The Twists and Turns of Recovery Treatment – A Case History
In my third year of medical school, I was mentored by a brilliant surgeon who routinely pontificated about the virtues of his profession, with clear intent to dissuade me from entering psychiatry. On one such occasion, he disrupted my tense and halting approach at a long abdominal incision with the question: “Do you know what makes a surgeon great?” I looked up from the patient’s pale, still body – scalpel still poised. “It’s not the suturing; you can teach any monkey how to sew.” (That didn’t boost my fledgling surgical confidence.) He went on to say, “When you open someone up, it rarely looks like the textbook. It’s messy, unpredictable. Great surgeons effectively respond to each new situation as it arises… they adapt.”
Although this gifted surgeon didn’t dissuade me from the practice of psychiatry, I was persuaded to believe that effective treatment of the body and the mind requires an ability to adapt to each new situation as it arises. Most people enter The Meadows with some idea of their underlying problems and what they want to accomplish in treatment. However, as people give themselves to the recovery process, often the mental and emotional landscape changes in unpredictable ways, presenting new challenges and new opportunities for healing and growth. The following case history highlights the dynamic unfolding of one patient’s experience at The Meadows and some of the treatment modalities that were adaptively employed on the patient’s behalf. Read more
