I wanted to say thank you to everyone who was a reader of my site, ShrinkTalk.Net, during my time with Rudius. Like Philalawyer and a few other writers, I am going to continue writing at the same domain address. I'm also working on a book entitled "We're All Crazy," which is an expanded version of the site and updates about its progress will be posted there. If you're familiar with my writing, you'll know what that title means. Thanks to Chater for letting me put this up. If anyone has questions about the site, plans going forward, book writing (or book selling), psychology or anything else that you suspect I might have some experience with, I'm more than willing to answer. Thank you in advance for having me in the new community.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Out of all the former Rudius Media writers, you are the only one I constantly read and looked forward to updates from. I'm looking forward to your upcoming book and can't wait to hear updates on it. It's going to be the one book that I buy as soon as it come out.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site I know from reading your site that you also see your own psychologist. I was wondering if it is a lot more common for those who work in psychology to see one also.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site In graduate school they encourage (and sometimes require) you to see a shrink. I'd say 1/2 of my colleagues do so after graduation at one point or another (think about Dr. Pete), but I'm making this educated guess not on pure self-report. Sadly, the stigma is still there, even for people in mental health. It's still so easy to say "I have to cut out early for a dentist appointment" than it is to say "I need to go see my shrink." Even for those in the field, it looks bad. So many won't say one way or the other, but I'm guessing enough do. It's probably a greater rate than the general population, because shrinks at least try to be as introspective as possible, but it's definitely not as many as there should be in therapy. Even if your life was as perfect as possible, the sheer fact that you're dealing with mostly miserable people for the majority of your waking life is enough that you should have some support. That doesn't necessarily mean professional therapy, but it's nice to have someone who is in the trenches as well, who gets where you're coming from.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Never read your work, but as I understand it a psychologist differs from a psychiatrist in that the former can not prescribe medicine whereas the former can? My sister used to work for the state and council mentally ill outpatients, but she told me the whole goal was about billing out drug companies, ie, prescribing meds. Basically, the "counsellors" were shills for the big drug companys. Along the way, she met her present husband who was doing the same work. She has since moved on to teaching grade school and he does IT. They are both happier for now.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site In my limited experience doing state work, I can't say I shared the experiences of your sister, but you've got the basic difference right between psychologists and psychiatrists. Psychiatrists used to do a lot of psychoanalysis and other types of treatment, but for the most part, psychologists do more testing/therapy and psychiatrists handle the medications. This is a sort of goofy piece I wrote about the difference between the two professions, which includes a story about some asshole who gave me shit about not being rich.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Hey, Dr. Rob - I have a question for you: Is there any talk of increasing access to therapy in the current health care reforms? If you came with me to work in the emergency department for an average weekend, you'd see more people who need your help than you could handle in a lifetime. Unfortunately, many insurances/government entitlements don't include much for mental health.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site From time to time I see situations that seem to clearly cry out for counseling. But sometimes when that comes up as an option, it is rejected. It could be that there is still a social stigma attached to it, but sometimes I think that they really don't realize how beneficial it is. Maybe people think that anything that a counselor could tell them, their friend or parent or whoever could tell them the same thing and all would be solved. It's not that mom doesn't have the skill to put neosporin and a bandaid on a cut, it's that she doesn't know how to sew up a wound that needs 100 stitches. Or maybe they think they should be able to figure it out for themselves, like somehow they should automatically know how to get back to the main road after a few turns in the wrong direction. What do you think is the bigger hurdle - stigma or lack of understanding how it works?
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site I haven't heard much about mental health when it comes to health care reform. Mental health scored pretty big recently with a new parity law, which requires that certain diagnoses (e.g., Major Depression, OCD, Schizophrenia) need to be handled by insurance companies as if they were physical conditions (and, therefore, can't be restricted by a finite number of therapy sessions or medication management sessions). It's not perfect but it's much better than what we had.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site This is a great question and the answer is that both are probably equal, depending on the person. The stigma issue is society's fault. We simply can't embrace the idea that it's more than okay to have a problem with any organ in the body as long as it's not the brain. The lack of understanding is the mental health field's fault. We haven't adequately educated the general population on how this stuff actually works because we're just starting to understand it now. I go through the details of my understanding of the therapeutic process with all of my clients, but new brain studies are showing how therapy works at the actual brain level (e.g., changes in blood flow in various lobes after successful therapy). We need to disseminate that information, because too many people see therapy as "just talk." And if that were the case I'd probably not spend my time or money seeing a professional either.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Dr. Rob and I just started the first of a series of pieces called, "Is America Psychologically Devolving?" The first post, just put up tonight, is here. Teaser: "What is interesting is the conflict, the pain, our need for Schadenfreude... We don’t stop to watch two people on the street talk about the Yanks/Sox, we stop when they throw punches about Game 7, 2004. We don’t stare at cars as they drive down the street, we keep our eyes on them when they’ve crashed into a brick wall going 85 M.P.H. People may give a shit when two reality contestants get together for a brief tryst, but we really pay attention when one cheats or slaps the other around. People love watching pain, plain and simple. That’s been the case with art for centuries and that fact won’t ever change."
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Do you have any therapists that go to you for therapy? Are they much different from your usual clients?
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site If you include all the mental health professions (e.g., psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, grad. students in psych., etc.), then usually about 10-15% of my practice has other therapists. It's not all that much different, but these clients don't need to be socialized to the therapy process. They already know what to expect of their therapist and what will be asked of them. That can speed up the initial process. If you read my stuff, I'm incessantly bitching about the business end of psychology. Very often clients don't show up, or don't want to pay, bounce checks, don't give 24 hours notice before canceling, show up late, etc. Like any other business owner, I have to have firm boundaries on issues such as these and deal with the backlash of those boundaries. With other shrinks, however, these issues rarely come into play because they are dealing with them themselves. So in that regard it's a much simpler arrangement.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site I'm glad you decided to keep shrink talk going. I've really enjoy reading your site over the last couple of years. Plus the responses you've provided from questions I have asked over email are much appreciated. I've been a faithful reader since your blog was introduced. Keep up the great work; I’ll definitely be picking up your book when it's published. On a side note, I'm glad that you've been keeping the amount of incessant bitching about the business end to a minimum for the last bit. For a while there it seemed like that's all you were writing about which took away what I felt your site was all about.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Thanks to Chater for mentioning this. If you're interested, this post is geared toward people who have had fucked up childhoods (which is pretty much all of us) and particularly those in their 20's and 30's who haven't necessarily become too entrenched in maladaptive thinking patterns.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Good point. I've been getting some emails from people who are curious about self-employment and running a small business (not necessarily in Psych.). Many seem to think it's without its share of problems but, while awesome and liberating, it has plenty of downsides. Part of the rationale of bitching/writing is to address some of those emails. I also enjoy complaining. Thank you for being a regular reader.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site Just wanted to say that I have enjoyed your blog probably more than any other Rudius one that was created (Sorry Philalawyer). Its nice to see you keep working on the blog and putting out fantastic posts. Keep up the good work
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site That is incredibly high praise given some of the talent at Rudius. Thank you.
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site I was on TV discussing overeating/obesity. To say it went well would be...a lie. If you have a few, check out my post about it and the 90 second clip: http://shrinktalk.net/?p=451
Re: New ShrinkTalk.Net Site I'd hit that. Dr. Rob, I have to thank you for giving all of us an insight into the life of a psychologist. It becomes alarmingly easy to forget that mental health professionals are people too.