In my last column, I wrote about psychiatry.
This caused a big feedback — on the street; in the mall and at the grocery store — on the bus.
Before I get into the details, I want to ask you to take part in this discussion by e-mailing me at [email protected].
It is most important that we get together as a community and speak.
Coast Reporter’s associate publisher and editor have broken journalistic ground by printing this discussion. Take advantage of it.
What really came to me is that patients, parents, lovers, and friends see the medical approach as necessary, but not sufficient. In the heartbreaking world of caring, it is just true that many angles are a reality.
Let’s take Paula. This is not her real name. She is bi-polar and prone to violence. We spoke recently, with two other folks living with mental illness, about her experiences with psychiatry and her psychologist.
Paula echoed the ambivalence felt by many about psychiatry.
“I see my psych once a month, because I need to keep up with my medication, but really, my day-to-day problems are with learning and coping,” she said.
Paula’s illness caused her to underachieve academically. Since her teens, she has been so busy coping with her medical condition that she never developed learning skills — was never able to study history, her passion.
“My psychologist . . . I see her once a week . . . she specializes in learning. Don’t get me wrong. My psych — I need him as well,” she related. “But my psychologist just talks me through issues and helps me more on a daily basis. She gives me really practical things I can do in the morning to help me learn and cope. Keep my anger away.”
Noah, who sat in on our discussion, was more strident in his views, which I can’t quote due to his frequent cursing and stuttering.
He strongly resents being unable to see his psychiatrist more than once a month and feels his frequent hospitalization on the Lower Mainland is due an insufficient supply of psychiatric care.
However, Noah is a survivor, and he has undertaken weekly cognitive psychotherapy from a psychologist that helps him overcome the shame he feels and his sense of personal insufficiency.
In the last month, I interviewed widely about psychiatry and psychology — with local patients and with practitioners in the Vancouver area. Paula and Noah embodied an almost universal view — there is one no perfect solution.
Psychology is a huge field, and for folks living with a mental/mood disorder a psychologist can provide enduring solutions for difficulties in coping with life.
Paula, for example, benefits hugely from her sessions with an educational psychologist, who helps her overcome emotional hurdles, anger, and learn things she wants to learn.
Yet, without the monthly sessions with her psychiatrist, Paula would be unable to do this. She is ill, and needs the medical perspective a psychiatrist can offer.
For Noah…overcoming shame, stigma, and social rejection has been key. And the sessions he’s had with his psychologist have helped enormously.
The therapeutic approach to mental illness gets more complex as one delves deeper; the differences and efficacy of different models blurs.
In my next column, we’ll look at social work.
Editor’s note: Hugh Macaulay is vice president of the Arrowhead Clubhouse in Sechelt. He writes monthly about mental health issues with a focus on the Sunshine Coast.
