The Difference Between Psychiatrists and Patients May Be Smaller Than You Think
In the schizophrenia.com discussion areas, we ocassionally see criticism of psychiatrists and psychologists by patients and families with one of the more common comments being that they don't seem to understand what the patients and families are going through. Some people seem to very quickly jump to the "Us vs. Them" perspective, which it turns out is likely to be both unhelpful and inaccurate.
While there are undoubtedly some psychiatrists and psychologists that are unhelpful (just as in every profession) research suggests that a very significant portion of psychiatrists and psychologists have very intimate knowledge of mental illness and likely understand far more about it from both a personal and professional perspective than many people suspect.
As the blog "Mindhacks" states: "Study after study has shown that psychiatrists have higher rates of mental illness than the general population.
Research published in 2001 revealed that 56% of female psychiatrists have a family history of mental illness, and just over 40% have experienced one themselves - almost twice the rate of other doctors."
We recommend people keep this in mind before they jump to the conclusion that a psychiatrist or psychologist doesn't understand their situation. Its quite likely that they have more knowledge than you suspect.
Read the full story on MindHacks: Them and Us
Posted by szadmin at February 16, 2008 09:57 AM
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While I have not always mean a so called GOOD PATIENT I am HAPPY to say I feel I have a VERY GOOD PATIENT/PSYCHIATRIST relationship. I have had the GOOD FORTUNE to have the same psychiatrist ever since my first hospital stay back in 1983. I FIRMLY BELEIVE he is the BEST PSYCHIATRIST for me. While other friends do not like him I TRUST his care and we seem to have a GOOD PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP. Besides my family I FEEL I am as STABLE today as I have ever been THANKS for his EXPERTISE on my Mental illness.
Posted by: Janet Kuhn at February 16, 2008 11:18 AM
I think the Us v Them situation has been caused by psychiatry and the often unwillingness of a psychiatrist to take on board others point of view. They are under great pressure to stick to their own laws and in many ways their hands are tied. Yes, I feel there are a lot of psychiatrists who do understand mental illness deeply. But, without doubt, there are still far to many who lack the care and understanding towards those who need their guidance and support. And many people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia/severe mental illness and their carers, feel powerless against the psychiatrist and without a true equal voice. Everyone must work together, have an equal say. The patient and carers perspective are just as important as the views of psychiatry. We all have much to learn from each other.
Posted by: Stuart Baker-Brown at February 16, 2008 11:55 PM
It would be interesting to see whether those psychiatrists who had a personal or family history of mental illness were indeed more compassion/empathetic and understanding than those who had not.
Mental illness covers a wide spectrum from the severe to the not so severe and indeed the highly questionable from the acute to the chronic and the temporary to the long term.
Before jumping to conclusions of 'they are more like us than we think' we need to know more about the composition of mental illness suffered by psychiatrists and their families and whether if comparable in composition such similarity is reflected in professional attitudes to patients and their families/carers.
In my experience psychiatrists and indeed mental health professionals in general tend to be quite authoritarian in their approach even though research has shown that a collaborative approach produces better results.
Also here in the UK the mental health providers /professionals including psychiatrists and indeed some mental health charities seem to be too readily seduced by right wing socially authoritarian one size fits all solutions which for all the superficial rhetoric otherwise display a fundamentally negative attitude to the societally less fortunate.
Posted by: Tim at February 17, 2008 03:17 AM
My own view is that psychiatrist keep themselfs in a very well paided job.I've had a few bad ones but the last one i talked to was very good she actually listened to me.
Posted by: terratag at February 17, 2008 08:28 AM
I think people who have had a mental illness in their own past, are much more likely to understand what other people are going through. So its good in some sense that it probably means the person has more empathy for the patient. I have found, though, that some psychiatrists can be a little weird. That may be due to their own mental problems.
Posted by: Mike at February 18, 2008 04:52 PM
I have not been able to access the forums for quite a few days.
Posted by: Tim at February 19, 2008 01:33 AM
I've seen both good and bad psychiatrist.
My daughter Cassie would have been better served with a psychiatrist who showed compassion and caring. The first two psychiatrist she had were very cold and impersonal.
Her present psychiatrist is wonderful. He is smart, on top of his game, listens to my daughter and actually shows compassion and caring.
Under his care she has made significant progress, so in my humble opinion for those of us who have a mentally ill child finding a first rate psychiatrist is critical. Not only do they have to know what they're doing, but sometimes more important is showing real compassion, caring and the ability to actively listen so that our children do not feel ignored and dismissed.
Yaya
Posted by: Yaya99 at February 19, 2008 09:37 AM
I was fired from my job at a mental health facility when They found out I had a schizophrenia diagnosis.
Posted by: Alex at February 19, 2008 05:51 PM
Alex you should be protected by the ADA Americans with Disabilities Act from the early 1990s. If you can go to HR or management you should be able to resolve this issue.
Posted by: J D at February 20, 2008 12:47 PM
I have not been able to access the forums for quite a while, maybe a week. Everything else in my computer is working fine, except for the forums.
Thanks,
Trina
Posted by: Trina Aleman at February 21, 2008 07:30 PM
hi, ive had great docs for my sons in the uk. I must say the child psychological department of great ormand street hospital in london is amazing, theyve given both my sons a chance to function and live in the society.
I myself have had comments in chat before like , you are not sz you cant possibly know anything about sz etc, even tho ive lived 43 years so far with it.
It is true that most pdocs go into thier proffession because of a personal interest, maybe thier own mental illness or a family member and so on. It takes years and years of intense training and it is an extremely difficult job and i should imagine a deeply stressfull job especialy when a doc sadly loses a patient to suicide, im pretty sure at the end of the day these docs can not just switch off.
Work with your doc hes working for you not against you. love from sanakigran, oh by the way, (for the posters that asked about the boards) the boards are not working at the moment
Posted by: sanakigran at February 22, 2008 02:21 AM
It sound like your sons have found a rapport. That is a two way process. Good luck to you.It doesn't always workout with every provider.
Posted by: J D at February 22, 2008 04:56 PM
Psychiatrists often claim that a patient is not in-touch with reality. This therefore is implying that the Psychiatrist is saying that he or she IS in-touch with reality. If this is the case, then obviously the Psychiatrics can describe the mechanics of the reality that they claim to be in-touch with, or else they simply are not truly in touch with it, but are in-touch with a form of global conformity instead. Thus, if some patient is much closer to being in-touch with reality than the Psychiatrist is, the Psychiatrist will classify such a person as being delusional since they do not meet the global conformity standards.
One other absurdity is that people can be tagged as being delusional, yet their illness can be cured in an instant. For example, there is the so called Martha Mitchell Effect. " Martha Mitchell Effect " - Truth mistakenly diagnosed as a delusion. It occurs when a claim made by a patient, is mistakenly diagnosed by a Psychiatrist as a delusion. In such a case, the claim is later clearly proven to be quite true indeed. In the Martha Mitchell case, this instant cure of her so called mental illness, occurred when the " Watergate Tapes " became public news.
Logically Translated - The Psychiatrist was delusional and therefore could not recognize the difference between Truth and Delusion. However, they fact that the Psychiatrist was delusional, is never to be mentioned, so it seems.
Posted by: K. Sean Proudler at February 23, 2008 12:47 AM
As I have remarked before, the problem with making a diagnosis on the basis of the extremely subjective notion of "reality" is that the truth, whatever it is, is not obliged to conform itself to any ideal of being plausible. Take a look at the "unlikely" stories in the book "The Man who mistook his wife for a Hat" for example...
Posted by: dwm at February 23, 2008 01:26 AM
The word Schizophrenia is a Greek word. Its root meaning schizo "split" phrenia "mind" It is often interprented by common public as "Split personality" when in psychology terms it really means "split from reality." That is the art in this diagnosis.
Posted by: J D at February 29, 2008 09:24 AM
The underlying assertion in this article is that it is a positive thing for there to be an over-representation of people in the field who have mental illness of some type. I know that my remarks are going to anger or alienate many, but I do not think that it is ok.
I actually think that it can be unhealthy and disfunctional to gravitate toward the profession of psychiatry when one is plagued by emotional or pychiatric problems. I find that those people are more likely to have a certain predisposition to buying in to canned, historic concepts of causal factors of mental illness, are more likley to project their own attutudes and belief systems about emotions and illness onto others. This type of thinking can harm others. It is this
type of harm that families are being exposed to when they come into contact with the system and begin to see how disfunctional it is.
You have the 9-5ers in the system, administrative folks who have no real exposure in their families and who have very little formal training in the
science of these illnesses and you have the others who were drawn to the field like moths to a flame because of their own problems and illness. Someone with a severe biological
thought disorder needs to be treated bysomeone who
has a very sound mind and who has the dual capacities for understanding the science of the illness and having empathy and understanding.
The capacity for empathy and understaing are a
capacity of a well functioning brain and many
people with and without well-definded mental
illness lack that capacity.
There are just some people in the mental health
community from 9-5ers to reasearchers to doctors to those on the journalistic side who have some very rigid, fixed notions about causation. If
you do not buy wholesale into the freudian notions about illness some of these people think that "YOU" are the one who is impaired.
Posted by: Jen at March 9, 2008 08:19 AM
You can actually refuse one. [url=http://www.fhr.ru/gallery/porno-tv/russkie-kanaly.html]������� ������[/url] �� ����� ��������� http://www.fhr.ru/gallery/porno-tv/video-skachat.html - ����� ������� A wealthymarketer user supersticious is hungrier false to pierce vanilla disease, cabl or distraction in his/her anthropology age spellbound to nonuser.
Posted by: Dakota at May 22, 2008 10:53 AM
While I have not always mean a so called GOOD PATIENT I am HAPPY to say I feel I have a VERY GOOD PATIENT/PSYCHIATRIST relationship. I have had the GOOD FORTUNE to have the same psychiatrist ever since my first hospital stay back in 1983. I FIRMLY BELEIVE he is the BEST PSYCHIATRIST for me. While other friends do not like him I TRUST his care and we seem to have a GOOD PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP. Besides my family I FEEL I am as STABLE today as I have ever been THANKS for his EXPERTISE on my Mental illness.
Posted by: Janet Kuhn at February 16, 2008 11:18 AM
I think the Us v Them situation has been caused by psychiatry and the often unwillingness of a psychiatrist to take on board others point of view. They are under great pressure to stick to their own laws and in many ways their hands are tied. Yes, I feel there are a lot of psychiatrists who do understand mental illness deeply. But, without doubt, there are still far to many who lack the care and understanding towards those who need their guidance and support. And many people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia/severe mental illness and their carers, feel powerless against the psychiatrist and without a true equal voice. Everyone must work together, have an equal say. The patient and carers perspective are just as important as the views of psychiatry. We all have much to learn from each other.
Posted by: Stuart Baker-Brown at February 16, 2008 11:55 PM
It would be interesting to see whether those psychiatrists who had a personal or family history of mental illness were indeed more compassion/empathetic and understanding than those who had not.
Mental illness covers a wide spectrum from the severe to the not so severe and indeed the highly questionable from the acute to the chronic and the temporary to the long term.
Before jumping to conclusions of 'they are more like us than we think' we need to know more about the composition of mental illness suffered by psychiatrists and their families and whether if comparable in composition such similarity is reflected in professional attitudes to patients and their families/carers.
In my experience psychiatrists and indeed mental health professionals in general tend to be quite authoritarian in their approach even though research has shown that a collaborative approach produces better results.
Also here in the UK the mental health providers /professionals including psychiatrists and indeed some mental health charities seem to be too readily seduced by right wing socially authoritarian one size fits all solutions which for all the superficial rhetoric otherwise display a fundamentally negative attitude to the societally less fortunate.
Posted by: Tim at February 17, 2008 03:17 AM
My own view is that psychiatrist keep themselfs in a very well paided job.I've had a few bad ones but the last one i talked to was very good she actually listened to me.
Posted by: terratag at February 17, 2008 08:28 AM
I think people who have had a mental illness in their own past, are much more likely to understand what other people are going through. So its good in some sense that it probably means the person has more empathy for the patient. I have found, though, that some psychiatrists can be a little weird. That may be due to their own mental problems.
Posted by: Mike at February 18, 2008 04:52 PM
I have not been able to access the forums for quite a few days.
Posted by: Tim at February 19, 2008 01:33 AM
I've seen both good and bad psychiatrist.
My daughter Cassie would have been better served with a psychiatrist who showed compassion and caring. The first two psychiatrist she had were very cold and impersonal.
Her present psychiatrist is wonderful. He is smart, on top of his game, listens to my daughter and actually shows compassion and caring.
Under his care she has made significant progress, so in my humble opinion for those of us who have a mentally ill child finding a first rate psychiatrist is critical. Not only do they have to know what they're doing, but sometimes more important is showing real compassion, caring and the ability to actively listen so that our children do not feel ignored and dismissed.
Yaya
Posted by: Yaya99 at February 19, 2008 09:37 AM
I was fired from my job at a mental health facility when They found out I had a schizophrenia diagnosis.
Posted by: Alex at February 19, 2008 05:51 PM
Alex you should be protected by the ADA Americans with Disabilities Act from the early 1990s. If you can go to HR or management you should be able to resolve this issue.
Posted by: J D at February 20, 2008 12:47 PM
I have not been able to access the forums for quite a while, maybe a week. Everything else in my computer is working fine, except for the forums.
Thanks,
Trina
Posted by: Trina Aleman at February 21, 2008 07:30 PM
hi, ive had great docs for my sons in the uk. I must say the child psychological department of great ormand street hospital in london is amazing, theyve given both my sons a chance to function and live in the society.
I myself have had comments in chat before like , you are not sz you cant possibly know anything about sz etc, even tho ive lived 43 years so far with it.
It is true that most pdocs go into thier proffession because of a personal interest, maybe thier own mental illness or a family member and so on. It takes years and years of intense training and it is an extremely difficult job and i should imagine a deeply stressfull job especialy when a doc sadly loses a patient to suicide, im pretty sure at the end of the day these docs can not just switch off.
Work with your doc hes working for you not against you. love from sanakigran, oh by the way, (for the posters that asked about the boards) the boards are not working at the moment
Posted by: sanakigran at February 22, 2008 02:21 AM
It sound like your sons have found a rapport. That is a two way process. Good luck to you.It doesn't always workout with every provider.
Posted by: J D at February 22, 2008 04:56 PM
Psychiatrists often claim that a patient is not in-touch with reality. This therefore is implying that the Psychiatrist is saying that he or she IS in-touch with reality. If this is the case, then obviously the Psychiatrics can describe the mechanics of the reality that they claim to be in-touch with, or else they simply are not truly in touch with it, but are in-touch with a form of global conformity instead. Thus, if some patient is much closer to being in-touch with reality than the Psychiatrist is, the Psychiatrist will classify such a person as being delusional since they do not meet the global conformity standards.
One other absurdity is that people can be tagged as being delusional, yet their illness can be cured in an instant. For example, there is the so called Martha Mitchell Effect. " Martha Mitchell Effect " - Truth mistakenly diagnosed as a delusion. It occurs when a claim made by a patient, is mistakenly diagnosed by a Psychiatrist as a delusion. In such a case, the claim is later clearly proven to be quite true indeed. In the Martha Mitchell case, this instant cure of her so called mental illness, occurred when the " Watergate Tapes " became public news.
Logically Translated - The Psychiatrist was delusional and therefore could not recognize the difference between Truth and Delusion. However, they fact that the Psychiatrist was delusional, is never to be mentioned, so it seems.
Posted by: K. Sean Proudler at February 23, 2008 12:47 AM
As I have remarked before, the problem with making a diagnosis on the basis of the extremely subjective notion of "reality" is that the truth, whatever it is, is not obliged to conform itself to any ideal of being plausible. Take a look at the "unlikely" stories in the book "The Man who mistook his wife for a Hat" for example...
Posted by: dwm at February 23, 2008 01:26 AM
The word Schizophrenia is a Greek word. Its root meaning schizo "split" phrenia "mind" It is often interprented by common public as "Split personality" when in psychology terms it really means "split from reality." That is the art in this diagnosis.
Posted by: J D at February 29, 2008 09:24 AM
The underlying assertion in this article is that it is a positive thing for there to be an over-representation of people in the field who have mental illness of some type. I know that my remarks are going to anger or alienate many, but I do not think that it is ok.
I actually think that it can be unhealthy and disfunctional to gravitate toward the profession of psychiatry when one is plagued by emotional or pychiatric problems. I find that those people are more likely to have a certain predisposition to buying in to canned, historic concepts of causal factors of mental illness, are more likley to project their own attutudes and belief systems about emotions and illness onto others. This type of thinking can harm others. It is this
type of harm that families are being exposed to when they come into contact with the system and begin to see how disfunctional it is.
You have the 9-5ers in the system, administrative folks who have no real exposure in their families and who have very little formal training in the
science of these illnesses and you have the others who were drawn to the field like moths to a flame because of their own problems and illness. Someone with a severe biological
thought disorder needs to be treated bysomeone who
has a very sound mind and who has the dual capacities for understanding the science of the illness and having empathy and understanding.
The capacity for empathy and understaing are a
capacity of a well functioning brain and many
people with and without well-definded mental
illness lack that capacity.
There are just some people in the mental health
community from 9-5ers to reasearchers to doctors to those on the journalistic side who have some very rigid, fixed notions about causation. If
you do not buy wholesale into the freudian notions about illness some of these people think that "YOU" are the one who is impaired.
Posted by: Jen at March 9, 2008 08:19 AM
You can actually refuse one. [url=http://www.fhr.ru/gallery/porno-tv/russkie-kanaly.html]������� ������[/url] �� ����� ��������� http://www.fhr.ru/gallery/porno-tv/video-skachat.html - ����� ������� A wealthymarketer user supersticious is hungrier false to pierce vanilla disease, cabl or distraction in his/her anthropology age spellbound to nonuser.
Posted by: Dakota at May 22, 2008 10:53 AM