Assessment Experience with Berkeley Psychiatrists, privately.
Hi, I was looking for opinions and experiences all over Reddit before deciding to go with this provider based on being told by a friend that they went there and I just wanted to share my experience in a format that I wish someone had shared when I was researching them...
I booked the (slightly cheaper, £745) online assessment which I believe was supposed to be 1h long but it ended up taking just over 90 minutes.
Before the assessment, I was sent a lot of forms and questionairres to populate. There was one especially thorough one which was to be populated by my parent(s), or myself.
The doctor I was assigned - Joanna Woodger - was helpful, reassuring, warm, and I felt like she conducted a thorough assessment while guiding me to stay on topic. She conducted herself in an empathic and yet professional manner. I did not feel like I was just given a diagnosis without being appropriately assessed (this was something I was afraid of).
For what it's worth, I went into this assessment in my mid 20s with the though that I surely don't have ADHD because my life was functioning just fine, thanks to the 1 million coping and management strategies I have implemented.
At the end of the assessment I was diagnosed with ADHD (mixed) and prescribed Lisdexamfetamine as a starting point and told to book titration appointment (£150) for 1 month from now. The titration appointments are 15 min online and with other people, not the original doc I have had my assessment with, unless I explicitly want to have it with them, for which I'd have to pay extra.
When researching the doc's name I saw both good and bad experiences across Reddit. My experience was excellent, I'd have trouble imagining how the assessment appointment could've gone better.
Overall, I am looking forward to basic things becoming a bit easier and not entirely dependent on structured mechanisms I've built.