tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post2062035122878003479..comments2024-03-20T07:22:58.096+00:00Comments on Relational psychiatry: Attracting people into psychiatryDBDoublehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16140020984190294123noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-4080593518006512182018-01-29T10:44:42.104+00:002018-01-29T10:44:42.104+00:00I certainly agree that clinical neuroscience, as d...I certainly agree that clinical neuroscience, as described by Thomas Insel, is not THE answer to recruitment into psychiatry, although it may be part of the answer. I also strongly agree that psychiatry needs doctors with enquiring and curious minds who want to help people. Particularly important to attract medical students who have a nose for nonsense rather than a taste for it, to use Bede Rundle's image. Students who might also speculate as to what is meant by "cognitive impairment in schizophrenia may well be functional"!Alistair Stewartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-91903063238224050502011-06-10T12:22:30.794+01:002011-06-10T12:22:30.794+01:00P.S.: The -- sad -- truth is, as long as we keep t...P.S.: The -- sad -- truth is, as long as we keep thinking of emotional distress as a phenomenon that needs to be taken care of by medical professionals -- and, btw, I know the following is highly provocative -- you get mostly med students attracted who a) would have chosen neurology, or some other speciality in the realm of somatic medicine, if their grades had allowed for it, and/or b) people who have somewhat greater narcissistic needs to satisfy than the average helper, since psychiatry, as it is practised today, and like no other profession, allows for virtually unrestrained acting out of these narcissistic needs (cf. Wolfgang Schmidbauer, "the helpless helpers").Marianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16273435151682585281noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18614557.post-89375311109295517882011-06-10T11:47:46.170+01:002011-06-10T11:47:46.170+01:00What usually drives people to study modern western...What usually drives people to study modern western medicine is an interest in the human body, combined of course with an interest in helping others. Thus, at our home medical doctors were referred to as workmen specialized in the human body. With very few exceptions, I find it unfortunately to hold true, also for psychiatrists, that the interest rarely is other than what you might call "mechanical". So, if you have a group of med students, of young people whose main interest is a rather mechanical one in the human body, how likely is it that these people will choose a certain speciality within the field, if you tell them the speciality in fact isn't that much about the body, but mostly about sociology, philosophy, psychology, etc. etc.? How likely is it that they will choose this speciality if you tell them that they will have very little, if any, use for their medical training, working within it?<br /><br />If you ask me, med students aren't the people we should look for at all when looking for people to help and guide others in emotional distress. Psychiatry, in representing -- or wanting to represent... -- a <i>medical</i> speciality, isn't what is needed at all. You don't need to be specialized in psychiatry to write a prescription for a tranquilizer. Any physician can do that. Especially when the role this tranquilizer plays in the help on the whole is a temporary and secondary one, as it ought to be.Marianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16273435151682585281noreply@blogger.com