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Psychosis Care and Connection: A Retreat on Humanistic Approaches - East Coast

Why Do Many Otherwise Well Meaning Psychiatrists Often Fail to Appreciate The Psychological Dimension of Psychotic Suffering?

Michael Garrett, MD
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Description

Although all psychiatrists receive some psychological training in their residency years, they are taught primarily diagnosis and pharmacology rather than psychotherapy. This presentation will explore a variety of reasons. Psychiatrists may not readily embrace psychological approaches to psychotic patients.

1.) Strict adherence to a biological model.

2.) The seeming incomprehensibility of psychotic symptoms.

3.) Fear that talking about a delusion will collude with the delusion and worsen symptoms.

4.) Feeling at a loss as to how to respond to a psychotic person saying, "You don't believe me!"

5.) Believing that trying to engage the patient will ultimately be an exercise in futility.

6.) Fear of empathically registering the patient's intense suffering that resonates with a clinician's fear of losing their mind.

7.) Countertransference to the unreasonableness of psychotic patients who require and demand care yet obstruct all efforts to help them.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • State one reason why some psychiatrists believe that talking about delusions will make the patient worse.

  • State one reason why some psychiatrists believe that empathically understanding psychotic symptoms may be personally distressing to the psychiatrist

  • State one reaction some psychiatrists may have to the unreasonableness of many psychotic persons.

Educational Goal

This presentation will increase clinicians' knowledge of the psychological, emotional, and relational barriers that can interfere with engaging individuals experiencing psychosis. Participants will develop greater confidence in recognizing and addressing common misconceptions, managing countertransference reactions, and integrating psychologically informed approaches into psychiatric practice to strengthen therapeutic relationships and support recovery.

Presenters

Michael Garrett, MD
Michael Garrett, MD is currently Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. He is also on the faculty of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York (PANY) affiliated with NYU Medical Center in New York City. He received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his residency training in Psychiatry at Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. He currently teaches and supervises clinicians doing psychotherapy for psychosis and is a consultant to several first-episode for psychosis teams in the United States and elsewhere. He has a particular interest in the integration of cognitive behavioral and psychodynamic treatment in the psychotherapy of psychosis, as detailed in a Chapter in Kaplan & Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry 11th Ed titled Individual Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis, and in his recent book, Garrett, M. (2019) Psychotherapy for Psychosis: Integrating Cognitive Behavioral and Psychodynamic Treatments. Guilford Press/New York.

Financially Sponsored By

  • Ellenhorn