I've found a practical use for my psychology degree and am now employed in a field that I've wanted to get into since I first declared psych as my major. It took some time, a lot of bullshit, and moving across the country but things have worked out. Things always have a way of working out.
Most interesting patient encountered so far: 32 year old woman fully convinced she's 6 months pregnant with twins. Despite any physical signs of pregnancy and multiple negative pregnancy tests, she is still 100% convinced of this "fact". And not only does she believe she's pregnant, but she obsesses about it. It's all she'll talk about. She was discharged last week, but I have a feeling this woman will be back.
They all come back.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
How are you supposed to react to that? Do you try and talk her out of it? Or do you pretend to believe her? How long has she been six months pregnant? I'm so curious about this. Does anyone know why it started?
We're not supposed to react at all - if you try to tell her she's not pregnant she flips out, but we're not really supposed to feed the delusion either. It's difficult...I usually will just change the subject - "I'm having twins" "Oh yeah? Do you think it's gonna rain today?"
From what I understand her pregnancy "comes and goes"...so every couple months or so she gets really obsessive about it, starts harassing ERs, doctor's offices, OB clinics, eventually the cops are called and she is brought to the hospital where I work. They heavily medicate her (like the do everyone), the obsession seems to disappear and she's discharged....for now.
hmm it seems kind of wrong that they just medicate people and expect them to be "cured". yuck. are they not required to go through intensive therapy at all? do they just want people to get out of there ASAP because they can't afford to keep them there er what?
Post a Comment