Posted by jojo on July 21, 2001, at 0:50:17
In reply to Re: Psychiatry Without Exposure to Psychobabble?, posted by Else on July 20, 2001, at 20:22:00
> >One of them, a Psychoanalyst, actually laughed and said 'Did I think that her patients were not telling her everything'
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> Did you laugh back. I tell my doctor maybe 5% of what I think. He's too good-looking to go into some of what I REALLY think. Besides, I don't want to make him blush.
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> > Is it possible to effectively practice Psychiatry or Clinical Psychology without browsing through Psychobabble for at least half an hour. I have recommended it to at least three professionals, but I doubt that any of them "had the time", or the interest, to look at it. One of them, a Psychoanalyst, actually laughed and said 'Did I think that her patients were not telling her everything'. Of another Psychoanalyst, who had a similar attitude, I asked "How many patients have said to you "I just farted"? He said one or two. If, out of the hundreds of patients he has seen, only two "admitted" to having just passed wind, then it is obvious that they are not saying all the thoughts that are passing through their minds.
> > These are not "students of the mind", with the intellectual curiosity to see what patients are saying "in
> > private": These are DOCTORS (and damn proud of it), who practice what they were taught, and are not interested in learning from their patients.No. Actually, I was extremely disappointed and dumbfounded. This is the same MD, Psychiatrist, Certified Psychoanalyst (American Psychoanalytic Association) , who, when after 22 years of somewhat intimate knowledge of me, did not bother to answer my email informing her that I had found a new Psychiatrist. I had moved from Michigan to Oklahoma, and had developed severe insomnia, so I used that in telling her that I had found another Psychiatrist. I offered to send her a critique of my reaction to her therapy, if she requested it. I told her that it might not be her favorite reading. She never answered. She will never find out what happens to the patients that she is unable to help.
After a few visits, my new therapist told me one or two sentences about herself-more than I knew after 22 years with the other one-so that I could understand my difficulty in getting in touch with her.
She has chosen a difficult path in her personal life involving an adoption, and I see that she has a full plate. The next time that I saw her, I told her that I thought that she had just been venting some anger, due to her rushed life, but if she had told me those few things as a therapeutic maneuver, it was brilliant. In two sentences, it provided me an armature around which I could construct my image of her (Freud actually had his patients for Sunday lunches some times during the year. The NeoFreudians think it's best if you know as little as possible about them). In the critique that she never requested, I had told her that I recently heard a Psychoanalyst from Florida say, during an interview on NPR, that the most important part of Psychotherapy is the relationship between the patient and the Analyst (I think I would rather make that Patient. I think it's necessary for the Psychiatrist to learn from his Patients if he is going to get any better in his methods of treatment), and that, quite frankly, our relationship sucked-and not to take that as a Freudian interpretation of a successful "mother transference". I understand that as the DOCTOR, she had nothing to learn from her patients. She was the EXPERT, and insisted on being in charge.So, the short answer is; no.
Regarding you, why should you pay him to avoid his being embarrassed (your fantasy), or limit what you say because he's so good looking. Does he blush a little when you get near that outer 5%, and your afraid of loosing that? You may enjoy his embarrassment as you increase it to 40 or 50%. If he actually can't deal with it, maybe he should be paying you for his training. Unless, of course, you're using him as a source of drugs, which can be just as valid as psychotherapy if all one has is a vulnerable therapist.
poster:jojo
thread:71073
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010720/msgs/71150.html