Psychiatry: The Impossible Profession I
For Maya
This is a cool little animated video about shrinkdom created by Kamran Ahmed well worth the few minutes it runs. I lifted it from a posting on Shrink Rap (an excellent blog about all things shrinky).
It’s a cool because:
It’s short. And informative.
It’s amusing. Especially initially. So it slides into earnestness towards the end. There are worse things.
It addresses directly public attitudes about shrinks and those in need of our services.
It addresses directly other physicians’ attitudes about shrinks and those in need of our services.
Yay! These things so need saying! Well done!
Here are a couple of nits:
It addresses indirectly the professional rivalry of psychiatrists and psychologists through that amusing bit about how irritating it is to shrinks that people get us mixed up. So silly! Perhaps that irritation is a sign (or perhaps a symptom!) of loyalty to group, rather than to the higher goal of decreasing human suffering. Both professions are interested in the same things, from different perspectives. We should be teaming up, rather than butting heads.
As a female physician, the male narrator gets no sympathy from me that girls don’t find shrinks hot. Why? This joke says it all. What’s the difference between a female med student and the garbage? The garbage gets taken out at least once a week.
And here’s a major problem:
It sensitively speaks to how much it pains decent, competent shrinks that pervasive public paranoia persists that we enjoy straight-jacketing and admitting people against their will (as in, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest).
But. It implies that all shrinks are competent physicians and caring human beings. Which by default denies the reality: the field has its share of incompetent, and worse, toxic practitioners. The damage done by these people to patients and their families is horrifying. They are a big part of the profession’s credibility problem.
The video tacitly speaks to this by trumpeting our good intentions. “Like me!” it begs. “You don’t understand! Let me explain!” it beseeches. The position is defensive.
On the other hand, silence is collusion. Such a glaring omission sends a covert message to the public that as a profession, we’re OK with the level of damage being done. Which of course, we’re not.
The situation is impossible, a double bind. What to do? I don’t know.
The overwhelming urge is to fix it. But without understanding what’s going on, intervention is futile. Puts the proverbial cart before the horse.
As to understanding what’s going on, the variables at play are so various, and operating on so many levels— human nature; social, historical and cultural; psychological and interpersonal; legal and ethical— forgetaboutit! I’ll never get this post out. Priorities. But maybe in future. Stay tuned.
“Understanding… is the key to nothing except further understanding, but in the last analysis, what else is there? All of life is either ignorance or knowledge, there’s no third possibility.” Donald Westlake, Jimmy The Kid.
What did the video bring up for you?