These are from my current journal that I’m ending while starting new journal!
Month: March 2016
281
I commented on your other blog. This is great! It tries to teach people that depressed people need to be validated. When someone has the flu you don’t tell them to get out of bed and act as if they are ok. It’s not ok to treat depressed people like children and discount their real biological illness and symptoms! I feel passionate about this! Therapists make this mistake too.
day 44
This is such a beautiful image, I’m posting it for my Reblog Post of the Week and my Image Post for today!
Trump Trauma or Trump Overdose?New DSM 5 Disorder
This comes from my own personal experience. Others with this illness, you are not alone! (Stay tuned for post on more severe illness, Trump Psychosis)
New DSM 5 Disorder for OCD or Trauma Chapter, possibly a specific form of PTSD:
Name: Trump Trauma or Trump Overdose, specify whether co occurring with Trump Psychosis
Age: 5 years to 99 years
Symptoms: One or more of the following, occurring at least 3 times/week:
(specify severity: mild, moderate, severe)
1. Trump in any form triggers somatic responses such as nausea, vomiting, digestive issues
2. Trump in any form triggers responses such as revulsion in form of anxiety, panic, depersonalization, hopelessness and/or depressive outlook.
3.Inability to control obsessive thinking about not wanting to think about Trump and/or experiencing intrusive thoughts/images about Trump.
4. Nightmares about Trump and/or feeling of being in a nightmare while awake. Knowing that you’re not delusional about waking nightmare:
5. Compulsion: Feeling not in control of contact with social media about Trump and spending 20 minutes or more of your day in a Trump Trance writing posts or commenting or reading about Trump while being aware of not wanting to do so.
6. Paranoia: after other symptoms get triggered, believing there’s something wrong with you or that you’re crazy to have such symptoms/reactions.
7. Frequent Violent fantasies you can’t control about physically assaulting, disfiguring and/or killing Trump or Trump dying sometimes accompanied by brief feeling of euphoria that often triggers subsequent descent into depression.
8.Frequent Violent fantasies regarding sources of info about Trump (usually in form of physically assaulting/destroying TV, Computer or Smartphone, specify whether danger to others)
9. Frequent fantasies about living on another planet, belief and/or realization that you are from another planet if this knowledge further triggers other symptoms. (see treatment)
Treatment/Cure:
1. Cure: Trump somehow disappears. Symptoms should be gone in a few days.
2. Trump gets out of the race. Symptoms will immediately subside, may linger a few weeks.
3. Person with this disorder finds any way to return to their planet and reduce greatly contact with planet earth. Taking a substantial amount of aliens chosen carefully is also a great option. Not a complete cure due to memories of Trump situation and concern for planet Earth.
Treatment for chronic condition:
- recognizing you have this disorder and you’re not crazy helps reduce paranoid symptoms while also triggering symptoms if you get reality check through search engine or social media
2. Talking about moving to other countries and picking what country/looking at homes there can help reduce symptoms. Focusing on that country or any other as a safe space may also reduce symptoms.Cure: Trump magically disappears or .gets out of the race.
3. Avoidance of exposure to Trump will reduce symptoms. Tracking time in day that you are symptom free gives hope for recovery. (Trump Disorder tracking App coming soon.)
Medication: Klonopin and similar anti-anxiety medication may help reduce symptoms and other medications of this type may make you so drowsy you forget about him for a while. Any medication proven to reduce nightmare frequency.
Course of illness: whether treated or untreated, will worsen with time. Possible extreme severity can cause another disorder: Trump Psychosis.
Guidelines about Boundaries in THERAPY
This is my post for my Tuesday “words” post.
Finding a therapist that is a good fit is hugely helped by the internet. In addition, if you’re confused at any point about the therapy and your therapist’s boundaries, You can find a lot of top ten lists online about therapist’s boundary violations.
In fact, here is a great list of 30 things to watch out for in your relationship with your therapist. All are very good things to notice; a few things on the list are sometimes ok if you feel your therapist has your best interests in mind (ie. when therapy is free of charge, what are the terms of the contract?)
http://www.therapyabuse.org/p2-wrong-questionable-treatment.htm
Here is another good, slightly humorous view of top ten things you might not know about therapists:
http://www.bustle.com/articles/61462-10-things-therapists-wish-youd-understand-about-what-they-do
I thought I might have something to add to these very good tips and important boundaries to the only thing I think might be missing from these types of lists:
THE INTERNET and SMART PHONE DOS AND DONTS in THERAPY
The internet and other technology make every field completely confusing again and cause us to scratch our heads and reconsider the way we do what we do. From the law to the music business to anything, we need new GUIDELINES:
The Internet (social media, websites, etc.)
DO NOT GOOGLE or LOOK UP former patients:
One interesting mention of the internet in the second link was about how therapists do think about former patients more than you’d imagine but we still don’t/shouldn’t google them to see what is going on with them.
I know that is a good one, as I have been tempted, when thinking about a former patient, to look them up and see how they’re doing/what they’re doing. I have NOT done so with anyone, as I saw a big STOP sign in my head and it was a fleeting “fantasy”.
Social Media makes things extra fun and confusing:
USE SOCIAL MEDIA THERAPEUTICALLY ONLY:
It is great for people to find support and other people going through their experience, whatever media they are using, Youtube, Facebook Groups, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. I often recommend to patients who are interested and use social media, that they look for support groups and other things online, AS WELL AS out in the physical world.
I have watched a few Youtube videos made by patients and listened to Podcasts. The reason is important: The patient wanted me to and asked me to and it was always an important aspect of their therapy work, especially self-esteem and recovery topics. I have even used Youtube videos in session when appropriate.
In addition art therapy gives a patient alternate ways to express him/herself, including through social media. Think of it as similar to brining in some art you made between sessions that is relevant for therapy.
SOME DON’TS OF SOCIAL MEDIA. Some seem obvious:
DOn’t be Facebook “friends” with any patient and with former patients, with some exceptions about former patients. You cannot control patients accidentally seeing posts of yours and finding out you know someone in common. There are proper ways to handle this which would be a post in itself. Start with asking your patient about it or if you found something, telling them as soon as possible and exploring this.
DON’T connect on LINKED IN with patients and most former patients. If you’re in the same field, art therapy, you may not be able to avoid some LINKED IN stuff and can have a little more flexible boundaries about it. I never accept Invitations to Connect from current patients; I don’t usually bring it up unless my patient is on LINKED IN a lot or brings it up themselves.
TWITTER: Can I “follow” some patients on Twitter? My answer would be what’s the reason? I have avoided it except in cases where someone had something important related to treatment on Twitter. As a rule, I abstain.
FACEBOOK PAGES: I have public Facebook pages that I cannot avoid patients finding and considering “liking” my page. As they are related to therapy and art, I consider it ok for patients to do that only if they decide on their own for some reason. Also, I do not look a lot at who is “liking” my pages and don’t care much about how many followers or who. IF you’re very into that, be aware of any feelings about patients liking your posts or not…
In some cases you may have liked someone’s Facebook page and then found a patient involved with it. There are cases when you can’t avoid this, especially having patients who are/were art therapists and got a diploma from the same place. Your worlds will be very close and it’s a good boundary test to be aware of this. (IF I am attending an event or workshop etc. and a patient is likely to be there, I process this with the patient before hand.
BLOGS:
This is a huge question mark for me. Do any of my patient s or former patients follow or ever read my blog? I actually don’t know. When I post here, I am aware that a patient may come across my blog, so I do have that in mind. As a rule, if it does not come up, I of course do not bring it up, and if it does in the future, I would of course explore the topic with my patient. I have read a patient’s blog only if they give me the link and it is connected to their recovery and they want me to see it.
Therapist bloggers out there: Please share any further guidelines and experiences! You can put it in my comments section.
Blogging Classes: Most therapists out there don’t take these classes, but I do, and I even recommend some of them to patients. If I recommend a particular class, I do not enroll in it, even if I thought I wanted to before. If I found a patient in a class, I would address that and most likely leave the class or at least stay passive (no posts or comments on Blogging U site).
DOs and Donts of SKYPE/Video session: A big topic to address in future…
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Next post could be about the SMARTPHONE and boundaries. It’s a fascinating aspect of therapy and books or at least long chapters could be written about the uses and abuses of the SMARTPHONE technology…
Thought for today.
Happy Leap Day! Monday is reblog day and officially it’s not over yet at least in my time zone. This was posted originally on 2/27, but it’s a good way to greet every day!
