Been to a few psychiatrists and work with a lot as a clinician. For a first meeting you should expect to give a lot of history including familial history, treatment history, substance use history, medication history, diagnosis history, trauma history, developmental history, etc. Skip any that aren’t relevant to you and if you can’t give tons of info that’s okay (eg if you don’t have tons of info on your early development just give what you can, you can skip substance use if you’ve never had issues with it, etc). description of presenting problems including what you’re coming in for but also cooccurring physical issues that may be relevant (eg chronic ailments like diabetes/gerd/migraines) as well as sleep quality.

You may not touch on all of this, it may include other stuff, depends on the doctor. Each practitioner has their own personal approach but those are the broad strokes. Assuming you’re in the USA remember your rights as a consumer: you have the right to know why you are being prescribed a medication, you have the right to know it’s side effects, and you have the right to know alternatives to it. But at the same time remember side effects aren’t always experienced and for some people being aware of them makes them more likely to occur (I am one of those people fwiw)

Have no expectation of finding a “magic pill” that (permanently) solves your problems.

Sometimes when it comes to mental health we have an instinct to gloss over things over and pretend things are ok—even in the psychiatrist’s office. Kind of like when you are miserable and someone asks you “how’s it going?” And you just say “Great.”

So I recommend writing out in advance exactly what your symptoms are and how bad they are, and how they affect your life. No hiding or glossing over.

When you get to the psychiatrist’s office, remember what you wrote. Or even read directly from the paper.

Helps me at least.

I think it depends a lot on where you are. As an Australian, I often find that psychiatrists don’t engage in talk therapies - they’re essentially drug dispensers. I’ve heard (mainly through US media) that in the US though, people will go to a psychiatrist for talk therapy as well as medication. Not sure how it is in the rest of the world.

The most important distinction to remember is that a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specialises in neurochemistry, whereas a psychologist is an allied health professional who cannot prescribe medication. This means that psychologists only employ non-pharmaceutical therapies (like CBT, DBT, Schema Therapy, EMDR etc.).

Disorders are also often separated into being psychological disorders (mood disorders like anxiety, depression etc.) and psychiatric disorders (ADHD, schizophrenia etc.). The key distinction is that generally psychiatric disorders cannot be adequately treated without pharmaceutical intervention, and also that psychological disorders tend to be episodic whereas psychiatric disorder are usually lifelong.

I guess what you’ll get out of it greatly depends on the reasons you’ve been referred to a psychiatrist. If you don’t mind me asking, do you currently have any diagnoses, or are you seeking a diagnosis for your symptoms?

Good luck you either way mate, getting on top of your mental health is seriously important.

Source: studied a Bachelor of Psychology