Posted by shellie on July 5, 2000, at 18:17:41
In reply to Re: psychiatric hospitals » shellie, posted by Craig on July 5, 2000, at 2:53:14
> Hi Shellie. Yup, Braun wrote the BASK model. I flew out-of-state so he would be my doctor and was in-patient for six weeks, until my insurance ran out --and thank God that it did. The experience was so intense that it's still hard to describe twelve years later. I was pretty shattered at the time and I still don't know how I got through it. Dr. Braun was confident that he'd re-admit me later on, but I was so terrified of him that I knew I'd never return. He knew too much and I couldn't handle it. If you could share some of your experiences with doctors and hospitals that treated you, I would be very interested to hear them. It isn't often that I get to converse with anyone else that dissociates.
>
Hi Craig. I don't really have much more to tell you. I had a consultation with Dr. Joan Turkus, after I felt that I was going no where after a long time in therapy with different therapists (none specialists in dissociative disorder) At that time, it was very useful to me--we talked about the use of hypnosis in therapy and also the task of grieving about what was taken from me. It's hard to believe, but grieving had never come up before in therapy, and I had to ask, what she really meant. It is only years later that I am finally able to do some of that work.The only hospital I've been in (besides my one month of hell at Sheppard Pratt was PI). The first visit (5 weeks) was very positive for me, and it was very hard to leave. It was sort of like therapy/camp. My therapist there is now my outpatient therapist, although that didn't happen until over two years later.
She uses hypnosis and EMDR. EMDR hasn't proved that helpful to me. I know it's helpful for a lot of survivors, especially with memory issues. She works a lot cognitively--helping me to make my life easier. Like letting little things go, and also thinking about possible consequences before I say or do something, so I can decide if the results will be worth it to me. She focuses less on the dissociation than my therapist before her, and I've gone back and forth on my feelings about that.
I was in a support group provided by the hospital for free for dissociative disorders, and also spent a few months going three morning a week to PI's outpatient program on dissociative disorders. This was all several years ago. Then I felt I had enough--I got tired of being around all the histrionics and also tired of looking at myself as different.
My friend (DID) had Richard Lowenstein at Sheppard Pratt Hospital, said he was very knowledgeable but also thought he knew everything. If I ever go for another major consultation I think I would go to Boston to see James Chu; he is supposedly very smart and very kind and gentle. He's at McLean. I say major, because I also feel that if something comes up about my therapy, where I felt confused or stuck, I would probably choose to see Joan Turkus about it, since she is local and she already knows me and my therapist.
Anyway, luckily I haven't been in many hospitals, and really don't plan to be. A lot of my history is still totally blocked off from me, so I can't know what's going to happen in the future, if it becomes assessible.
I'm sorry Braun was so scary to you. It seems like perhaps he did not understand the importance of unfolding--like he just zapped you. Maybe he did that because you had time constraints, I don't know.
shellie
poster:shellie
thread:39156
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000630/msgs/39482.html