The Treatment of a Patient Who Is Also a Mental Health Practitioner: Special Considerations and Recommendations
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The Treatment of a Patient Who Is Also a Mental Health Practitioner: Special Considerations and Recommendations Miriam Goldberg 1 & Renana Stanger Elran 2 & Yael Mayer 3 & Ido Lurie 4 Received: 29 April 2020 / Accepted: 25 June 2020 # Academic Psychiatry 2020
The first time we met (MG & IL, authors) was as guest speakers at a seminar for social work students at an Israeli university, intended to expose them to the field of mental health. The next time we met was in an inpatient psychiatric department, as a patient (MG) and the head of the department (IL). About a year later, we decided, with colleagues (RSE, YM), to put our previous interactions, perspectives, personal, and professional knowledge into a joint paper regarding the treatment of colleagues within the mental health system. Treating a colleague, a mental health practitioner with a mental disorder, is almost unspoken of, despite the prevalence of mental disorders and high levels of distress among practitioners [1, 2]. Furthermore, the choice of becoming a mental health professional may be influenced by psychological crises, personal loss, and mental health difficulties, whether personally or in the near environment [3, 4]. The “wounded healer” archetype refers to this duality when therapists themselves face mental difficulties and turn their own pain into strength and ability to help others [5]. Both the therapist and therapatient (a therapist who is also a patient; [6]) face unique and complex challenges in this inter-personal encounter, including questions relating the personal and professional identity, ethical dilemmas, and professional issues. The purposes of this paper are to illuminate the topic, review and describe the barriers for seeking treatment among mental health practitioners, the complexities and challenges of treating a therapatient and suggestions and recommendations.
* Ido Lurie [email protected] 1
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
2
Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
3
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
4
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Emotional Distress and Psychiatric Morbidity Among Mental Health Practitioners No one is immune to mental disorder. In fact, medical practitioners—at all stages of training—are at increased risk of burnout, mental distress, and psychiatric disorders, with personal and occupational risk factors [7, 8]. In a study of teams in four National Health Service Centers (NHS, N = 2073), of which 65% were staff members in the health and welfare professions, 48% stated that they had dealt with a mental health condition [7]. Also, 20% stated that they were facing a mental health condition at the time of the study. The most common mental disorders reported were depression (n = 632, 49%), anxiety (n = 461, 35.7%), as well as posttraumatic stress disorder (n = 47, 3.6%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (n = 39, 3.02%), and psychosis and personality disorders (n = 25, 1.94%, each of the disorders) [7]. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of burnout and ment
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