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Martin Greenwald, M.D.'s avatar

Related to your last point about making mistakes and ongoing learning, I think all psychiatrists benefit from having regular supervision, either with a senior clinician or a group of peers. Usually we talk about psychotherapists having supervisors but I think psychiatrists benefit just as much. Now that I think about it, I don't see why all physicians wouldn't benefit from regular meetings with a senior colleague or group of peers to discuss cases and improve their work.

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Dr Erik Smedler's avatar

I totally agree!

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Sarah  Hawkins (she/her)'s avatar

You don’t have that? No wonder you are all feeling so alone and embattled. That’s, quite frankly, crazy, if you don’t mind me saying so.

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Devadatta's avatar

According to supervision research in psychotherapy by Tony Rousmniere, supervision doesn't improve patients' health unless it's done as deliberate practice, which unfortunately often is not the case.

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Ian Jobling's avatar

C.A. Soper has a theory about why psychiatric diagnosis is so difficult. He thinks the core symptoms of mental illness protect us from suicide by numbing pain and making it difficult for us to act. These symptoms are numbness, listlessness, delusions, psychoses, among others. He thinks that these symptoms can appear in any combination, which makes conventional psychiatric diagnoses like schizophrenia or depression invalid. https://eclecticinquiries.substack.com/p/what-if-mental-illnesses-arent-illnesses?r=4952v2

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Christian Smith, MD's avatar

Re psychosis, I think we also under appreciate people with brief psychotic disorders which may or may not be recurrent as well as the role of trauma in development of atypical psychotic phenomena. Cool write up.

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