[monnie]

Hi

Sorry to hear about your experience with the Paed. Unfortunately I don't think that it's such a rare occurrence.

I've worked for many years in the area of child and adolescent mental health and ODD, like any mental health issue, is complex to diagnose. Assessment needs to be thorough...including covering areas such as family history, developmental history, medical history, schooling issues, etc. Sometimes the assessment is even best done by a team of professionals.

The parenting programme, Triple P is really well known around Australia. It's a positive parenting programme and is fantastic, but you might find that with the significant difficulties that you are experiencing, that you will need more support than what Triple P offers.

You can access services through your local child and adolescent mental health clinic (CAMHS). It's a government service, and generally very thorough...although the waiting lists can be long.

If you are going to go to a private Clinical Psychologist, see if your GP is happy to refer your son under a GP mental health plan to a Medicare registered Clinical Psychologist. That way you can access up to 12 individual sessions/year that are mostly covered by a Medicare rebate. The Medicare Scheme is called "ALLIED MENTAL HEALTH MEDICARE SERVICES: PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPY AND FOCUSSED PSYCHOLOGICAL STRATEGIES".

Good luck!