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Funnily enough, I've read a blog of a psychiatrist, who shared a lot of anecdotes from his practice. And the was a pattern in his communications with his patien
by ordu 5y ago
Funnily enough, I've read a blog of a psychiatrist, who shared a lot of anecdotes from his practice. And the was a pattern in his communications with his patients. Like "I see that aliens got almost total control over your brain, just like you've said, so I can give you this shiny pill that blocks alien EMI, it can free your brain from alien influences." Or "you should call me instantly, if demons returned and started to torment you again, we can increase a dose of this magic medication, making your poisonous to foul creatures".
From one hand, it seems like a manipulation or a direct lie, but from other hand it seems like a completely coherent explanation, just from completely screwed belief system.
I mean, that accepting beliefs of others is orthogonal to a medication.
- Chris2048 5y agoA risky line to tread. If something bad happens, couldn't he be accused of justifying these delusions?
- ordu 5y agoI don't know. He is a Russian doctor working in Russia. The rules are different. But as a psychologist I see it as a good practice. Maybe bad from organizational point of view (how to validate actions of doctor?), but (assuming a good will of a doctor) good for a doctor and a patient. 1. A doctor might talk to a patient without constant failed attempts to prove his patient that his delusions are not real. Such attempts just make trust impossible, the patient might jump to conclusions, like doctor is an alien controlled agent himself. What doctor would do then? Forced hospitalization? But it is important to talk, because doctor needs to know some properties of hallucinations to make a diagnosis. Like if hallucinations are true ones. Is they are "inner" (like voices in a head) or "outer" like a spider attacking feet? If there are external triggers for hallucinations? All this needs to talk a lot, it needs trust of a patient. How to get it while telling to a patient constantly, that all he feels is a lie? 2. The aliens are real in some sense. If a patient speaks about aliens, it means that there is some real process triggering his hallucinations, or maybe he is seeking attentions and consciously tell lies. But in any case, to find a reason for a patient behavior we need to talk with him about aliens. In some sense aliens are real thing, we just do not know a nature of it. Probably it is something physiological, but a patient doesn't know about physiology, and in any case a doctor would need to resort to some fiction, to explain the process to a patient. "It is not really so, but it is a damn good lie" tells Lu Tze a few times in Terry Pratchett novels in the same situations, when to explain properly means to spent several years talking. 3. Finally, when a patient gets a real way to get rid of aliens, it is a good thing. His aliens become grounded in reality for him. They are not just doing everything they want, they cannot do everything, they become a falsifiable phenomenon. I mean, we can form statements about them and to check them experimentally. It may become a first step to accept aliens as an artifact of physiology.
- whatshisface 5y agoI know this is a funny question to ask about people who believe that they're being mind-controlled by aliens, but would anyone believe that a psychiatrist would give them a pill that could block mind control waves? That is clearly not a part of the movie script, so to speak.
- ordu 5y agoAccording to his anecdotes his patients believed him. I think that it not just "hey, take this pill", but a long hard work of becoming a trusted doctor for the patient.