As Buckmaster Fuller said the answer to the question is the question. In other words if you don’t ask the correct question you will not get the correct answer.
The central question should be “why do patients recover”. There is much research in this area including longtitudonal studies of patients discharged from the asylums.
The answer I found was that the first step was always that another formed a positive relationship with the patient based on the patients reality. Telling the patients that they are wrong, or what is wrong with them does not help. The first step is a willingness to be there with the patient and understand what they are saying.
So true. The psychiatrist lacks insight into the patients condition while the patient has too much. Patients are not out of their minds they are too deep in it.
What an insightful and well written article. I left Scotland in 1968 and 1978 I had my own transformative episode. However I viewed this as Psychosis produced by over active transformative process or the psychological equivalent of a cytokine storm rather than Psychosis as a Transformative process. Slightly different viewpoint. Anyway the Psychosis was over in 1978 but the transformation at a less deep level goes on.
I see you are also a film maker. After my wife died I found this standup comedian Shelley. She is my girlfriend. During the pandemic lock-down she recruited me to play Mr Smartly in her sketch comedy The Smartlys which you can view on Plex TV.
I am available if you wish more details of my transformation/psychosis.
ML Eric
As an ex-patient and trainee psychiatric nurse I have personally experienced and witnessed all you describe however I believe that this process is critical to the development of schizophrenic like psychoses and starts before contact with the psychiatric profession which exacerbates the process. The medical model which has been extremely successful in treating physical illnesses is counter indicated in the treatment of mental illnesses. A rehab model which focuses on making the patient better rather than finding out what is wrong with them is far better. I helped a patient by getting his mother to focus on what is right with her son rather than what is wrong with him. My own experience was that I only needed one person to believe in me and to support me. It was not an easy journey and as you say it only became successful when I demanded respect. If you do not like or respect me you cannot be my friend. I don’t need you telling me what you think is wrong with me.Support and encouragement goes a long way to help.
I found that recovery from psychosis was enlightening but the psychosis was not.
The development of self through our perception of how we think others perceive us is a normal process which is gradually replaced, with maturity, by a more self determined process. The failure of this development is critical to development of psychosis.
Great article
As Buckmaster Fuller said the answer to the question is the question. In other words if you don’t ask the correct question you will not get the correct answer.
The central question should be “why do patients recover”. There is much research in this area including longtitudonal studies of patients discharged from the asylums.
The answer I found was that the first step was always that another formed a positive relationship with the patient based on the patients reality. Telling the patients that they are wrong, or what is wrong with them does not help. The first step is a willingness to be there with the patient and understand what they are saying.
So true. The psychiatrist lacks insight into the patients condition while the patient has too much. Patients are not out of their minds they are too deep in it.
What an insightful and well written article. I left Scotland in 1968 and 1978 I had my own transformative episode. However I viewed this as Psychosis produced by over active transformative process or the psychological equivalent of a cytokine storm rather than Psychosis as a Transformative process. Slightly different viewpoint. Anyway the Psychosis was over in 1978 but the transformation at a less deep level goes on.
I see you are also a film maker. After my wife died I found this standup comedian Shelley. She is my girlfriend. During the pandemic lock-down she recruited me to play Mr Smartly in her sketch comedy The Smartlys which you can view on Plex TV.
I am available if you wish more details of my transformation/psychosis.
ML Eric
As an ex-patient and trainee psychiatric nurse I have personally experienced and witnessed all you describe however I believe that this process is critical to the development of schizophrenic like psychoses and starts before contact with the psychiatric profession which exacerbates the process. The medical model which has been extremely successful in treating physical illnesses is counter indicated in the treatment of mental illnesses. A rehab model which focuses on making the patient better rather than finding out what is wrong with them is far better. I helped a patient by getting his mother to focus on what is right with her son rather than what is wrong with him. My own experience was that I only needed one person to believe in me and to support me. It was not an easy journey and as you say it only became successful when I demanded respect. If you do not like or respect me you cannot be my friend. I don’t need you telling me what you think is wrong with me.Support and encouragement goes a long way to help.
I found that recovery from psychosis was enlightening but the psychosis was not.
The development of self through our perception of how we think others perceive us is a normal process which is gradually replaced, with maturity, by a more self determined process. The failure of this development is critical to development of psychosis.