Pavlov's Couch

A Psychology Student's Mental Experience

Archive for the tag “mental health”

Taking a different view

Last week I was witness, even a part of something that made me very uncomfortable. I was shadowing a goal planning meeting that involved the patient and a member of their family, but no one took any time to tell either of them who I was or why I was there. And I did nothing to correct this problem -partly because I had been advised to keep quiet in goal planning meetings but mostly because I felt like as a mere placement student I had no right to speak up. But it did make me very uncomfortable.

Why? Well, when I was working on my Level 3 NVQ in mental health care a group of us prepared a presentation that showed, though role play, two polar extremes of good and bad service in an almost identical situation. By putting ourselves in the shoes of service users and family invited to meetings, one of the things we specifically identified as a problem was having people in the room but not knowing who they are.

“Who was that person? Why were they there? I didn’t like having strangers in the room with everyone talking about my personal stuff. I didn’t feel like I could talk openly either!”

There’s nothing I can really do about it now, except possibly bring it up in my next supervision, but it’s definitely something I can reflect on and do what I can to make a better situation next time.

Thin – A Documentary

My psych disorders lecturer is a big fan of putting videos into her lectures. A lot of them reflect her bias and I have serious complaints about her choices (I’ll post about this later) but this one was very good so I decided to share it with you all.

Thin (2006) is a documentary about four women in Renfrew eating disorder clinic in Florida, and provides an insight into the pain and struggle of battling eating disorders as well as a glimpse of what the inside of an eating disorder clinic is like. A number of my current and past friends have struggled with eating disorders in their past, including my partner, and one of my good friends spent a few years working in such a clinic, so I found this documentary very interesting and informative. It is also powerful.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lAlo80fU

Welcome to Mental Playhouse!

Reblogged from Mental Playhouse:

Click to visit the original post

Hi everyone. New blog, ahoy! It's an idea that has been bubbling around for a while now. And so we created Mental Playhouse. From our About page:

Mental Playhouse is a collaborative blog. It’s a hub for people to come and discuss topics both serious and light related to mental health. Our aims: Informative, entertaining, welcoming. Here for discussing, chatting, piss-taking.

Read more… 101 more words

A new collaborative blog is starting which will feature posts from a number of established bloggers in the Mental Health community, so keep your eyes peeled! It promises to be interesting, informative, and just a little bit mental :)

Mental Health Hotline

This one has been doing the rounds for many years now (I first heard it on the radio in Austria about fifteen years ago!), but it’s such a classic it bears repeating :)

Mental health hotline:

If you are Obsessive/Compulsive: Press 1 repeatedly.

If you are Co-Dependent: Ask someone to press 2 for you.

If you have Multiple Personalities: Press 3, 4, 5, and 6.

If you are Paranoid: We know what you are and what you want. Stay on the line and we’ll trace your call.

If you are Delusional: Press 7 and your call will be transferred to the Mother ship.

If you are Schizophrenic: Listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press.

If you are Depressive: It doesn’t matter which number you press. No one will answer you.

If you have a Short-Term Memory Loss: Please try your call again later.

If you have Low Self-Esteem: Hang up. All operators are too busy to talk to you.

Mental Health Labels

How powerful is a label? Do we live the labels we are given? Do we treat others according to the labels they are ascribed? This beautiful video by Storey reminds us of the importance of thinking about these things, and as an added benefit all proceeds from purchasing the song (available on iTunes) go to the NHS West London Mental Health Trust “Open Minds” campaign!

It’s worth watching full-screen on HD if you can (click the button that says “360p” when the video starts playing and choose “720p HD”

Search Terms

For a while now I have been wanting to post something about the search terms people have used which have led them to my blog. Looking at these terms is interesting and can be a measure of what interests are driving people to your blog. Sometimes they can be a little sad. And sometimes they can be downright disturbing as we will see a bit later in this post. I was reminded of the importance of these search terms when I was contacted recently about my post that mentioned Miracle Fruits – the company that makes them, Miracle Fruit World, has offered me a free pack of large miracle fruits for writing a review of the ones I have once I’ve tried them. I’m quite excited about this really, it feels like winning a competition I didn’t even enter! Anyway, expect a review of the Miracle Frooties soon :)

My blog can be quite eclectic at times. Although I generally posts about psychology, mental health, and being a student, occasionally I post about something random or personal and those things seem to come up regularly in the search terms too.

I have had a number of people come to this site looking for more information on the Level 3 NVQ in Mental Health Work. To those people I say this: go for it, and good Luck! More and more mental health employers seem to be asking for this qualification so it really does open door, and even without that it is something that shines on your CV. Not to mention how much you benefit personally from the skills you learn on the course! If anyone would like to talk to me about my experience of the course please feel free to contact me. As I write this I haven’t finished the course yet though!

I also seem to get a lot of hits about split brain patients and the Sperry experiment. I’m pleasantly surprised by this one actually, I get a few hits every week for that post! (note to self: write more about split brain!)

My post about catathrenia has generated some interest too, with people searching for understanding or solutions. I’m afraid I can provide neither here but there are some great websites around that help.

Equally my posts about Stanley Milgram, Bibb and Latane and the diffusion of responsibility, Kitty Genovese, and A Man Without Words have all generated regular hits. I just hope that anyone searching for these things found my posts interesting!

Drifting to the weird, I’m not entirely sure how I got ten hits for “blue tack”. This is one of those moments where I literally have no idea what made Google put my blog on the search results, or why anyone would then click through to my blog!
EDIT: I have since realised that this was a reference to my post on my Forensic security induction.

Because of my writing about graphology I get many hits from people looking for information or examples of handwriting linked to schizophrenia, psychosis, and OCD. I was a little surprised, though, to see someone search for “all American handwriting” I really don’t know what this person expected to find!

I also wonder what made Google send people who had searched for “how to fail your degree” to my blog. Five times! Hey Google! What are you trying to say?!

Then there are those that make me giggle. Like “anatomy of a couch” which conjures some very strange images, and fits well with another search term “what do you call the couch in psychology?”
umm…’couch’?

Another term that brings some fantastic images to mind is “iceberg and ducks flapping furiously” – I can help but wonder exactly how an iceberg flaps, furiously or otherwise!

I’m not entirely sure what the person who searched for “studying = school dying” or “study equal to student dying” or “study + student dying” was looking for, but as I approach my exams I find myself empathising with any sentence that equates studying with dying.

I have to give respect to the web-surfer who came to my blog attempting to understand a “psychologists head”. A brave task to undertake indeed!

To the person searching for “blank social security card template” I’m not sure why you are looking for that, and I think I would rather keep it that way! Needless to say this is not the place for your identity fraud shopping needs!

“side by side diagram of a brain that suffers mental addiction and one that doesn’t” has got me stumped. What is a mental addiction?

image

On a more serious note, to the person who searched “I am scared of messing up new relationships”, don’t worry – everyone feels that! If you think your worry is disproportionate or if you are convinced that you have sabotaged relationships in the past, there are things you can do. This is one of the few instances where I would recommend CBT, which you can guide yourself through with a good book. This will, hopefully, help you be more objective in your judgements and more aware of your behaviour and any repeating patterns. Good luck, and don’t stress too much. When the right person comes along you won’t be able to ruin it!

To “let down by therapist” I offer my sympathies. I hope whatever it was that happened did not damage the relationship you have built with your therapist too much and you have been able to work through it. Or, if there were a complete ****, I hope you dropped them and have found someone better!

Onto another therapist issue: “how to open up to therapist” – I can only suggest that this will take time, quite possibly a very long time (months), especially if you have hidden things inside for protection before. While “getting to know you” games, and what I call sideways communication (via written messages, drawing, that kind of thing) can help, this is entirely personal so something that is fantastic for one person may be useless and horrible to the next.

Also the person who searched “no self confidence”, I completely get where you are coming from. Nowadays I keep reminding myself of some motivational phrases that have helped me -
“Everything I Need Is Within Me Now! I CAN CONQUER THIS!” – Action Jackson
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” ― Christian D. Larson
You are a single point that spawns infinite possibilities, you have infinite potential. You are amazing simply for existing, relish that! And good luck :-)

Finally there is the disturbing. What on earth “women dead on sofa” was intended to uncover I dare not ask! But somehow even that pales next to “porno urologist”, “endoscopy porn” and “urethra torture”. While I know why google has led these searches here (my writing about my own medical adventures), it serves as a reminder that there are people out there who are into just about anything you can imagine – on matter how weird or freaky, or just plain wrong it may seem to the rest of us!

Anyway, I hope you have found this as interesting as I have. It has certainly given me lots of ideas for new posts! For the web admins and bloggers reading this: what are the weirdest search terms you’ve had on your site?

NVQ Level 3 in Mental Health Work

There were a few things I didn’t expect when I started this level 3 NVQ. I didn’t expect it to be quite so much work. I didn’t expect my term to be so busy that even finding a couple of hours a week free to do this work is so difficult. And finally I didn’t expect to be finishing my volunteer position before I have completed the NVQ assignments.

I am quite seriously behind on this work. We are starting unit 8 in a couple of weeks (after giving a 30m group presentation) and so far ive only got the work for unit one complete! I really need to knuckle down and get it done but any time I get that I can actually dedicate to work gets dedicated to my university studies. This lack of time has really not been helped by a severe lack of motivation and energy at the moment. I don’t know if its from the liver problems or what but I have been constantly tired and people have been noticing and commenting on it.

I am glad I am doing the NVQ though. I learned a lot doing this course and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of doing any kind of mental health care. Also I hear a lot of mental health work positions are asking for Level 3 qualification on their vacancies now!

Back in Training

Today I made it to the first of the training sessions for my level 3 NVQ in Mental Health Work in the Community that I’ve managed to make it to for a while. Illness and business have proven to be obstacles ever the winter period. I am glad I went though, I forgot how much I enjoy having enthusiastic discussions about mental health issues with other similarly passionate people. It is going to be difficult to find time to do the work on top of everything else though. But in the end uni comes first, so if this is delayed or whatever then that’s fine by me.

Today’s unit was all about communication and communication styles. It’s an essential topic that really gets visited multiple times throughout the level two and three courses. This time around the slant is to identify “barriers to good communication”, such as internal barriers (insecurity, shyness, fear), interpersonal barriers (power balance, opportunity to speak and be listened to etc.), environmental barriers (noisy environment, environment too public for confidential conversations, interruptions from others) and more. I particularly liked the advice on communicating with someone who is hallucination or delusional – from experience I know how frightening it is when you suddenly find yourself confronted by someone who believes they are Jesus and that everyone can read their mind, and they feel intense guilt because the thoughts going round their mind is wishing that everyone would die. Having even the limited guidance that City and Guilds provides is helpful.

The part about communication styles was fun, I found myself getting (maybe a little over-) excited about the mention of Eric Berne’s Transactional Analysis, a particular love of mine. I also got quite annoyed that the course material equated Rollnick & Miller’s Motivational Interviewing with DiClemente & Prochaska’s Cycle of Change Model. I got a bit animated in my pointing out that they are in fact two quite different things!

More reflective thinking

I talked last post about areas I need to improve in. Two more areas I know I need to improve in are boundaries and composure. Boundaries are a tricky thing in a therapeutic setting and more so in a social care setting. In psychology there is a lot of emphasis put on the importance of maintaining very strict boundaries, such as physical contact, sharing of personal information, the nature of tim relationship (especially important in social care due to the need to avoid developing a therapy style relationship), and also in the power dynamic between yourself and the individual you are helping. Again this latter one is particularly important in a social care volunteering setting where it would be very easy to fall into a role of running around doing everything for everyone when really there are quite specific reasons why you are there. Sharing of personal information is a tricky one for me. In psychology in almost every approach it is a strict no-no to sharing any of your personal information with the service users (in psychodynamic therapy this is in order to keep the therapist a ‘blank slate’ onto which the patient can project anything their subconscious may bring up). There are a couple of approaches that challenge this, but they are rare. However in a social care setting I have found that sharing a little with the service user helps building the rapport and trust. It is going to be difficult for me to learn to control this since it has been a core part of my personality for so long!

Keeping calm is important in any mental health care role. It is also incredibly difficult. We all have a tendency to pick up emotions from others and reflect them back, a process known as transference. The best description I have heard of this is imagine standing near a radiator that is belting out heat. Just by standing close to the radiator you get hot, you absorb that heat into yourself. You become two hot things together. Whats more, if you were to walk into the other room where a friend is, they may well comment “wow, you must be boiling, I can feel the heat coming off you!”. The same thing can happen with emotions. We can become sad when we are with someone who is sad, excitable when with someone who is excitable, and angry when with someone who is angry. This becomes a real problem with anger, because the two people can spark off each other making the anger stronger and last longer. The solution to this is to contain the emotions, to not let yourself be affected or to conceal it, and to release those emotions safely in a different setting.

I still have a long way to go with this. Sometimes, but not always, I can maintain my composure. But often I will explode or collapse (emotionally) after the incident. Obviously this is not a particularly safe or controlled release. However I am not sure how to learn better composure. Maybe take a counselling course?

Finding my Feet

It feels like things have gone from zero to sixty in no time at all and I’m left behind spinning on the spot. Things aren’t that bad really, but I am feeling like I am struggling to keep up!

I have been given a new piece of work on placement and I feel completely out of my depth! I am supposed to be reviewing research and providing a report along the lines of “what psychological models underpin effective treatment in a forensic setting?” I am having two main problems though, one is that I know almost nothing about psychological models used in offender treatment (the only one I am familiar with is DiClemente and Prochaska’s Stages of Change model). The next problem is my tendency to overdo things and get pulled off at angles (that is not a euphamism! I can already guess who of you are smirking right now!). I suppose this comes from my need to feel like I really understand something before I can comfortably write about it, so rather than just researching the title topic I have a habit of trying to read all the literature on the general topic! I currently have about two hundred pages of articles and six books I am intending to read. Of course realistically this just isn’t going to happen!

And I’m so damn exhausted all the time!

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