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Showing posts with label hospitalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hospitalization. Show all posts
I really enjoyed the movie, and if you haven't seen it, it's worth watching. (And I'm going to be careful not to include spoilers below.) In addition to the story itself, it's an interesting study of psychology as it stood in the mid 1950s. Psychotropic medications, most notably antipsychotics, had just entered widespread use, but earlier, more destructive treatments like lobotomies were still being widely used (and misused) on difficult patients.
It's too bad that they didn't place a little more emphasis on how mental institutions at the time were self-sustaining. Patients helped do things like farm, and in addition to providing sustenance, it gave them purpose and responsibility and dignity and improved their overall mental health in many cases -- which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the alternative in many cases was to be stuck in a closed room.
One of the things I loved most about the film was the portrayal of DiCaprio's character's experiences as a soldier in WWII. He was part of the regiment that freed Dauchau, and as the movie progresses it becomes clear that he has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) complete with intrusive recollections, recurrent nightmares, amnesia for certain events, hypervigilance, and irritability. And rather than using washed-out frames to portray the memories, Scorsese hyper-saturates the scenes, giving them a vibrant, even jarring hyper-realism.
The one thing that drove me crazy through much of the movie was the assumption that the new antipsychotics (chlorpromazine, or Thorazine, in particular) caused hallucinations and delusions when in fact they do the exact opposite. But it was all explained in the end. I promised not to spoil the film for you, so I'd better stop there...
Definitely worth a watch, though, if you haven't seen it.
I'm really looking forward to seeing another mindbending DiCaprio movie next weekend: Inception. If that one has as much psychology as this one did, I'll be writing another one of these in a week! (But hey, if you've seen it, no spoilers for me in the comments, okay? I wanna be surprised! :)
Need accurate and easy-to-understand information on antipsychotics, lobotomies, historical or modern mental institutions, and disorders like PTSD for your story? I've got you covered with lots of information on all of those topics in The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior at your favorite online bookstore today! Pre-order a copy now!
Nonfiction:Well...I didn't do much with my nonfiction this week except tell stories about how great my tour of the psych ward was last week. (How funny does that sound?) But...I know I mentioned last week that I need to do another interview with someone who has experience working in inpatient facilities. This time I need someone who works in a state institution, because state-run facilities are different from private facilities.
I posted on a social networking site to see if any of my friends, acquaintances, or colleagues had a connection to Twin Valley, our local state facility. And you know what? One of my friends was supervised by a guy who did his postdoctoral work at Twin Valley. So she put us in contact with each other. (Katie, you're the best!) He and I have emailed back and forth a few times, and we're going to meet next Thursday to talk.
I'm pretty excited because he's a forensics specialist. He does things like evaluate whether someone is competent to stand trial, and whether they were "sane" or "insane" at the time of an offense. He's been very enthusiastic about helping me out, and I know I'm going to come out of that interview loaded with lots of great information. (I'm actually wishing I'd set aside a whole chapter just for hospitalization information at this point. I didn't because it was the one area I was weak on.)So by now you probably know the drill...if you have questions about anything that has to do with forensic psychology, especially as it pertains to hospitalization, ask in the comments and I'll see what I can do about getting answers.
Let's see, what else can I tell you about my visit last week. Well, I know I told you how they'd suicide proofed everything. One thing they had done was use piano hinges on the doors instead of regular hinges. Regular hinges -- especially on big, heavy institutional doors -- stick out (see top picture at right), and someone could loop a sheet or something over it and hang themselves. (Hanging seemed to be the big concern.) There's no way to loop something over a piano hinge (see bottom picture at right), and the hinges go from floor to ceiling, so there's no gap between the door and the jamb, either.
Fiction:
I'm working as steadily as I'm able on the edits my friend Mary gave me on ToM. They're really good -- I keep thinking they're like what an editor would give you. I do have a problem, though. As I cut out scenes that aren't adding anything to the story, and trimming other things, the story is getting shorter...and shorter... Normally I write things that are too long, but this novel has always been short (relatively speaking, of course), and I'm well into the red zone in terms of length. Like, I'm at 66,000 words. That's just not enough for an adult contemporary fantasy. Eighty thousand would be good, but there's no way on this earth that I can figure out how to add that many words.
Occasionally I feel like giving up on it completely. Not on writing, just on this particular novel. But I keep telling myself that I know there's at least one place I need to add a scene, and I'm hoping it will get longer. (Like one scene is going to fix my length problem? Ack. You can see why I'm having thoughts of digging a hole and burying the damn thing.)
Join the Fun!
Want to post your own WIP Wednesday? Please do! Kate explains how it all works here, and you're welcome to snag the logo she and Lady Glamis put together (at the top of this post). So...how are your WIPs going? Post a link to your own WIP Wednesday in the comments section, or just tell me how it's going there!
Nonfiction:
The official contract is all signed, so now I can tell you more about the deal. *Big grin*
The book, currently titled NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS AND PSYCHOTIC KILLERS: A Writer's Guide to Psychology, will be published by Quill Driver Books. I don't have a publication date yet, but I hope to have one not too long after I complete the manuscript. My due date is October.
As I mentioned last week, I'm currently working on a chapter about psychiatric emergencies like suicidality and homicidality, and what happens when people are hospitalized. As part of my research, I went and visited a local private hospital's psychiatric unit. Since I had only ever toured a state institution before, I was impressed by just how nice the ward was. It was like -- surprise! -- a hospital.
Everything had been suicide-proofed, so nobody could cut themselves or hang themselves from anything...including the pipes inside the toilet tank. (How, you might wonder, would someone hang themselves from the pipes inside a toilet tank? Well, they tie something to the pipes, wrap the something around their neck, and lean forward until they pass out. Obviously once they pass out they just become dead weight against whatever's around their neck. But as I said, nobody could do that on the unit. The tanks were sealed and locked down.)
Now I'm working on connecting with someone who has spent time working in a state institution, because there's a difference between private hospitals and state-funded institutions. Because you know how much money goes toward mental health care in our communities? Not much.
Here's a picture of the old insane asylum that used to stand in Columbus, Ohio. I believe the date on the picture is 11-7-1909. According to some accounts, this was the largest asylum in the world at one point, with 1,300 beds. It seems to me that Bedlam must have been bigger, but it's still an interesting bit of trivia.
I've also been working on a chapter about mood disorders (depression and manic depression), anxiety disorders (OCD, PTSD, phobias, etc.), and psychotic disorders (like schizophrenia). If you have questions or things you want me to be sure to include about any of those disorders, let me know!
Fiction
My friend Mary brutalized my ToM manuscript, and I can't believe I couldn't see some of the problems until she pointed them out. Can I just tell you how valuable honest, trustworthy crits are? I always feel a little (and sometimes a lot) embarrassed by my manuscript's shortcomings, but I am SO thankful when someone I trust cares enough to really be honest and give it to me straight. I've been doing major rewrites.
My other projects -- SW and my NaNo novel -- are taking a breather while I work on this.
Want more info on this whole WIP Weds thing? Here's Kate's original post.
How are your projects coming?
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