Author: Darcy Lockman
When we follow famous legal cases, sometimes we hear that the defendant was deemed unfit for trial. It is interesting to know of the procedure used to reach that conclusion. While the author is sharing her experiences in an internship at a hospital, she also supplements the branches of psychiatry with their history.
Most of the book is about evaluations of a patient's mental status. There are two kinds, one which the author calls the talking cases where you talk to the patient to see their readiness for discharge and their assessment of the situation. In the other as a consultant liaison, we learn of cases where the CL has to assess how the mental health of the patient is affecting the medical treatment the patient is undergoing. In some cases, the book does seem like retelling of what happened as an advisor looking for more analysis in the notes complains.
I find that sarcasm being a sign of intelligence in a mental evaluation, points to how our complex talk can reflect the working of our mind.
Throughout the internship, the author is enraged that psychoanalysis is not given its due. She decries the use of meds as they don't make a patient capable of independent life.
An internship is a before-after experience. True to that expectation, when the author enters the Kings County hospital she feels ignorant but at the end of it she realizes that she can make a difference.
The books format of snapshots of the cases leaves the reader looking for closure for each case which does not arrive in all the cases because of the nature of the hospital where discharges happen without psychiatrist's goodbyes.
But what of mind is ever simple and organized, thus goes a memoir like a montage of myriad ways heads can go wrong. Quotes on the mental states by some authors is not surprising considering the inordinate amounts of time they spend thinking about the human condition. I hope the quotes are only for comment sake and not part of the `treatment plan'.
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