Tick Tick Tick

[realisticphish]

8 hours until my first final, in abnormal psychology. and i'm in here! :D

[xmas74]

1. You'll do just fine!

Good luck to you.

[realisticphish]

2. thanks

:toast:

[xmas74]

4. Just think pleasant thoughts.

Abnormal psych is kind of cool. Is psych your major?

[realisticphish]

7. yeah

i'm going for a BS in psych for undergrad, don't know about grad. I was thinking about doing a guidance counseler degree through the college of education, but i'm also looking into a psych masters in adolescent/childhood development

[xmas74]

10. It can be interesting but it can be very stressful.

I worked in a habilitation center for 5 years. I worked w/ MR/MI/DD-very stressful but I really learned a lot about people and about life in general.

[realisticphish]

13. i'm not sure

if i want to go toward research, counseling, or habilitation, as you say. i don't know if i would be comfortable with the latter

[xmas74]

15. Truthfully, in habilitation, you are rarely alone.

If the patient is a threat, there is many times another staff member w/ you (if not more). True threats can go one-on-one, two-on-one (ratio of staff to patient). I worked w/ a man who was once a four-on-one. Now that was really scary. He could really do some damage!

[realisticphish]

17. wow

i guess its not so much a matter of being alone, its just...i dunno. i dont want to sound hateful, or anything, but i think i would prefer to help people who are just a LITTLE off the normal psychological map. it sounds bad, i know, but maybe its just a matter of not having any contact with psychologically different people that affects it.

[xmas74]

19. You should get a part time job as an orderly.

You can learn more from that than from anywhere else. Plus, some of the inservices sometimes count for college credit-for free.

[ffm172]

3. good luck

hope you learned something and didn't spend your whole time here :)

[imenja]

5. hmm, I could probably provide a test case for your homework

in case you need one.

[realisticphish]

6. this is focusing on

schizophrenia, personality disorders, childhood disorders, and sexual disorders. if you match one of those, you may be in business ;)

[imenja]

8. not schizophrenia

but might be able to help with some of the others. Sounds interesting. I never took psych in school. I wish I had.

[realisticphish]

9. i'm majoring in it

i used to be in engineering (big switch :)) but psych 100 caught my interest, and from then on i've loved it more and more

[xmas74]

11. I have worked w/ schizophrenics and

one of my old patients had multiple personality disorder (he had five different personalities-2 were women).

[realisticphish]

12. its scary stuff

expecially the disorganized subtype. random thoughts, hallucinations, voices. i can't even imagine

[xmas74]

14. One of my patients was in a lock down ward.

He had audio and visual hallucinations. He lived there-permanently-because he tried to impale his therapist w/ a broomstick handle. And he hated his mother.
He used to take the dining room chairs, put them all in a circle and sit in the middle of the circle. Then he would talk to each of the empty chairs. When that happened, he was cycling heavily and was ready to attack. And he did kill a patient there years ago so I knew what he was capable of.
All female staff became his mother when he was cycling. And he hated his mother.

[realisticphish]

16. are you a psychologist, or medical?

it simulataneously shocks me, and impresses me, of what our brain is capable of. the creation of multiple identies and hallucinations shows just how powerful the brain can be

[xmas74]

18. It was just a job.

I worked the floor. I was a first line supervisor (over a group home) and I passed medications. I was also a member of the crisis intervention group (when there was an extreme behavior, they paged members to assist in restraining until we could get a doctors order for ativan or valium. Ativan was usually the drug of choice).
The hab center in my old town was the biggest employer in the town. I needed a job to pay for some of my schooling and the hours were good for me, at the time. I got out of it after I had my daughter.