Did anyone else see the first episode of the new Fox series "Mental" last night? From the website it is: "a medical mystery drama featuring Dr. Jack Gallagher, a radically unorthodox psychiatrist who becomes Director of Mental Health Services at a Los Angeles hospital where he takes on patients battling unknown, misunderstood and often misdiagnosed psychiatric conditions. Gallagher delves inside their minds to gain a true understanding of who his patients are, allowing him to uncover what might be the key to their long-term recovery."
It looks like it might be an interesting hook for some teaching about clinical work and it might provide some training about the use of the DSM and maybe even some pharmaceuticals but I don't know yet exactly what message is being sent. It seems to be pretty much on the side of "if we just treat the patients with humanity they will snap out of it" but it does also kind of walk the line by saying that some will require long-term drug therapy but it seems that primarily it is just good ole fashioned human contact (something like a psychiatric Patch Adams). For example, to help a person who strips naked because they are seeing everyone as an alien and they want to show that they are human, the new director takes off his clothes in the lobby with everyone else around to show that he is also human and gain the patient's trust. Ignoring whether or not that would really work, it does say a lot about the approach the program seems to take. The first episode also seemed to hint at a developing story line about the hospital making money from conducting drug trials. You can see the first episode online at: http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=mental Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Box 3055 x7295 rfro...@jbu.edu http://tinyurl.com/DrFroman Proverbs 14:15 "A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps." --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
