Hello Judy and Welcome to the Chronic Pain Connection.
I've heard here on this site and on others that some doctors require a phyc eval before the trial of your pain pump.
Another time that a person in pain has to go through this eval is when you go through the SSDI process and that's when I had mine.
When they origanally told me I had to have one, I remember being very insentced & offended about the requirement, but after I thought about it for awhile, it was not that big of a deal for me.
The psychiatrist was very nice, he asked my all kinds of questions about my life. my childhood, had me spell & count forward & backwards or do simple addition or subtraction, nothing to worry about. It only lasted about a 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes. He looked to see whether I was on time & how I behaved in the waiting area, just kind of weird stuff. I'd do it again if anyone needed to know and I would not be nervous at all. From what I read in my report, it seemed pretty much like they were wanting this docs opinion of my mental health and I did fine.
I know that if it comes up again in my pain process, I'm certainly not going to be nervous like I was the first time. Just relax and go in and talk to him. Not a big deal at all.
Good luck
Betty
"Only by openness to the mystery of God, who is love, can our hearts' thirst for truth and happiness be satisfied; only the perspective of eternity can give authentic value to historical events and above all to the mystery of human frailty, suffering and death."
Pope Benedict XVI
