blood and dog pooh
yesterday i attended an inpatient ward round at the maudsley hospital. what an experience! my fascination with schizophrenia keeps increasing and increasing.
today i visited the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world, bethlem hospital. it has changed a lot from the old 'asylum' that it used to be in the past, from where the terrible 'bedlam' imagery comes from. it's a villa style hospital, with each ward/department occupying a building, and all the buildings spread out over a large area, amongst fields of grass, fountains, trees. it's lovely just to walk around the site. it's an amazing place, with departments covering all areas in psychiatry, from eating disorders to forensics to special psychosis units. i visited the inpatient cognitive behavioral therapy unit that deals with the anxiety disorders, in particular obsessive compulsive disorder, the simple and social phobias, and body dysmorphic disorder.
worked with one of the world leaders in cbt, ocd and bdd, dr. david veal. it was fascinating seeing him in action.
it was also fascinating spending time in the 'longfield house', a 'hostel' of sorts where patients live during the 12 or so weeks of therapy they receive here. you'd think it would be a disaster, having all this ocd cramped together, but it works, and actually helps!
doing some cbt with a lady with ocd was a great experience. discussing her magical beliefs and obsessions and compulsions surrounding contamination with blood and dog faeces, increasing her awareness of the cognitive aspects of her illness, and finally going out for a walk outside on the grass in the sunshine, picking up acorns, rolling in the grass, walking amongst poohs of various types (i.e. doing lots of exposures and ritual preventions, and having a jolly good time as well), was very rewarding. she used to be one of the most severe cases of ocd.
change, in mental and psychological dimensions, is hardly ever anything but slow and gradual, and is almost always fraught with difficulty. there are no quick 'fixes' in the 'bone broken. so lets puts it together and fix it sort of real good' kind of way. and outcomes are subtle, and hard to measure quantitatively. the smile on a person's face, the spring in the step and a twinkle in an eye, the ability to get out in the sun and laugh about oneself - these are all signs, no matter how small, of healing.
it's all real. it works. and it's rewarding and satisfying.
today i visited the oldest psychiatric hospital in the world, bethlem hospital. it has changed a lot from the old 'asylum' that it used to be in the past, from where the terrible 'bedlam' imagery comes from. it's a villa style hospital, with each ward/department occupying a building, and all the buildings spread out over a large area, amongst fields of grass, fountains, trees. it's lovely just to walk around the site. it's an amazing place, with departments covering all areas in psychiatry, from eating disorders to forensics to special psychosis units. i visited the inpatient cognitive behavioral therapy unit that deals with the anxiety disorders, in particular obsessive compulsive disorder, the simple and social phobias, and body dysmorphic disorder.
worked with one of the world leaders in cbt, ocd and bdd, dr. david veal. it was fascinating seeing him in action.
it was also fascinating spending time in the 'longfield house', a 'hostel' of sorts where patients live during the 12 or so weeks of therapy they receive here. you'd think it would be a disaster, having all this ocd cramped together, but it works, and actually helps!
doing some cbt with a lady with ocd was a great experience. discussing her magical beliefs and obsessions and compulsions surrounding contamination with blood and dog faeces, increasing her awareness of the cognitive aspects of her illness, and finally going out for a walk outside on the grass in the sunshine, picking up acorns, rolling in the grass, walking amongst poohs of various types (i.e. doing lots of exposures and ritual preventions, and having a jolly good time as well), was very rewarding. she used to be one of the most severe cases of ocd.
change, in mental and psychological dimensions, is hardly ever anything but slow and gradual, and is almost always fraught with difficulty. there are no quick 'fixes' in the 'bone broken. so lets puts it together and fix it sort of real good' kind of way. and outcomes are subtle, and hard to measure quantitatively. the smile on a person's face, the spring in the step and a twinkle in an eye, the ability to get out in the sun and laugh about oneself - these are all signs, no matter how small, of healing.
it's all real. it works. and it's rewarding and satisfying.
posted by SuperDha at 10:15 pm
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