Reflections from Vaughan’s ever-excellent Mind Hacks:
Psychiatry is certainly a stressful job, but research has also found that there are higher rates of mental disorder in future psychiatrists, suggesting many go into the profession precisely because of their experiences…
The reason I mention this is because Phil Dawdy has just written a powerful article on responses to a recent murder of a psychologist in New York*. Several people wrote comments to his original notice saying that the murderer was likely on a whole bunch of meds that were making him crazy; and, mental health workers hurt patients all the time, so they get what they deserve.
It is quite apparent that unlike in other areas of medicine, the mental health system has a ‘them and us’ attitude. Ironically, it is the single area of medicine where ‘them’ are most like to be ‘us’, regardless of whether you’re a patient or a professional.”
*Dawdy:
“Yesterday, I wrote about the murder of a psychologist in New York City and wondered aloud and somewhat innocently at why this nonsense happens and continues to happen in our culture. I don’t hear too many stories of Brits hacking their psychiatrists or psychologists to death–OK, I know of zero cases like that in the UK. The post received several comments that I find disturbing and unacceptable, forcing me to ponder why I am even bothering to do this blog if the best I can get out of readers is a bunch of inhumane BS and tired anti-psychiatry polemics.”
