Back in the late 1980s, I was diagnosed with what was known as manic depression (bipolar wasn’t a ‘thing’ yet). I had a psychiatrist who would not listen to me for 6 months, as I told her that I was so overmedicated I could not function. It was only when I had my then-husband tell her what I told him to say, explaining how I couldn’t function doing the simplest of things, my whole body depressed without energy to do anything, that she finally lowered the meds.
I had a psychiatrist in the early days tell me that I had fantastical thinking (due to the diagnosis given) to ever believe I could earn a doctorate in psychology. Well, I have earned 3 Master’s degrees in very different areas of study in 8 years and have almost completed the 1st 2 years of prerequisites for a doctorate in psychology. However, I no longer believe in the doctoral program or what this level of academia stands for, so I will not be completing it. Academia is full of useless to damaging theory, based on a bunch of lab testing that has zero to do with real-life circumstances so has little to inform those who read the so-called peer reviewed articles that are no longer based on what the results state – rather bullshit that is written because of all the ways the statistics are framed, taking out study volunteers who don’t coform with the result desired, paid for by the same folks that are going to make lots of money off this bullshit. In other words, there is a direct conflict of interest.
I had another psychiatrist who was studying seasonal affective disorder and thought I ought to be in her study, but this was not what I was diagnosed with. My case manager, also my psychologist at that time, took me out of her care as soon as she found out that had happened. Unfortunately, the next psychiatrist was the one who laughed at me for having the goal of getting a doctorate in psychology.
WHAT DID I LEARN FROM BEING A PATIENT WITH THESE IDIOTS:
- Listen to what my clients are telling me is not working for them and why.
- Never discount what a client is telling you as their experience, especially where medication side effects are concerned.
- Never play “God” or “Goddess” because you have no idea what any client or patient is capable of achieving in this life. It is our job to give them the support they require to achieve whatever they can – proving it to us with their creativity, determination, and love for what they are working on.
- Always hold an open place for the client to heal -and I don’t care how complex the situation seems – or how depressed my client has become because of the idiotic and damaging things their previous mental providers have told them – because the reality is that too often mental health providers will use scare techniques to get their patients to do as they say instead of hearing their patient and their truth of what happened to them.
- Psychology theories are bullshit – lived experience is what matters. How did my client develop the defense mechanisms they did in their subconscious/unconscious mind? Why is the client holding on to these dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors? What would their dream life be if they could have one? (The reason for doing the work to heal, not just endlessly whine about how their life sucks and constantly identifying with some destructive DSM diagnoses for sympathy or for fear of finding out what life is like without their identity of being ‘sick.’
- The chemicals stated as medication are not tested long enough or well enough to have any idea what they are doing to the body especially when given to kids like candy whose brains are not fully developed – this is causing a lot of the mayhem we are seeing in the U.S. today – I wrote a capstone paper on this very subject, “What Makes a Mass Shooter, A Mass Shooter” – everyone was on some psych medication (often Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors SSRIs) that have a black box warning stating they can cause homicidal and suicidal thoughts in youth. ADD/ADHD meds are legal amphetamines; what could possibly go wrong there? Especially when they are most often given to kids in elementary school.
So, there are many ways that we can humanize the way in which we interact with these patients.
There are better ways than handing out medication as candy to chemically restrain patients.
Get over believing we know better than the patient what the patient requires to heal.
The patient’s subconscious mind is where the transformation has to occur because that is where the defense mechanisms were created and live.
Hypnosis and NLP got me my life back – no psychiatrist after 14 years of ineffective and damaging to my kidneys from 15 years on lithium. No more endless therapy sessions, though my ex-psychiatrist was the one delivering that service for the last 10 years or so, and she was very flexible with how often I needed to see her – if the medication was doing its job once every 3 months was the norm. However, I didn’t want to continue taking that crap and was determined to find a non-invasive way to heal the underlying issues that caused the manic depression it took 5 minutes of Time Line Therapy®, based on its developer, Tad James, giving me the 3 negative emotions I needed to clear. No drugs, no endless sessions – just a clearing exercise!
Time Line Therapy® for Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs delivered by a brand new hypnotist/NLP practitioner during our Master Practioner Training in NLP got rid of my bronchial asthma – it took the entire 8 hours for the intervention to hit the root cause – the limiting belief that the only way I could be cared for was by having a health problem – this all starting with my never developing speech normally and having lots of learning disabilities – most compensated for years ago with great tutors along the way, including my mom who worked endlessly with me to learn how to read, write, etc.
The most fascinating example – visualizing a 2.2 cm non-cancerous tumor out of existence. It took 2 years to find out that it was successful via an MRI.
So, these are my learnings from my experience as a patient of mental health services, working with those who receive(d) conventional mental health services. What I learned working with a couple thousand hypnosis/NNP clients over 25 years, and what I learned from using these techniques to clear 3 chronic conditions that the conventional healthcare providers could not!
Subscribe Now to the Dawning Visions Hypnosis Newsletter
If you found this blog post helpful and informative, then Suzanne would like to invite you to subscribe to the Dawning Visions Hypnosis Newsletter and receive notice of new blog posts, general news,special offers and upcoming events. A confirmation email will be sent to you and you will be granted access to the ever expanding free gift page which currently includes an anti-stress hypnotic induction mp3, an eating disorder induction mp3 and a pdf of the first chapter of Suzanne's upcoming book on sexual addiction.
Subscribe Now to the Dawning Visions Hypnosis Newsletter