tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post144739954780595829..comments2023-04-30T03:21:24.502-06:00Comments on Within Four Walls: The "perfect patient"Wendy Hoyt, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11139631318003393952noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-24966755232934165992012-10-10T21:35:54.339-06:002012-10-10T21:35:54.339-06:00Anon-
That nurse may not win awards for phrasing,...Anon-<br /><br />That nurse may not win awards for phrasing, but it does sound like she may have hit the nail on the head. I hope you now have yourself at a better place on the radar.Wendy Hoyt, PhDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11139631318003393952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-12220984453021781852012-10-10T21:34:07.080-06:002012-10-10T21:34:07.080-06:00Jen,
You are welcome. I hope you are still breaki...Jen,<br /><br />You are welcome. I hope you are still breaking rules!Wendy Hoyt, PhDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11139631318003393952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-17651906849771123172012-10-10T21:32:18.571-06:002012-10-10T21:32:18.571-06:00Anon-
We don't want our patients to be perfec...Anon-<br /><br />We don't want our patients to be perfect, though I will admit I am at times accused of this! We want patients to be honest; otherwise we cannot help, and to be sarcastic and flippant, we ARE there to help, after all! ;) Therapy is a relationship, so talking about any struggle you are having in the therapy relationship only makes sense, in my opinion. <br /><br />Wendy Hoyt, PhDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11139631318003393952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-32798128854890947692012-10-05T20:56:44.752-06:002012-10-05T20:56:44.752-06:00This is something that I struggled with in treatme...This is something that I struggled with in treatment. I was honest, completely honest, I felt, for the first time in my entire life when I went to treatment. But I also tried to be the perfect patient and I was very compliant. Now almost 2 years after discharge, I am still running into this perfect client problem. If I am feeling overwhelmed, or angry, or insecure in my relationship with my therapist, I want to run away until I can get those feelings under wraps before facing her again because I don't want to talk to her about them because chances are I am just being overly sensitive and I have no reason to feel any of those things. <br />I don't know how to overcome this problem but recently it has been really taxing on my relationship with my therapist and I just don't know what to do. I am not the perfect patient, in any form of the word and I have hurt our relationship countless times in very destructive ways and it's hard because I so desperately want to be the 'perfect client' and so I filter what I say. But that ends up being so damaging to our relationship as well. It's just a vicious cycle and I'm not quite sure how to pull out of it. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-57266865523976226642012-10-05T12:00:52.323-06:002012-10-05T12:00:52.323-06:00Probably one of the most powerful moments in my re...Probably one of the most powerful moments in my recovery process was when you (Wendy) told me to break a rule. I had been trying so hard to be the perfect patient and I am SO glad somebody noticed and showed me a better way.<br /><br />Something clicked in my brain that day, and I realized I could choose what I did next. I could choose to keep following all the rules. I could choose to break some. I could choose to talk about me. Or not.<br /><br />It was a huge paradigm shift. Thinking back on it, it still blows my mind a little. Thanks for that.jenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191688082941672114noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522972191109662295.post-78797063503394405102012-10-05T11:07:11.823-06:002012-10-05T11:07:11.823-06:00Wow.
No kidding - just this morning, my current t...Wow.<br /><br />No kidding - just this morning, my current therapist asked me about an admission to a psychiatric hospital when I was a teenager. Among the many things I mentioned was one of the nurses telling me (unsolicited, I add) "You? You'll be back. Because you're too smart and too compliant and that makes them [the rest of the staff] forget why you're here." While that was an absolutely unnecessary evaluation to articulate to me - especially The Evening Before My Discharge - now, nearly ten years on, I can see that the crux of her point was that I would continue to struggle because I put myself below (or above?) the radar.<br /><br />Thank you for this post. It's slightly creepy, the topical coincidence, but managed to put a point on something that I was really not wanting to spend time thinking about. Held up a mirror, I guess.<br /><br />Take care and thanks again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com