I wish you all a very happy 2016, filled with prosperity and successes!!!
New Years Day--
How many things
Changed at midnight
Started this new year with a dance exercise class named Synergy followed by a very fun Zumba
The difference between aerobic
Exercise and dance
Is Rhythm
Friday, January 1, 2016
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Recombination Psychiatry
You might think a 'better than cured' goal can not be achieved, or that it may be too ambitious. Or you might be wondering how it is done.
Psychiatrists, like all doctors, like all masters of their particular art, tend to develop their expertise in directions congenial with who they are as people, their view and understanding of themselves, of others and the world. We all draw from everything we studied, experienced, witnessed, thought and explored valuable tools to do our job as healers. The way we practice psychiatry is a reflection of who we are individually, which goes beyond the standard of medical knowledge and practice that we all have learned in residency training.
In my practice, I use a combination of many school of thoughts and orientations. And I keep adding to that list. As no one key could open all doors, I need more than one tool or one modality of intervention to design individually crafted healing strategies for my patients.
In the next few posts, I will talk about the various orientations that have helped me create my personal way of practicing psychiatry. I will talk about:
Intuitive (Right Brain) Psychiatry
Reiki and Psychiatry
The Philosophy of Compassion and Psychiatry
Psychiatry and Art
Psychiatry and the Art of Haiku
Play and Imagiantion
Visualization exercises
Animal Assited Therapy (AAT)
Life Coaching in Psychiatry
Beyond Cogntive-Behavioral Therapy
''It's Just a Pill!'' or "Why medication is not enough in psychiatry"
All these diverse ways of thinking can be combined, adapted and dynamically applied in various combinations during each visit with a patient, depending of his cultural background, emotional and intellectual needs, stage in his life, personality and personal history.
This is what I call overall Recombination Psychiatry. In genetics, recombination is a natural process in which the genes from both parents combine in a new and unique way to create a new life, an individual that resembles but is not identical to the original parents. The same way, I take pearls of wisdom from many other fields and school of thoughts, along with the newest research in Western medicine, and create new applications and solutions to my patients' emotional problems. This is my road to "Better Than Cured."
You are welcomed to join me as I explore this process.
Stay tuned!
Psychiatrists, like all doctors, like all masters of their particular art, tend to develop their expertise in directions congenial with who they are as people, their view and understanding of themselves, of others and the world. We all draw from everything we studied, experienced, witnessed, thought and explored valuable tools to do our job as healers. The way we practice psychiatry is a reflection of who we are individually, which goes beyond the standard of medical knowledge and practice that we all have learned in residency training.
In my practice, I use a combination of many school of thoughts and orientations. And I keep adding to that list. As no one key could open all doors, I need more than one tool or one modality of intervention to design individually crafted healing strategies for my patients.
In the next few posts, I will talk about the various orientations that have helped me create my personal way of practicing psychiatry. I will talk about:
Intuitive (Right Brain) Psychiatry
Reiki and Psychiatry
The Philosophy of Compassion and Psychiatry
Psychiatry and Art
Psychiatry and the Art of Haiku
Play and Imagiantion
Visualization exercises
Animal Assited Therapy (AAT)
Life Coaching in Psychiatry
Beyond Cogntive-Behavioral Therapy
''It's Just a Pill!'' or "Why medication is not enough in psychiatry"
All these diverse ways of thinking can be combined, adapted and dynamically applied in various combinations during each visit with a patient, depending of his cultural background, emotional and intellectual needs, stage in his life, personality and personal history.
This is what I call overall Recombination Psychiatry. In genetics, recombination is a natural process in which the genes from both parents combine in a new and unique way to create a new life, an individual that resembles but is not identical to the original parents. The same way, I take pearls of wisdom from many other fields and school of thoughts, along with the newest research in Western medicine, and create new applications and solutions to my patients' emotional problems. This is my road to "Better Than Cured."
You are welcomed to join me as I explore this process.
Stay tuned!
The Story Of A Psychiatrist In Private Practice
You may wonder what happens when someone--a friend, neighbor, coworker or relative--needs to go see a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry. Don't feel bad if you don't know. Many people have no idea, and that makes it such an intimidating step to take. I will open the doors of my office and demystify the process for you so that if you or a loved one needs to see a psychiatrist, you will no longer hesitate to call for that first visit appointment.
Usually, by the time people come to see me, they have already delayed a long time asking for help. Not knowing for sure even what that means makes them hesitate. After they realize they have an emotional problem that will not go away by itself, they try first to handle it by themselves. They read self help books, take vitamins or other supplements, change their diet and take other reasonable actions that normally should work. But when these reasonable actions don't work, people start looking for some kind of help. Discretely at first, they try talking to trusted friends about how they feel, then consider seeing a psychotherapist. Psychotherapists could be marital and family therapists (MFTs) or licensed social workers or religious counsellors or licensed psychologists (PhDs or PsyDs). Because these specialists are known for practicing "talk therapy," going to see them seems less intimidating. But even if that reasonable measure doesn't work, they will finally consider going to see a doctor like myself, a psychiatrist.
Seeing a psychiatrist is in general not that much different than seeing a psychotherapist. The main difference is that the psychiatrist is a trained physician so she will look at the emotional problem from a medical perspective. That includes a series of technical questions, like understanding what exactly are the symptoms that need to be treated, their duration and intensity. These questions are meant to help match the symptoms with specific medications designed to treat them.
The way psychiatrists work vary. There are psychiatrists that address strictly the target symptoms and prescribe medications. But if you see a psychiatrist like myself, that will be only a part of what is being addressed. Because I incorporate various forms of psychotherapy in addition to prescribing medications, I will also be interested in understanding the toll that these symptoms have taken on my patient, how they impacted his relationships, his social and professional life, what dreams and ideals have been blocked by these symptoms. I am also interested in figuring out what my patient has done to address the promblem and what work and didn't. I am looking for enough information to be able to design a comprehensive, wholistic plan to address my patient's problem. This plan may or may not include the use of medications. Usually medications can be helpful addressing symptoms like insomnia, anxiety, depression, anger, impulsivity, but they will never be able to help people making healthier decisions for themselves and definitely they are unable to change one's life. But changing one's life is, in the end, the best long term treatment and the one that leads to the best outcome.
People suffer emotional pain when something internally or externally is going very wrong. This may or may not be immediately obvious and it may or may not be easy to fix. But fixing it needs if one wants to move forward in life and gain success and peace of mind and heart. You will not hear this from all my fellow psychiatrists. It is a failure of my field that many of my colleagues focus too narowly on the medical (biological) aspect of emotional imbalance and too little on the emotional one.
But it is my experience that unless I look at my patient as a whole, and together, doctor and patient, try to affect change at multiple levels--biological, social, interpersonal, to name only a few--of the problem, that problem will never get better in a substantial way. Partial improvements are no longer good enough. In my practice, the goal for my patients is not just to feel a little better, or relatively well, or somewhat better than what they thought is good enough. My goal is for them to be cured, solve the emotional problem at its roots. I want them to become even better than cured, achieving more insight than they had before, more emotional strength and mastering more ways of coping with life's adversities than they ever had before. Better than cured, as one of my patients once said.
Usually, by the time people come to see me, they have already delayed a long time asking for help. Not knowing for sure even what that means makes them hesitate. After they realize they have an emotional problem that will not go away by itself, they try first to handle it by themselves. They read self help books, take vitamins or other supplements, change their diet and take other reasonable actions that normally should work. But when these reasonable actions don't work, people start looking for some kind of help. Discretely at first, they try talking to trusted friends about how they feel, then consider seeing a psychotherapist. Psychotherapists could be marital and family therapists (MFTs) or licensed social workers or religious counsellors or licensed psychologists (PhDs or PsyDs). Because these specialists are known for practicing "talk therapy," going to see them seems less intimidating. But even if that reasonable measure doesn't work, they will finally consider going to see a doctor like myself, a psychiatrist.
 |
| This is my office. Welcome to my practice! |
Seeing a psychiatrist is in general not that much different than seeing a psychotherapist. The main difference is that the psychiatrist is a trained physician so she will look at the emotional problem from a medical perspective. That includes a series of technical questions, like understanding what exactly are the symptoms that need to be treated, their duration and intensity. These questions are meant to help match the symptoms with specific medications designed to treat them.
The way psychiatrists work vary. There are psychiatrists that address strictly the target symptoms and prescribe medications. But if you see a psychiatrist like myself, that will be only a part of what is being addressed. Because I incorporate various forms of psychotherapy in addition to prescribing medications, I will also be interested in understanding the toll that these symptoms have taken on my patient, how they impacted his relationships, his social and professional life, what dreams and ideals have been blocked by these symptoms. I am also interested in figuring out what my patient has done to address the promblem and what work and didn't. I am looking for enough information to be able to design a comprehensive, wholistic plan to address my patient's problem. This plan may or may not include the use of medications. Usually medications can be helpful addressing symptoms like insomnia, anxiety, depression, anger, impulsivity, but they will never be able to help people making healthier decisions for themselves and definitely they are unable to change one's life. But changing one's life is, in the end, the best long term treatment and the one that leads to the best outcome.
People suffer emotional pain when something internally or externally is going very wrong. This may or may not be immediately obvious and it may or may not be easy to fix. But fixing it needs if one wants to move forward in life and gain success and peace of mind and heart. You will not hear this from all my fellow psychiatrists. It is a failure of my field that many of my colleagues focus too narowly on the medical (biological) aspect of emotional imbalance and too little on the emotional one.
But it is my experience that unless I look at my patient as a whole, and together, doctor and patient, try to affect change at multiple levels--biological, social, interpersonal, to name only a few--of the problem, that problem will never get better in a substantial way. Partial improvements are no longer good enough. In my practice, the goal for my patients is not just to feel a little better, or relatively well, or somewhat better than what they thought is good enough. My goal is for them to be cured, solve the emotional problem at its roots. I want them to become even better than cured, achieving more insight than they had before, more emotional strength and mastering more ways of coping with life's adversities than they ever had before. Better than cured, as one of my patients once said.
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