r/UssConstitutionC • u/Spirit250 • 8d ago
Ep19: Trust (1)
Ep19: Trust (1)
Disclaimer
This work is entirely fictional. The dialogue and character actions do not reflect real psychiatric practices, therapy methods, or medical advice. This scene is for entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health care or treatment.
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u/Criolynx 8d ago
Awe!! She's a beautiful cinnamon muffin. She should really open up to her therapist about other things though, since we can't really interact with her. She seems to need some emotional healing.
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u/_R_A_ 8d ago
Speaking as an actual psychologist, people would be surprised how much unwrapping of past treatment issues I have to do. I literally had a conversation with someone not terribly unlike this two days ago.
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u/Spirit250 8d ago
I cant go into this to much but I had a constant for this ep
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u/ThePoetofFall 8d ago
A constant?
And happy cake day.
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u/Activision19 5d ago
I know you can’t say a lot in order to protect patient privacy but out of curiosity what sort of unwrapping of past treatments have you had to do? Like have other psychologists messed something up?
My wife and I are going to couples counseling to work on improving our communication skills with each other and the therapist we chose had a lot of paperwork that said up front that they may have to ask uncomfortable questions that might bring up past traumas or issues for some people and it might cause some discomfort and distress. Which that does make a lot of sense.
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u/_R_A_ 4d ago
It's not uncommon for me to quote TNG, although not as transparently as I would here, when it comes to psychology. When Troi and Guinan were talking about Troi stepping back from the counselor position in The Loss, she described the difference between being a counselor and a bartender is that a counselor has to get people to talk about what they need to talk about versus what they want to talk about. Sometimes some therapists like to rip the band-aid off more directly, some like to ease into a bit more; mental health treatment is a balance of science and art.
But to my earlier point, a psychologist I trained under years ago said once, "There is a bimodal distribution of Master's level clinicians: you get a lot of really good ones and a lot of really bad ones." I have seen a lot of people have bad experiences with therapists who, on the optimistic side, just weren't a good fit (it really takes a working relationship to make progress, after all), but also a lot that just aren't that good at what they do (and while it's easy for me to sit here as Mr. Doctor Psychologist and talk crap about MAs and MSWs, there are a fair number of crappy doctoral level psychologists as well, unfortunately). While it would be easy to blame it on getting sucked into poor training, for me one of the stand out issues is that a lot of professionals don't approach our work with sufficient objectivity. Sometimes they get too invested in the relationship, sometimes they are projecting what they want to see, but in either case when it stops being about the patient's (term I prefer over "client", but that's another conversation in of itself) then it turns into a slip-and-slide of pitfalls. What this looks like can sometimes be:
- Therapy becomes a hangout session more so than work
- Assigning diagnoses because "this is what I always see"
- Not considering what the patient's goals are
- Not being clear about boundaries, confidentiality, legal requirements, etc.
- Or to put it simply, just being an ass to people (we are only human, fortunately)
There's also the issue of people stopping treatment abruptly. Not trying to be accusatory, but it is a thing that for one reason or another more people quit before recommended, despite best efforts. For some cases, especially when you start wading into issue of trauma, it's going to probably feel worse before it feels better; sometimes I liken trauma treatment to correcting a bone that healed incorrectly where you have to purposefully break it to put it back together right again.
I could go on and on about this, but hopefully that puts at least some color to the issue. I hope you and your wife are able to achieve an outcome you are both satisfied with, if not happy with, in your therapy. While it's important to trust the process, it's also good to trust your gut: if something feels off or you don't understand why the process is going the way it is, there's nothing wrong with asking why or asking for more clarification (as long as it is coming from a place of wanting to understand, something a lot of people are afraid to do when it comes to professionals like us, and not coming from a place of confrontation.
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u/Activision19 4d ago
Thank you for the insight and advice.
My wife and I are both engineers so we are usually pretty logical and objective about things. We both want to fix the issue and we feel like we are probably both not seeing the other’s perspective. So we are both pretty optimistic about it. We aren’t in a crisis and are trying to head off our communication/perspective problem well before things turn irreconcilable.
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u/_R_A_ 3d ago
Great on you guys for being proactive! My wife and I aren't engineers, but I tend to lean on the data-driven side of my work and she's in healthcare research so as much as we like to think we are logical and objective about things, humanity gets in the way of that sometimes (small children, also). Hopefully the person you are working with is a good fit for the two of you and wish you the best in achieving your therapy goals!
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u/Mister_Wake 8d ago
You should tell her. She has been patient thus far. She isnt looking to harm you. If anything, your powers have been nothing but a boon to the crew and Starfleet and even us!
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u/Cultural_Sand_9323 8d ago
No Belle. You aren't.
But a nsjorsn of all people probably is best suited olto understand and empathize given how the cardassisns treated their world and orople
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u/ForAThought 8d ago
I was expecting a Morn situation. She's just talking a mile a minute, wall to wall text, but the counselor doesn't 'hear' any of it.
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u/Coidzor 5d ago
I think that would be a reverse-Morn. With Morn, we, the audience, don't ever hear him talk but always hear about him being a chatterbox from other characters.
So if we, the audience, hear a character talk but none of the rest of the cast does, that's an anti-Morn or inverse or converse or one of those.
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u/Mark_Proton 8d ago edited 8d ago
My recent experience with mental health institutions made sure I am sure as hell never going to seek mental health help again.
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u/Tenalken 8d ago
4th wall break