Psyched out

Just had our last clinical skills session for psychiatry today. I interviewed a patient who suffers from bipolar depression (mania & depression), anxiety and schizoaffective disorder (which likely means that she has delusions/hallucinations at times). It was an interesting interview for me and I really like that by meeting people with mental illness and talking to them, you really realize that "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" is not what mental illness is all about. People with mental illness tend to just be on one extreme of a continuum which is a notch or two out of "normal" range for society. The other thing, they're not usually scary. Though our tutor was a psychiatrist who told us a story about a guy calmly taking an axe out of his backpack one day before he instituted the rule - no backpacks in the interview room. He's a forsenic psychiatrist so deals with people involved in the criminal justice system. I'm about ready to move on from psychiatry though. I've been self-diagnosing a couple of disorders and assigning a bunch to friends as well. I think the study of psychiatry is a "crazy-maker" in a way, you start to overanalyze everything! This is the last week before we're finished brain & behaviour. It will be good riddance (well, not really, I pretty much have to instantly start studying it for my May exams).