I doubt since most women know exactly what you're talking about,)

 

[Igef]

I'm female. And I'm pretty familiar with 'creepy old man' eeew. Oh yeah.

I've also had 2 case managers in the past. They are not a personal secretary. They manage your case. That not only means they need to know all about your case, it means they get up in your shit. All the time. That's the job.

There's a very good chance that your case manager wants to speak to you, not your voicemail. Wants to talk. To you. About you. About your therapy. About how you're going. About who you went to coffee with and what you talked about and did you enjoy it and will you be doing that again. Creepy? Maybe. But it's the job.

So like I said, if you just don't like your case manager, that's ok. Tell them. But what you've described doesn't seem all that unprofessional for a case manager.

As for why communication might be best approached non-aggressively? Because aggressive communication is disrespectful of the person you're trying to communicate with, and is likely to shut down communication, rather than open things up for a mutually beneficial solution.

 

[Ata]

I'm female. And I'm pretty familiar with 'creepy old man' eeew. Oh yeah.

I've also had 2 case managers in the past. T...

Hmmm maybe it's his particular style, but that's odd behavior for almost any professional re the call me, no info. Been in therapy 3 yrs now and honestly even every interaction outside of personal...never just 'call me.' Weird. And case managers do that questioning and conversation stuff in appointments, not just randomly calling new pple they don't yet have a rapport with.

I suppose at best he's a bit lacking in the skills of trust and rapport building, at worse he's inappropriate. However, that seems a bit like when pple continuously give the benefit of the doubt because they think it's the right thing to do (likely learned from dealing with pple with poor boundaries in their upbringing) rather than trusting themselves.

Idk given the facts presented, to me it seems her conclusions are solid, but I guess everyone assesses situations differently. For me this behavior sends up red flags for sure.

 

[Igef]

Case managers didn't work for me - like I said, I've tried, twice. Both of them took a very 'hands on' approach, and got waaaay too into my life than I was comfortable with.

The first one was next to useless because she had no time for me. The second one didnhave time, and was totally into impromptu phone calls. When I explained that I really wasn't gonna answer the phone if he called out of the blue (because phone calls like that make me panic), he switched to messenger. Like, that's so much less intrusive, hawhaw!

Because of the nature of their job, they didn't approach building trust and rapport anything like I've experienced with Ts and pdocs. And that's uncomfortable. The fact that they file noted everything (like, a message saying "No problem", seriously) was uncomfortable. Having someone that involved in my life - uncomfortable.

The issue here, reading the thread, is yeah, phone messages that just say "Call me" isn't cool. But it was more the unprofessional attempts by this guy that seemed to be the real problem. What I'm getting at is, that might not be a lack of professionalism. It may just be that this guy's job is to get up into your life to the nth degree. For me personally, that didn't work. I no longer have a case manager.

If that's the problem? Going in and letting loose 2 days worth of rage? May be unproductive. Counterproductive even. Maybe, the OP just isn't the kind of person who is going to benefit from having a case manager, and if case managers are non-negotiable with this clinic, then perhaps negotiating some new parameters with the clinic about how the case manager should approach this case.

 

[Nubu]

What I'm getting at is, that might not be a lack of professionalism. It may just be that this guy's job is to get up into your life to the nth degree.

But then why doesn't he just say that he wants to discuss my case with me? He always uses the pretext of an appointment or scheduling issue to get in my face. When he has left messages saying, "Call me," the real, official reason was to schedule an appointment. If it's perfectly normal and expected for him to call me just to talk, then why does he feel the need to hide that behind something about scheduling? He always offers a "reason" for calling me or interrupting me in the hall, so apparently, he believes he needs one.

I think even the type of case manager you describe would not call with an important and very time sensitive scheduling matter, and leave a message saying, simply, "Call me." Hard matters like scheduling appointments and medication would still take priority over chatting. I don't see a reasonable explanation for him effing up those priorities.

 

[Igef]

I think whatever his motives are, it sounds like it's not gonna work. But maybe suss out what the clinic's deal is with case managers? Do you have to havd one? Do you want one? If so, you need your case to be handled a lot differently than the way this guy has handled things.

It's totally okay to tell the clinic: look, I don't like being pulled up in the halls for casual chats, I need appointment times. And if I'm being contacted by phone, I like using my voicemail, and I like messages to be really clear about exactly why the person is calling.

Those are all reasonable things. Being clear about what does and doesn't work for you is going to help prevent getting lumped with just another version of this same guy. Or if the clinic only has the one case manager to offer? It means you can be clear about why that system isn't working for you.

 

[Hezuro]

It's totally okay to tell the clinic: look, I don't like being pulled up in the halls for casual chats, I need appointment times. And if I'm being contacted by phone, I like using my voicemail, and I like messages to be really clear about exactly why the person is calling.

^^^ This! Communucate with the clinic. I also have a therapist in a group, though don't have a case manager, but the reason the clinic has a case manager is rather negated by you being very uncomfortable. Regardless if it's warrented or not. So id tell the clinic, the front staff, your therapist and/or PDoc. You need to communicate with them (more than just with the case manager himself) for them to be able to take any sort of action. Such as assigning you a different case manager or pulling him into a meeting to tell him to stop doing *this* and start doing *this*. But you need to communicate with them or nothing will be done about it.

 

[Ehaleb]

TRUST YOUR GUT!

I had a doc who gave me the creeps.

On the outset it could look like he was just being friendly.

But it was more than that.

He asked me about my life in a more than simply curios, trying to make conversation way.

(I think this is something most women will know about but perhaps men might not.)

 

[Gupuj]

Unfortunately there is a lot of unprofessional and harmful conduct in the mental health field, not just in case management, but also in psychiatrists, therapist, psych techs, etc.

My last hospitalization at PIW was a good example, 2 week hospitalization, 1st week was a torture chamber that left me self-harming by the end of that week it was so triggering, ended up self-harming in my sleep at the beginning of that week. All because administration refused to transfer a patient who was threatening everyone even though staff begged them to transfer him to their ICU unit which was designed for cases like that. That place was the pits, many times I caught medication errors, often they did not even have the medications that were ordered. Then to top it all off, they sock me with a $3500 bill despite applying for assistance because I am on a fixed income. Then called me to say they discounted it to half then again to $850, despite being told I am having trouble buying food, heat, essentials and could not pay the $85 a month ransom they are asking for because there is no money available for that. The result is they cancelled the discount, and sent me another $3500 bill.

 

[Avise]

Needless to say, in the past all my case managers were female.