Posted by alexandra_k on January 13, 2005, at 19:24:40
In reply to alexandra_k: live example of the Cotard D, posted by smokeymadison on January 13, 2005, at 13:39:13
That reminds me of another case I have read about. One woman claimed she was dead. She made her family put on mourning clothes and wore them herself. She made them go and buy her a coffin. She used to lie in the coffin with her arms folded in front of her. This seems more than metaphoric. She never asked them to bury or cremate her though!
> any thoughts? this didn't seem to be an utterance of metaphorical weight or anything. she truely believed that she was dead.
Yeah. I don't know what to say... Only that in these cases 'emotional death' might not quite cut it. But then 'biological death' doesn't quite seem to cut it either (presumably she would have admitted to feeling her heart beat).
That is the problem of delusions I suppose... :-)
Hey, you didn't happen to have a pic of the Muller Lyer illusion with you did ya?
> by the way, i wish i were back in the hospital. i am waiting until my car gets fixed to do intensive outpatient therapy. in the meantime, i miss the structure of the environment. here at home i just feel out of sorts. but of course, the pdoc know i was becoming reliant on the hospital--that is way i was only there for 3 days.Yeah, thats why they don't like putting me there either. I get on 'too well' with the patients. I get on 'too well' with the structure and with some of the people who are kind and accepting (typically the patients). I have a fondness for the 'most crazy' ones. Trying to understand what it is like to be them via empathy. This is probably a misquote but I'll have a go.
'the psychiatrist Elvin Semrad could make any psychotic patient sane. Semrad got into the minds of his patients by radical empathy. He succeeded in drawing them out of their delusional world'.
If only we could systematise this skill. Make it comprehensible to everyone else (if it was true that he was indeed able to do that). Don't know if it is possible or not..
It is hard adjusting to being out. It is hard to know whether being there is good for one or not. Good to get one through a really hard patch. I read somewhere that it was optimal (though cost prohibitive) to have intensive inpatient treatment for a year and then continue intensive treatment in the community for peoples with BPD. Just not practically possible I suppose. Who knows what the optimal treatment would be if cost wasn't an issue. Who knows. Probably not the same for everyone.
I hope you get your car fixed soon.
Thanks.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:441656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20041210/msgs/441839.html