COMPANY A

the holding company for

SUB-COMPANY A
SUB-COMPANY B
SUB-COMPANY C

have been acquired by

COMPANY B

POOR PROFESSIONAL CHOICES

I found this story on the internet. I am not a psychiatrist, but sometimes they have insight..




Dr. Sanity

Shining a psychological spotlight on a few of the insanities of life


THAT WAY LIES MADNESS
Way back when I was just beginning to practice psychiatry, I had a young woman patient (17 years old) whose name was Chris. She was one of those extremely difficult patients who we suspected of having a Borderline personality disorder (BPD) (you really can't diagnose personality disorders before the age of 18 or so)--and if she didn't have BPD, she was well on her way to developing it. She used illegal drugs and claimed they "helped" her; she was impulsive and histrionic; she cut herself frequently; made suicide attempts regularly; and was so desperate for attention and love that she would lie, cheat, and do anything for to get it. She and I had a particularly difficult session one day; and that night I happened to be on call in the emergency room. I was awakened at 2:00 am by a call from a "friend" of Chris, who informed me that Chris's body had just been recovered from the ocean, where she had gone and killed herself because she was so angry at me.

I was devastated. I remember sobbing for some time after I hung up; overwhelmed with remorse and convinced that I had chosen the wrong career. Her death was all my fault and in my sorrow I considered leaving psychiatry, since I obviously was no good at it. I thought about what a sad, wasted life Chris had lived. If only I had paid more attention to her; listened more to her pain and not expected her to control her behavior. For three hours I was in a state of abject misery and hopelessness. I would have done ANYTHING to change the fact that she was dead.

At 6:00 am the page operator put through another call to me--from Chris.

"Oh, " she told me nonchalantly, "the body they found on the beach wasn't mine"; her "friend made a mistake"; "sorry about that" and "could I see you a day early next week?"

It was then I remembered that she had been angry at me because I was planning on going on vacation next week and had told only been able to schedule her for the week after.

It was amazing how quickly my remorse turned to anger. Not for a minute did I believe that this had all been a tragic misunderstanding. No, I had been incredibly, unmistakably HAD. My emotions had been played as if they were a song composed by my patient on an instrument of her choosing. My clinical supervisor laughed (laughed!) when I told him the story, and pointed out to me that this is what it felt like to be well and truly manipulated by a pro.

And it almost worked. Hadn't I thought to myself that I would do anything to have prevented what I had thought happened?

Such behavior, he went on, was pretty typical of the Borderline patient--so, why was I shocked at what had been done to me?

Indeed. Certain behaviors are predictable, though normal people can have a hard time wrapping their minds around the whys and wherefores. The "root cause" was not my going on vacation (if you go down that route, you might as well say that the root cause was my very existence as a separate person from Chris).