Today, I had to attempt to be a patient suffering from depression. I had to change my name and make up stories to fit into the character. It was basically a mock evaluation. He was the therapist, and of course I was the patient. The session today portrayed how psychologists normally evaluate their patients. They start right when the patient walks into the door. They have to make sure that the lighting, the room temperature, and even the furniture arrangement makes the patient feel comfortable. After that, they talk a little about themselves and go over the consent forms and payments and confidentiality agreements. When they are finished with that, they officially start with the evaluation. They ask questions that pertain to how the patient thinks and reacts to certain things. Some examples of the questions were:
-Describe an average day.
-What things do you do that make you happy?
-What type of factors make you think negatively?
-Describe your relationship with your family and friends.
Questions like these will help them draw conclusions. It was good for me to see what psychologists do from the perspective of the patient. It will really connect to my next session when I will hopefully be able to shadow my mentor actually performing an evaluation on a real patient.
No comments:
Post a Comment