It’s Friday afternoon, and that means clinic. It’s 1 p.m., and that means I’m walking to get Samantha from the waiting room for our therapy session. I take a deep breath before I open the door, and find myself looking forward to our session.
“Hello, Samantha,” I say, “I’m Dr. Hufford. Come on back.”
I always reserve the same room for our work, hoping that it will help her to remember that we’ve met before. Samantha and I have met many times before, but for her, every session is like meeting again for the first time. She is stuck in an unrelenting present, experiencing life about an hour at a time, before her anterograde amnesia — an inability to remember new events — sweeps the memories away, floating just out of her reach.
“Cognitive difficulties” is the way that her medical record describes it. A more sterile understatement is difficult to imagine. Samantha remembers everything from before about 15 years ago. She remembers going to college, having friends and ambitions, and falling in love. But her description of the accident is distant and clinical; a factual recitation of what she has been told happened. In a casual conversation you might not realize that you were talking to someone who would, only hours later, have no recollection of ever meeting you.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.
Post a Comment:
Copyright © 1995-2013 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 19 May 2013
|
yesterday i met a person with bibliophobia.It was an unusal momenth for me.I will not forget it.
Dr. Hufford,
As a system designer I know why you will never find solutions for Samantha’s ills. You work in an “industry” that doesn’t even know the right questions to ask, let alone find the answer to them.
Let me state up front, I loath you and your normal profession, and the work that has come from it. I feel it plays a major role in all that is bad in our culture today. It played a pinnacle role in changing my direction in a way I would have never chosen. I (we) will be alright, but I am still seething.
Really long story made really short. Boy who has always had a knack for calming trouble minds meets girl who was “hell bent on self destruction”. (I now believe this to be the result of a borderline pathology.) Nearly a decade goes by as boy shows girl to trust, love, and be loved by example. Boy and girl decide they are finally in a spot to have a child. Girl has said baby, goes to GP, and comes home with an antidepressant. Girl takes said AD even though none of the protocols for testing or contact with family have been established with GP. Girl goes on a manic spree that lasts at least 6 months, no longer recognizes past, consequences, or feelings. Girl goes on to become somebody boy would have never had a baby with, BUT the courts say “girl is the mom and has rights”. Most of medical community looks at boy as if he is the one who has mental problem. Girl now says she is fine.
That is my story. It sent me with my predisposition into a quest understanding what happened. What I found is that the mental health industry designates and incorporates learned information about as well as pre-911 intelligence agencies.
For years it has been accepted that depression and anxiety occur when the Id and the Super Ego are in unresolved conflict leavening the mind to feel one of the basic needs are not met. Yet the medical answers was to give a lobotomy. Now done with chemicals. The Id and the Super ego are in conflict? Diminish or remove the Super ego and send the patient on their way. Problem solved. Ask the patient (but not their family).
The reason you can not solve Samantha’s problem is that you are looking at it from an defeated perspective. Determines the flow of information and when it stops. Stop looking at the mind like some mystery. She obviously hears, processes and can recall information. Where does it go from there?
BUT, there is nothing that has been demonstrated by the mental health research industry that says a rational and logical approach will ever be taken unless it is grossly profitable.
Why on earth would you call a client by her first name and introduce yourself as Dr X? That is the one of the most condescending things to do to another person.