Its been more than six months since I stopped working at the in-patient psychiatric hospital. I started to work there for about a year. First wanted to help the mentally ill community. The second was to learn more about the different types of mental health issues precedent during this time, especially with COVID. I learned a lot while working and got a different perspective of working at an in-patient psychiatric hospital.
Before starting my job, my impression was not so good. I just heard stories from reading history books about how people were treated and how the patients suffered. From the first day, I started my opinion changed. As I did the walkthrough on the first day, I saw how clean and organized the hospital staff and areas are compared to what I thought. The hospital is divided into different units, and each team is grouped by age. We have two young adult units, three different adult units, two elder units, and one particular unit for patients who lash out or attach the staff or others. The patients have their schedule for daily activities and one with the doctors and counselors. Depending on the patient, they are here for one day to a couple of weeks to months. The duration of the time is focused on their care to help have health and clinical counseling for the patient.
A day for patients consists of three meals and two snacks, and a night snack if they want. They can access the vending machines if the hospital does not provide the snacks they want. However, the hospital’s food is diverse and varies every day. They have a morning group session, and after lunch, they have time to be outside in the sun and exercise. After this time, the patients have one-on-one sessions with psychiatrists and counselors to talk about their reason for being in the hospital. Being admitted to the hospital can be numerous, but it starts with a 5150 hold most of the time from the patients here.
In this hospital, one practice they use is a social psychological theory. Using social psychological theory to help patients interact with others and get to the root cause of their issues helps them approach the problem. We learned from our readings that psychological disorders “address the social and psychological factors that contribute to the onset or maintenance of emotional and behavioral problems” (Gruman, 141). We see that this approach is effective in helping the patients learn to deal with the emotion and behavior of how to react and deal with the issues they have when they first came in. This setting also helps deal with social anxiety for the patients. I noticed some doctors use the self-presentation theory on their patients to have issues with others. The self-presentation theory is a “cognitive, social framework” to better grasp how the person handles and deals with the ideas of others are formed about them (Gruman, 145). The self-presentation theory has helped attributes benefit the patient from learning to deal with others and how to respond and overcome. Overall the experience was great, and my outlook has changed.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781506353951
Hello,
Your blog post was extremely interesting. Amazingly, you were able to get the opportunity of working at an inpatient psychiatric hospital. I have always wanted to do that. It is funny that you said that it is not what you expected at first because you walked in and it was clean and organized. I would have felt the same exact way. I am sure this topic is so interesting to you because you are able to relate so much to it and what went on in the hospital. I see that you mentioned that they use a social psychological theory. It was done to help patients interact with others and get to the root cause of their issues helps them approach the problem. Were you able to watch this or were you not allowed to sit in? It is great that you were able to learn from our textbook about how to deal with social anxiety and that you notice how the doctors use the self-presentation theory on their patients to have issues with others. You are now able to understand clearly what had gone on at the hospital. You have more knowledge about the topic which is the point of learning about it in this class. I found your story very interesting and I would love to be able to work where you did. I want to learn more about these patients and understand more how to treat them especially after learning about this topic in class.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781506353951