This is Nurse Apy with some quick practical tips on communicating with someone who has a serious mental illness! (SMI)
(Obviously the video is not a real patient, but I can’t show you a real patient and I stg this is actually pretty spot on.)
Delusions have a tendency to strengthen themselves when confronted. Instead of new observations or information weakening the belief, they’re usually incorporated into the delusional belief system. This means that when the person encounters that information or situation in the future, that information/situation will actually continually strengthen the belief. Don’t confront delusions; instead, redirect!
Try to redirect the conversation towards things that reconnect the person with the wider human community. Ppl with serious and ongoing delusions have a tendency to become progressively isolated from those around them. They want to talk about delusional topics, and most people only know how to confront them about something they can clearly see is untrue. This pushes the person further into their delusions to avoid conflict with those around them. This isolation also often leads to suicidal ideation, behavior, and completion, ppl w psychosis are some of the highest risks of suicide.
Ways you can try to connect with the person are as varied as humans themselves. As the person who actually knows and interacts with a given person, you are likely the most knowledgeable about what the best topic to do that is in a given situation. Common examples include sports, popular media, and hobbies like sewing, woodworking, or gardening. Bonus points if it’s related to a communal activity of some kind.
As an aside, this is a big reason q-anon rose to popularity during the pandemic and has remained entrenched ever since. It provided community where people were missing it, and we have a very confrontational and argumentative culture that often serves to strengthen ingrained belief systems like this.
TLDR: if you want to get your aunt off her q-anon roll, try to get her to go back to gardening club instead (preferably one that is not also q-anon-ers, a lot of people pushing it also understand these concepts).
It’s fucking exhausting how the human mind is just a fuckin mess that has so many stupid logic loopholes that you have to dance around.
The human brain is the most intricately complex object that we currently know of in this universe, and every single one is unique. It’s got some quirky bits.
This is really insightful! Seems counterintuitive in the moment but absolutely bears out my experience trying to argue people out of a logical inconsistency
I’ve had a lot of practice breaking these topics down for the 18y/o high school graduate technicians they keep sending me to do safety checks and suicide watch. I’m not anywhere close to a college lecturer on these topics, but in some ways that’s better for the layman audience.
That’s honestly a big part of why they teach nurses to do various types of health advocacy in the community setting (along with there just being more of us than any other health profession and getting more time with patients). A lot of the time having a simpler, more straightforward understanding of body systems translates better to doing patient education than knowing all the little neurotransmitter interactions and every little clinical term and statistic.
Also re baby psych techs: Tbh I do think most of their training should be on-the-job, but I wish they’d give them a week of classroom time to go over this stuff because sometimes it’s a bit much to be doing an entire mental health first aid course in 15-minute segments mid-shift for like three months.
Haha nice twist, caught me off guard
I completely saw it coming, but like I said, I’ve had this conversation before!
You had me until I read ‘ppl’
