Read on Twitter
A few weeks into adult #psychiatry and what I have learned so far to be important;
1) Time; is everything. Mental Illness and suffering robs us of time, and finding it to listen, understand, and communicate is essential in making someone feel valued, heard, and respected.
1) Time; is everything. Mental Illness and suffering robs us of time, and finding it to listen, understand, and communicate is essential in making someone feel valued, heard, and respected.
2) Empathy; is essential. Without learning to feel and share in feeling we cannot be good doctors. To really understand and share experience means opening up our walls, and in doing so create a new connection through mutual recognition.
3) Patience; is invaluable. Nothing must move quickly, and often the story is one that evolves with exposure and may change. Learning to be patient, work with someone, and wait for them to feel comfortable means patience. It is worth it.
4) Diagnosis; can be important. But it is not most important. It can help us to access specialised services, use research, may be of value to some, may reassure others, or even feel like a judgement which is best avoided. People react differently, but a diagnosis isn't everything
5) Story; is the key. Where a diagnosis may be a genre, the experience is the novel. Without learning someone's story, you cannot know them, truly help them, build trust, and grow together in a therapeutic relationship. A person's story is their own, and its a privilege to know
6) Medications; are part but not all. Like diagnosis, these are a way of addressing suffering, but they are imperfect. Some work very well, others less, and the experience of use is not one of bliss, but another approach. Only use when essential.
7) Autonomy; is powerful. Enabling and working with people to make their own decisions, small or large, resumes in them a sense of power and control. This should be the case from day one and built upon as time moves forward.
8) Progress; is never a straight line. For every jump forward there may be a step back, for every dance may have a faltering step. Mental illness is a global phenomenon, and change happens in heterogeneous and bidirectional increments. It is our job to support.
9) Humility; is connection. Removing a sense of authority or distance between myself and a patient is the only way to truly establish trust. With a sense of hierarchy comes a perception of obedience, the enemy of autonomy. Although boundaries must be set, this should be rare.
10) Learning; is eternal. Every patient will teach me something, be it a new way of asking a question, a different approach, something about myself, my weaknesses or strengths, or knowledge about psychiatry, it is all part of a tapestry that will never hang on the wall.
