TRIGGER WARNING – If you hadn’t guessed from the title, this post contains a number of references to child sexual abuse in varying degrees of detail.  Please, please be careful if you think this material may trigger you.  Take care, Pan x
I received a text message from my cousin SMcF early this afternoon to report [...]

Week 42.  Week 42.  How can this be?  I look back through this journal, and see prose referencing sessions as far back as week 10.  I read through said posts, and remember clearly the discussions, the facial expressions, the tones of voice to which I have alluded.  It all seems like yesterday.  How did we [...]

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 [...]

Right. Red Bull substitute imbibed; chocolate, #jaffacakes and sweets ingested; curtains open for the first time in days. I’ve been hopelessly procrastinating in an attempt to avoid writing this – not because it’s a particularly difficult entry, just because the inertia and black dog of yesterday are very much still in evidence. [...]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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 [...]

Thursday was the first day back to therapy after C’s Christmas break.  It was a successful session in a long-term sort of way, but was nevertheless very traumatic for me, tackling as it did a lot of hurt and vulnerabilities that I don’t want to face nor admit to.  There was nothing specific that was [...]

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 [...]

Wasn’t it 1992 that the Queen said was her annus horribilis?  Well, let’s fast forward 17 years to now, New Year’s Eve, 2009. This year has turned out to be the annus horribilis of your humble narrator – mostly. I’ve been on the brink of sectioning on a number of occasions, the brink of suicide [...]