For example, we professionals miss the diagnosis. We get it wrong. Take the symptom "mood swing." This symptom might be seen in several different diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, PTSD, substance abuse, domestic violence, or other brain injury. We can misattribute the root source of a symptom and therefore treatment doesn't match or work.
Sometimes things treatment-wise don't always go as expected and that can be frustrating for all involved. But there are some common reasons that results are often less than expected.
For example, we professionals miss the diagnosis. We get it wrong. Take the symptom "mood swing." This symptom might be seen in several different diagnoses, such as bipolar disorder, PTSD, substance abuse, domestic violence, or other brain injury. We can misattribute the root source of a symptom and therefore treatment doesn't match or work.
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How many of you have heard the comment “oh...you’re just too sensitive”? Maybe you feel hurt when people say that and think there is something wrong with you. According to Elaine Aron, Ph.D in The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), approximately 20 percent of the population has a highly sensitive nervous system. For these individuals (myself included), it's as if they wear their nerves on the outside of their skin. In the first part of this series on sensitivity I will discuss those who find themselves on the highly sensitive side of the HSP spectrum. If you’re an HSP, you can experience external and internal stimulation rather quickly and with more intensity and duration. It’s as though your nervous system is an antenna running through your mind and body—always on and picking up signals from everything around you. As an HSP, you can become overstimulated and this “noise” or “static” can result in a variety of mental and physical complaints that may be difficult to diagnose. Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), popularized through films like Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Welcome to Me (2014), is a diagnosis many patient's fear because of the overwhelming stigma associated with it. A telltale sign of BPD is a person's erratic and unstable relationships, caused by outsized reactivity when feeling threatened and/or rejected. My sister’s best friend Jean is standing in our kitchen, her face strained, her movements quick and agitated. “It just gets so frustrating,” she blurts. “I just want someone to acknowledge...” Unable to finish her thought, she brings her hand sharply down on her knee, a nervous tic that I’ve witnessed from her countless times. Jean’s plight is one familiar to me: she is suffering from any number of mental imbalances, anxieties, mania, and depression, and what she wants is a diagnosis. Unfortunately for her, her father's primary care physician is not supportive of this desire for clarity. His reason is fear based; he doesn’t want his daughter put in a box or labeled.
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Featured WritersKrista Clement is the Executive Editor for the Real Caring blog. For questions contact krista@realcaring.org
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