Does psychiatry have a term for when a mental health professional lacks the insight to understand that they are harming a patient? Signs of this condition include:
- When a mental health professional receives real or perceived criticism from a patient, the professional protects themselves by considering it a symptom of the patient's mental illness and in some cases uses this "symptom" to form a diagnosis. (Perceived criticism can include a patient responding to the professional with anger or sadness, quitting the professional, avoiding the professional or declining the professional's advice or treatment.)
- When a mental health professional receives criticism from the patient, the mental health professional shifts the conversation to talking about how they just want to help. In so doing they fail to address the criticism and make the focus about their own feelings, putting the patient in a position of comforting them.
If not, why does psychiatry not have a term for this? Why is this problem not being discussed, studied and a key part of a mental health professional's training?
Attached is todays video link to my “On Conquering Schizophrenia” YouTube channel. Today entails the vital, anosognosia. Like all, todays video is ever brief and can be viewed amid a cognitive recollection.
https://youtu.be/RvQUCRfAF0Y
I know better than many what a failure this system is. My brother was an amazing human being and upstanding citizen and taxpayer most of his life. He had a degree from the best hotel management school in the world. He then graduated top of his class from the Cordon Bleu in Paris, and went on to have an amazing career.
He succumbed to his first manic episode in 2015. Not knowing how to handle it, police arrested him and threw him in jail for a month when he tried to fight the officer restraining him (the original cause for their coming was that he was scaring his neighbors and disrupting the peace). Upon release he struggled to find his way and we took care of him. In 2017 he had another severe breakdown. His condition also came with Anosognosia, which many people do not realize is a real and major problem with Bipolar and Schizophrenic people. It is also anatomical in nature. His brain truly does not understand it is sick and therefore refuses to get treatment. We managed to get him hospitalized during the second breakdown, and had to beg and threaten them not to release him after just 3 days (UNMEDICATED). After 14 unmedicated days, my brother was released, not much better than before. Again, we struggled to care for him and keep a roof over his head. Despite our pleas to start taking medication, my brother refused, insisting he was not bipolar and only had ptsd from different childhood experiences, and that he would work on getting well on his own. We relented, as the only alternative was to kick him out (which we could not bear to do since he was doing so well and was a wonderful uncle and joy to be around) and force homelessness on him.
Last month it happened again... And it is now probably final. The hospital again released him unmedicated, after a week, telling us that as an adult he has the RIGHT to choose what is best for him, despite the fact that the ORGAN WHICH HE USES TO MAKE DECISIONS IS SICK AND UNABLE TO MAKE DECISIONS..... My brother's brain is BEGGING for medicine that will heal him. The only difference between him and a stage 4 cancer patient is that he cannot voice his needs. The mental health laws in this country, under the "guise" of compassion for human rights, are in fact the same as putting a gun to that person's head and pulling the trigger.
My brother is now another statistic.. homeless, cold, hungry and aimless, on the Venice Boardwalk like so many others. He truly cannot understand that he is sick and does not know why we
... keep reading on reddit ➡How do you guys overcome this? He believes someone intentionally fucked with his head to make him hear voices and the only way to make them stop is if he kills himself. He’s already tried once.. But he doesn’t believe he’s sick and refuses to even entertain the idea of getting help. Idk what to do… he just pushes me away. Our 3 year old needs his daddy..
I’ve seen this come up as an explanation here for why people doubt their diagnosis or stop medication. So then do people know if they have this and what do you do about it?
Hi all,
My wife is carrier of the HD gen and lately I've been recognizing first symptoms like a specific blink with her eye all the time and chnaging characteristics. She however refuses to admit that she has these symptoms because of HD and writes them of to allergic reactions and stuff. I've read about anosognosia which seems to have lots of HD patients and I wonder a lot if she has this too. It's difficult however since she won't go to any doctor or specialist. Is this a situation someone has come upon too and has any tips to convince them to go see a doctor for this or how to deal with this situation?
Kind regards.
Or do they just not want to date me?
Hey guys, psychiatrist here.
I have heard that dating as a psychiatrist is really hard, because people are worried about me crossing emotional boundaries and being psychologically abusive psychoanalyzing them. Where would they get that idea! Haha! Yes, I do refer to anyone with a mental illness as a "patient" whether or not I have a doctor-patient relationship with them or not, and whether or not the conversation is in a medical context, but that's just because I see everyone who isn't mental health worker as a patient... or a potential patient! People who don't chemically rape and incarcerate people for a living work with the mentally ill just don't understand. They lack the perspective of seeing the money and social control both sides, you know?
Anyways, I recently matched with this person on a popular dating app. It's a bit disappointing that I won't get to do a full psychiatric exam on them (including a strip search of course! 🤪) before I drug them and lock them in my basement. So I tried to do a subtle check on their mental health by asking intrusive questions. When they told me they were uncomfortable with the line of questioning, I pretended to be obtuse and made sure to gaslight them.
Then it turns out that they are an abolitionist, but not the cool kind who still wants mental institutions, and systemic torture for the extra crazy people who don't have a support system to advocate for them, and whoever else I feel like. They wouldn't listen to me after I told them that it was fine to incarcerate and drug people as long as I say so. I was starting to think they might have a serious mental illness, but then they told me not to contact them again because I was being gross. Now I'm REALLY worried. What should I do? In my professional opinion, this is a severe case of anosognosia and they clearly need my help, and to date me. They just don't know it yet but they'll thank me later. I care so much about people and that is why I do this. I will use all of my state sanctioned power to help them see things my way. How do I get through to them?
Has anyone fully recovered who had severe anosognosia? I am seeing that recovery rates are typically lower in these individuals. My friend who recently went into a psychotic episode seems to have absolutely no insight into his illness or behavior or reality in general and obviously refuses treatment for that reason. He thinks everyone else is crazy and he’s the sane one, and there’s barely anyone left at this point. I worry he will end up homeless or in jail.
^
Partial Psychosis .. one foot in , one foot out.
Anosognosia is a lack of ability to perceive the realities of one's own condition. It's a person's inability to accept that they have a condition that matches up with their symptoms or a formal diagnosis.
Is there anyone here who's never experienced anosognosia at any point? Including pre-diagnosis and/or pre-medication? It seems like anosognosia is fairly common among people who haven't seen a psychiatrist or been medicated, but there are still a certain percentage of people who have never experienced it. It's hard to find any information on this population though.
If you are interested in schizophrenia allow me to encourage regarding the profundity of “anosognosia.” Here is a video piece on anosognosia from my YouTube channel “On Conquering Schizophrenia”.
https://preview.redd.it/x4tn20skfad61.jpg?width=2100&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8bf017578e392ae1c1e83ece284e819030a8fa65
My grandmother has early stage dementia and probably has severe anosognosia where she honestly doesn’t believe she has dementia and refuses to go to the neurologist or take meds for it.
Do you guys have any tips/tricks regarding this? I know power of attorney is going to probably be the biggest help but my grandmother probably wouldn’t sign the forms.
‘E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher, has stated that among those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, anosognosia is the most prevalent reason for not taking medications.’ - Wikipedia
Also, it’s suggested that a large amount of homeless people suffer from undiagnosed/untreated mental illness/substance abuse. What are your thoughts on the implementation of group homes, or any other form of housing that requires periodic IM medication and psychotherapy?
Maybe I’m a little green, but I think transitional/temp/permanent housing in exchange for med compliance(specifically IM ROA) and active participation in treatment could benefit the person as well as the community...
Here is a blog post about Anosognosia. In my opinion Anosognosia (as it pertains to mental illness) is really just a way for psychiatrists to pathologize when patients disagree with them about their diagnosis.
https://therisingtideofmedicalcontrol.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-psychiatrists-pathologize.html
Let me know your thoughts and if you agree or disagree.
Thanks!
So I was reading a recent article about Jake Lloyd, he's been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Complicating his treatment is anosognosia, literally not knowing that he has the disease. Apparently this occurs in a percentage of mentally ill patients.
After some research I also found that it has links to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as well. Naturally this started my mind turning toward Elliot and the window incident.
By throwing himself out of the window, Elliot (via the Mr Robot personality) caused the TBI that allowed the manifested Mastermind personality the ability to lock away the host Elliot, via anosognosia. ThIs would also explain why Mr Robot saw it as his responsibility to rescue host Elliot from the F-world mental construct.
My husband has been in treatment for a little over a year and we are no longer in crisis, thankfully. I have had a hard time finding support for myself, even through NAMI. One of the challenges I have is that he suffers from anosognosia, and does not recognize that his reality isn’t necessarily real. I’m hoping to get some advice on how to approach the situation when he is upset at me for something that isn’t actually happening.
Specifically, his delusion is that my parents, my brother, and I are trying to turn our 2 year old son into my dad. He says he hears me calling my son by my dads name. All the reading I have done, and advice from my own therapist suggests to try and identify the underlying emotion he is expressing and try to focus on that, but I honestly don’t know where to even start when he says directly, “Can you please stop calling our son your dads name? You do it constantly and it’s breaking my heart.”
Anosognosia is the name of the symptom that makes me want to take my meds. Its a bit fancy word, but it means lack of insight into your condition. Take your meds folks, or you will lose the ability to take care of yourself.
It looks like this subreddit has a lot of support. That is fantastic. Before I knew about my brother, I really had no idea about how prevalent mental illness is in society, and after trying to deal with this, mental illness really needs more attention.
I won't go into too many details to make this post too long, but my brother is a paranoid schizophrenic and he simply refuses to entertain the idea that his delusions are not real. He believes someone or something is always watching, has cameras everywhere, have fitted him with bionic limbs, often are changing any and all aspects of his body, his car, and influence people around him. It started really young with experiences that he could fly and around 20 years old, he started having more intense delusions. More recently, he gets "attacked" physically that causes him pain by these "terrorists" or "CIA" or "Secret Service," or some other entity he chooses to call it. It's only when he's alone and usually when he's idle.
He has experimented with drugs, especially DMT, which could have actually exacerbated his symptoms. His disease has virtually prevented him from accomplishing his goals of being a musician and completing undergrad. He became much more open about it since about a year ago, and my parents were really trying to get him evaluated. They sort of "tricked" him to going to a treatment center (still doesn't know they meant for him to stay there), which failed miserably. By his experience, he was held involuntarily, attacked constantly, and really didn't respond well to any treatment. I guess my parents couldn't take his suffering and got him out, and treatment never continued. To this day, he continues to have attacks, and he has told me practically everything, and he's even written it down as a story.
My dad recently told him he needs to seek psychiatric help, and my brother responded very angrily. We don't want him to get extremely angry and do something harmful, so we can't even talk to him about it. He resents my dad now because of it.
I'm really worried about him, but I have NO idea how to talk to him about it. My parents similarly have no idea either. He's not self-harmful and he isn't a danger to society, so we can't exactly force him to get treatment. Please ask questions if you want to know more, and if you have any advice at all, I would so greatly appreciate it. His well-being is always on my mind, and I'm just scared.
Attached below is todays video link to my “On Conquering Schizophrenia“ YouTube channel. Today entails Dr Xavier Amador, and his akin “anosognosia” expertise. Like all, today’s video is ever brief and can be viewed amid a multi-task!
https://youtu.be/akhgkWyi6Fo
Check out my content on my new YouTube channel “ On Conquering Schizophrenia”.
This video is on ”anosognosia”. I am an LCSW.
https://preview.redd.it/axykg7nar0j51.jpg?width=1826&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c07d54b06e2cfcfb4586b2b383f564f49263e43
