Monday, April 4, 2011

Trapped in a Psychiatric Hospital


Psychiatric Hospitals - They are all across the world. It is a harrowing, upsetting experience to be in one. I have spent more than 70 days in three different psychiatric hospitals. Each time was a traumatic lonely experience. Some people go in to these hospitals voluntarily, others have to be committed, usually because they are a danger to self, others or cannot take of their basic needs.

Both sides of the clip board

My hospitalizations have always been voluntary but as a mental health professional I have petitioned the probate court to start the process for putting others in a psychiatric hospital. I have been on "both sides of the clipboard." 

Recently our son, Brant, was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Robyn and I visited him twice a day for one hour each visit. I was again reminded of what I don’t like about psychiatric hospitals. To be sure they are a necessary evil, but I am often disappointed with the way psychiatric hospitals deliver treatment to those who have mental illness...

One problem, I believe is that psychiatric hospitals do not have enough visiting hours. I feel so lonely when I am a patient in a psychiatric hospital. I suffer from one of the most painful diseases that exist among mankind, severe depression. Why was my chief support system only allowed to visit a couple times a week for a few hours?  Why was my son given only two hours a day, to receive visitors, one hour at noon and the other at 7:00 pm?

 Another problem that I have experienced; Why are psychiatric hospital workers  often controlling and rude.   W
When Brant  was very depressed and hospitalized my wife and I, along with his pastor, went to visit him. We were sitting at a table interacting and laughing with other patients and Brant. A worker came over from behind the desk and told us to disperse. When I asked why, he retorted, waving his hand up and down,“too much turbulence.” I felt like saying, "Thank you Captain" but I did not want to come across as being hostile. For the most part it boils down to an elitist attitude among the staff in psychiatric hospitals; it is a matter of control and corporate co-dependency. Robyn has been told about patients including me, “They need us more than they need visitors” or “we provide groups that keep them busy all day long. We protect their mental state by limiting sensory stimulation.”

In Brant’s hospital, I witnessed a patient getting in trouble for sitting at a table and “nodding off” during visitor hours. The staff told her that visitors did not need to see her do that. While working in a psychiatric hospital I have had a “charge” nurse tell me to take a patient to the “quiet room,” because she was at the front desk continually bothering this nurse. The patient suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The nurse in this case was guilty of a violation of the patient’s rights. But nobody filed a rights complaint.
I hope I never have to go into a psychiatric hospital again, but if I do, why can’t my loved ones be with me much of the time? If you would like to learn more about our book, Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187  


6 comments:

  1. Hi Steve,
    There is absolutely no excuse at the way they treat patients at these hospitals. I am so sorry you and your son Brant have had to experience these places first hand.
    Maybe one of the reasons they don't allow more visitation from family members and friends is because sometimes those same people may be the ones that make the patients situation worse. You and your family are good medicine but other families may not be. So many families don't understand mental illness. They don't have the patience and love that is so required for a good support system. Their visits may even make a patient feel worse and guilty for not being able to just,"suck it up." You know what I mean??
    If things were more organized and caring, they could make different regulations for those families who are the most supportive and allow them more time with the patient and include them in part of the therapy.
    Anyway, just a thought.
    Blessings

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  2. Laura,
    Thank you for your empathy regarding the way that our son Brant I were treated by mental health professionals in psychiatric hospitals. Your point is well taken about family members who don't get along with other family members or visitors. In the case you mention above, the patient can withhold permission for family visits to those who are caustic, cruel, lacking in empathy, etc. This rule is in place at most psychiatric hospitals. However there is no provision at many hospitals for having extended visiting hours. Basically, I had to be an inpatient to get ECT treatments. I would have preferred outpatient ECT, which I think is more common now days, though I am not sure of this.
    I also wanted to say that there are many wonderful hospital psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, etc. who have skill and compassion.
    I would invite any of my blog readers to share both good experiences and horrible experiences that they have experienced while being in psychiatric hospitals. It may take some doing to join the blog but follow the prompts the best you can. I know we have many sbloemreflections blog readers across the world.
    Thanks Steve Bloem

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  3. the emphasis in britain or at least in leeds is to use admission as a final option. for the past five weeks I have attended a "day" hospital which is open from 8am to 9pm with crisis numbers to call if needed overnight. I can be picked up in the morning and dropped off at night althoigh this is weened off with improvement. It does necessitate the having of supportive friends or family for the hours you are not there. they run groups such as goal setting, anxiety management, and discharge planning as well as relaxation and then walks, shopping, art work music, or you can just sit quietly knowing that no one is going to expect anything of you and the majority of patients and staff know where you are coming from. there are nurses to talk to as and when needed and medical staff in case of deterioration and the need for fuller admission.They are in control of my meds due to overdose issues and I am seen by my psychiatrist once a week. do you have anything like these in america. Heather

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  4. Heather,
    Thanks for your feedback and for sharing the British model of a psychiatric hospital.
    I would rather that the U.S.A. had your model.
    I keep thinking that it is because in the middle to late 1800s, the British followed Emil Krapelin, a German scientist and professor of psychiatry and the Americans followed Sigmund Freud. I am speaking to the psychiatric model not to the differences in the delivery of services of health care.
    I won't belabor the point but it is great to hear psychiatric groups diversity. Krapelin was a German psychiatrist who is specifically credited with the classification of what was previously considered to be a unitary concept of psychosis, into two distinct forms:manic depression (now seen as comprising a range of mood disorders such as recurrent major depression and bipolar disorder), and dementia praecox (schzophrenia).
    Most of Freud's theories were based on his examination of females who had some sort of conversion disorder. So it was not very clinical.
    Well, some will disagree but it is good to have open dialog.

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  5. Oh, I forgot the link to Krapelin's biography,
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Kraepelin.
    And he had a colleague, Alois Alzheimer, and co-discoverer of Alzheimer's disease, it was his laboratory which discovered its pathologic basis. Kraepelin was confident that it would someday be possible to identify the pathologic basis of each of the major psychiatric disorders.
    Our web site is http://wwww.heartfeltcounselingministries.com
    Steve

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  6. I recently read a paper by someone who had written about his experience as a patient in a psychiatric hospital. He wrote of how betrayed he felt by people he had once trusted who were now scrutinizing and misinterpreting his every move. He said staff members would walk right past him without acknowledging him, as if he didn't exist. Though he had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia, he said staff seemed more paranoid than he did. He said it was boring, isolating, and dehumanizing and he felt like he was in prison. We certainly must try to "first do no harm!"

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