Clinical Reflection: Personal Biases In Patients

Clinical Reflection: Personal Biases

People always have that preconceived notion about patients in mental health facilities as being violent, uncontrollable, and non-functioning individuals. Many equate these patients to criminals that deserved to be locked up. I, for one, would say am guilty of having an unfavorable preconception of what these different mental conditions entail. I had a mix feeling of excitement and trepidation heading to the first mental health clinical rotation, and after receiving the patient assignments during the morning briefing, that only added to my anxiety. My patient was readmitted to the unit, with police involvement supposedly for assault, concurrent with his mental state. That patient must be one tough

I do not completely discount the horror stories about the monsters behind the closed doors that has been told, but unlike those stories my experience is rather more of an adventure. Those patients in that mental health unit are real people that has been transformed by an ugly, often misunderstood disease. Dementia causes long term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember that is great enough to affect the patient’s daily functioning, but that does not make them any less of a person they were. They are, after all, still somebody’s parent, grandparent, brother, sister, and friend. Some, still capable of feeling human emotions; like loneliness that grips a grandfather longing to see his grandchildren, how my patient misses his. Consequently, dementia might also cause some of the patient’s inner conflicts and personal biases to manifest itself during the disease process. The challenge is setting aside my own. Therapeutic connection spring forth from unbiased care. Connecting with the person rather than the persona that the disease brought to light is just one way of ridding mental health patient of the stigma. My patient may have lost tact and restrain when expressing his opinion but he has not lost his mind, rather, speaking