Psychotherapy

Woops, I'm doing a terrible job at updating regularly. To be honest, I haven't been faring all too well recently: crappy sleep, lots of external stressors, and generally not being in karma's good books have tipped my life out of balance. Psychiatry seems to be one of the more loathed subjects amongst medical students, but I've personally found it to be quite entertaining. There was certainly nothing nearly as humorous (except the bone. Ha. Ha.) about orthopaedics, and I forsee nothing but multiple anuses after paediatrics/medicine/surgery from professors ripping me new ones each tutorial.


The truth is, I'm rather enjoying this rotation so far. Being a hypochondriac has become one of my favourite coping mechanisms - there's always a condition with a fancy name that I can blame my shortcomings on: there is an undiagnosed ADD/ADHD trait in me that inherently dictates that I will always be ten minutes late, I have intermittent didaskaleinophobia, it is impossible for me to get out of bed in the morning because I'm slightly depressive, the fact that I just bought another thirteen bottles of skincare two days ago can be attributed to anal-phase fixation leading to OCD which compels me to buy every single product that Laneige has to offer, etc. Besides, when all fails, one can always find reassurance in the psychiatric wards where there is always someone crazier, like the seventy year-old lady who has delusions that her brother-in-law wants to rape her.

Now, the best way to consolidate new knowledge is to apply what you have learnt to a real-life situation. Since I have been too lazy to read up on pharmacology, I am left with the option of psychotherapy for the abovementioned patient. Hm, let's see what I can do for her...

A) Psychoanalysis
This approach begins with resting the lady on an ostentatious couch and exploring her childhood - fixation in her latency phase may lead to sexual dissatisfaction. Supposedly, through multiple consultations, rapport is built and the patient will unconsciously transfer her conflicts to my relationship with her. Is it just me, or does it sound creepy to have some old lady use you as a platform to liberate her repressed sexual frustration?

B) Behavioural therapy
Exposure conditioning: flood the patient's mind and surroundings with the idea of her brother-in-law. Start by asking her to visualise him, follow with printing life-sized posters of his face, then invite him to stand at her bedside for a month. And while we're at that, why not employ the token economy system too - reward the patient with a gold star each time she drinks from a mug with his picture on it? I think we'd drive her to a new level of crazy before managing to convince her that he poses no threat.

C) Cognitive behaviour therapy
Prove to the patient with logic that her hypothesis is impossible: 'Have you looked into a mirror? You're seventy. Do you really think anyone would want to rape someone with a face like yours?'

Just kidding. Old people also have sexual needs - in fact, your own grandmother may be quite the frisky minx under the sheets (yessss! Did I just plant an unshakeable image in your head or what?)! Really though, I do genuinely feel sorry for the lady's condition and the unfortunate impacts it must have made on the lives of herself and those around her, but sometimes you just have to joke about life when there's nothing else you can do about it. Or you could finally sign out of blogger, get off your laptop, and finally start reading about anti-psychotics.