I couldn’t possibly write this week’s AotW without mention of the first public consultation on the DSM-V, which was unveiled today.  The American Psychiatric Association has put its proposals on existing and new mental disorders up at www.dsm5.org, for the delectation of professionals and the public at large.  Comments are invited.
I’ve had a rudimentary gander [...]

Things are going more and more downhill in session.  Every one over the last few weeks seems to end up brimming over with hostility and defensiveness from both sides, and last week was no different.  I think he is finding me an increasingly difficult patient.  I am certainly finding negotiation of the therapeutic relationship increasingly [...]

The Main Course
My favourite psychiatric article this week was on schizophrenia.  Specifically, the piece from X-Ray Technican Schools (I agree that this seems a curious place to have an article on schizophrenia) provided a concise, accessible but intelligent refutation of the many myths that surround this illness.
One of my pet hates is the mistaken belief [...]

Christmas and the arrival of 2010 have seen some disruption to your usual service from SI. It seemed impossible to get a chance to write on the latest C session, given as these post seem to be the most ridiculously detailed.
This post shouldn’t be overly detailed, as a lot of it was repetitive [...]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Those that follow the Twitter stream that I have allied with this blog will know that I did not intend to write a blog today (LATER: yesterday). I was feeling a bit low after CVM called me this morning to report that her father had sadly died early this morning (LATER: well – technically [...]

The best-selling text written on borderline to date is a book called I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, by Jerold Kreisman. I am struck by how much that title applies to this weeks session with C, which was fraught. Fraught fraught fraught. In a way, given parts of the post regarding last [...]

Thursday was fucking traumatic, a state of affairs of which you are probably aware given my citation of the disturbing imagery of Metallica’s Until It Sleeps that evening. You’ll have seen on that post that my iPod was reading my mind again in playing it – and other songs on similarly dark themes – [...]

The iPod has been acting as a mindreader again.
I’m not in the habit of doing this as this blog is mine; my life, in my words. However, sometimes others just say it (whatever ‘it’ is) better than me, and this is very much one such occasion.
So, ladies and gents, I give you the nature [...]

I was absolutely dreading seeing C last week, after the disaster of the previous week.  Although the rawness of my hurt and anger had abated somewhat, I still felt fucked over and undermined, and obviously had no idea what he was thinking.  In fact, I’d arrived at a position of relative indifference towards him, [...]