My praise of and troubling question for psychiatry
A knife that cuts both ways
My sweet late mother fought Parkinson's for six years. In the end, Parkinson's got the better of her.
In the geriatric nursing home where she spent those six years, I visited her frequently, investing a good amount in USA-Turkey airplane tickets.
The kind woman with a secret
The first floor of the nursing home was where the psychiatric patients stayed. The ward had doors kept locked 24-7.
When I gradually became a known face around the nursing home, they allowed me to pay courtesy visits to the ward, to visit the mother of an acquaintance of mine.
She was a kind woman with twinkling blue eyes who looked normal. Was always happy to see me.
However, she had a terrible secret -- she was eating her own feces when left alone without supervision.
I couldn't help but silently thank the psychiatric team that oversaw her progress and provided the necessary medication to keep things under control.
I'm sure that woman would be in a far worse shape if it weren't for the psychiatric intervention she was receiving.
Another case...
But I hadn't been always that appreciative of psychiatry in the past.
Case in point -- I went through a bitter estrangement with a family member still truly dear to my heart.
This person went to a psychiatrist to sort things out and our relationship went from bad to terrible after that.
Basically, the psychiatrist confirmed every element of the estrangement story he was told. This doctor whose name I'll probably never find out confirmed the worst suspicions and biases of my family member, commiserated generously with him, and sealed our separation instead of trying to get us closer.
I'm shocked to this day that, in a matter as serious as this, a psychiatrist decided to place his official seal of approval on our estrangement without the trouble of asking my side of the same story he heard in one $100 session after another.
Isn't this the worst way to ferret out the truth -- to lend his authority to what one party is saying without hearing the story of the other party as well?
What would it take for that doctor to invite us to a group therapy where all narratives would be laid out bare for a cool-headed scientific analysis?
That troubling question burns me to this day since I feel an unknown and unnamed psychiatric professional has changed the future of my family with no self-defense, no appeal, no alternative but to suffer the consequences quietly.
I don't believe a psychiatrist's duty is to validate and affirm the worst fears and prejudices of their clients without the patience and honesty of a good detective -- gathering as much evidence from as many primary actors involved in the crisis as possible.
My ambivalence
That's why I'm ambivalent in my judgement of psychiatry.
Yes, psychiatry can be wonderful and our last resort in dealing with catastrophic mental failures.
But it can also be an agent of discord and unmentionable pain when applied one-sidedly, without care for the rights and well being of other parties at the receiving end of a doctor's misguided judgement.