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Now ye're talking - to a psychologist

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 8,247 ✭✭✭Gloomtastic!


    ‘The majority of us don't excel in any particular area to a significant degree‘

    Another biggie I’m afraid. Why do you think the human race has, so far, not achieved universal greatness and those that have are often afflicted with mental unstableness like being Bi-polar?


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,700 ✭✭✭Mountainsandh


    Cutie 3.14 wrote: »
    Have you ever worked with a Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath?

    What's your take on them?
    I know there are high functioning ones who quite easily mingle amongst the rest of us, but the ones who pathalogically lie, deceive and emotionally abuse and blackmail those of us unfortunate enough to end up in a relationship with them.

    Are they beyond help?

    Yeah I really want to know about that too.
    There are people who are so needy/in need of attention, and when you deal with them it's like a bottomless pit, it's like you can never seem to really help them no matter how willing and patient you try to be (as a lay person).
    (I don't know if it's narcissism I'm talking about, I'm talking about people who will do anything to get your attention, even negative attention, but then when you do give them attention it's not enough or over, there comes something else. It's like whatever is bothering them can never be solved.)


  • Company Representative Posts: 25 Verified rep I'm a Psychologist, AMA


    Do you think one or more approaches is more critical than others, such as identifying and understanding the root cause of the discomfort or giving the patient the tools (such as CBT) to act to overcome uncomfortable situations without being too focused on what their root cause might be.

    On a typical week, how many hours face to face would you have? I'm wondering is most of your time taken up with reading/writing reports?

    Again speaking typically, ahead of a face to face with a patient, do you put in a certain amount of preparation prior to them entering the room? Am curious more so about regular patients than people you are seeing for the first time.

    I'm generally less focused on the root causes because I generally use that CBT approach. Given time limits in the public sector, we don't normally have time to get to the root! As part of our conceptualisation, we will of course discuss what led a person to become the way they are, but I'd rarely do much work on that in the way that a psychoanalyst might do.

    Typically I'd be expected to spend about 50% of my time with clients, or at least working clinically (could be discussing cases with colleagues or in supervision etc).

    With regular clients, I'll have a plan of what I'd like to get done in the session, but I'm quite flexible. We agree on an 'agenda' at the beginning of each session that's collaboratively generated. I'd always prepare, but some issues are more preparation-heavy (like OCD, because you'd give quite a bit of 'homework' there) and others require less.
    Cutie 3.14 wrote: »
    Have you ever worked with a Narcissist/Sociopath/Psychopath?

    What's your take on them?
    I know there are high functioning ones who quite easily mingle amongst the rest of us, but the ones who pathalogically lie, deceive and emotionally abuse and blackmail those of us unfortunate enough to end up in a relationship with them.

    Are they beyond help?

    I think I answered this already, but I've never worked with anyone with those labels, no. Nobody is beyond help, I would think, but you have to want to change and the types of people you're talking about rarely see any problems with their behaviour, so they're not motivated to change. The only time they'll generally end up engaged with psychology is when they're forced to, which isn't a good basis for change.
    ‘The majority of us don't excel in any particular area to a significant degree‘

    Another biggie I’m afraid. Why do you think the human race has, so far, not achieved universal greatness and those that have are often afflicted with mental unstableness like being Bi-polar?

    Again, I would think that's much more of a philosophical question than a psychological one! I honestly couldn't even begin to think of an answer for that, other than to say there's always a spread of abilities. The Flynn Effect refers to the trend of human intelligence increasing every few years, but no matter how smart we get, there'll always the smartest and the least smart and the people right in the middle.

    It's an interesting question about bipolar disorder, but I've never given it enough thought to be able to answer :).
    Yeah I really want to know about that too.
    There are people who are so needy/in need of attention, and when you deal with them it's like a bottomless pit, it's like you can never seem to really help them no matter how willing and patient you try to be (as a lay person).
    (I don't know if it's narcissism I'm talking about, I'm talking about people who will do anything to get your attention, even negative attention, but then when you do give them attention it's not enough or over, there comes something else. It's like whatever is bothering them can never be solved.)

    Again, they can be helped, but it does require long-term specialist interventions. As a lay person, all you can really do is make sure you protect yourself and put boundaries in that stop you getting drained by people. Sometimes that might even involve cutting the person out of your life.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,014 ✭✭✭Monife


    Great AMA and really good responses, have enjoyed reading it.

    I have a couple of questions:

    1. If someone has a habitual problem with lying (even about pointless, minor things where no lie was warranted at all e.g. telling someone they were going abroad when they were only going to Galway), can therapy help them? What would it entail?

    2. Can therapy work in individuals who are very closed books and they themselves sometimes don't know how they're feeling or why?

    3. Have you ever been involved in marriage counselling (specifically where one spouse cheated)? If yes, what percentage of marriages survive after counselling?

    Many thanks.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,193 ✭✭✭bullpost


    An acquaintance of mine has been going to therapy for over 25 years, including cognitive behavioural therapy.
    As far as I am aware, they have not been diagnosed with any specific disorder, though they do not have depression.

    From the outside looking in, I would say they have not improved in any significant way in that time.

    Symptoms include low self-esteem, "being down", bullying weaker members of the immediate family (all female) and socially excluding themselves.

    I know I'm sketching a vague portrait, but my question is , Is it possible for someone to be in therapy that long without a diagnosis or getting to understand exactly what the root cause of their problem is?

    Thanks for any insight.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 312 ✭✭spindex


    If someone wanted a full psychological assessment how long would it normally take and cost ?

    Is it possible for an extravert to change into an introvert and vise versa ?


  • Company Representative Posts: 25 Verified rep I'm a Psychologist, AMA


    Monife wrote: »
    Great AMA and really good responses, have enjoyed reading it.

    I have a couple of questions:

    1. If someone has a habitual problem with lying (even about pointless, minor things where no lie was warranted at all e.g. telling someone they were going abroad when they were only going to Galway), can therapy help them? What would it entail?

    2. Can therapy work in individuals who are very closed books and they themselves sometimes don't know how they're feeling or why?

    3. Have you ever been involved in marriage counselling (specifically where one spouse cheated)? If yes, what percentage of marriages survive after counselling?

    Many thanks.

    1. Therapy could definitely help, by identifying the reasons behind the lying and working on those. Nobody lies for no reason and understanding what the person wanted to achieve through the lies would be a good starting point. In many ways, it would probably be like treating any other bad habit, and it would depend on the person's motivation to change as well.

    2. Yes, absolutely, but it takes more time. CBT has a lot of 'homework' tasks that can be helpful in spotting patterns, and in many cases, you could spend quite a bit of time just helping a person identify their emotions. You'd need to look at things on a very micro level which could feel frustrating for the client but if they're up for it and the time/resources are available, then there are lots of ways someone could be supported in that situation.

    3. I have never been involved in couples counselling of any sort so I can't answer that last one.
    bullpost wrote: »
    An acquaintance of mine has been going to therapy for over 25 years, including cognitive behavioural therapy.
    As far as I am aware, they have not been diagnosed with any specific disorder, though they do not have depression.

    From the outside looking in, I would say they have not improved in any significant way in that time.

    Symptoms include low self-esteem, "being down", bullying weaker members of the immediate family (all female) and socially excluding themselves.

    I know I'm sketching a vague portrait, but my question is , Is it possible for someone to be in therapy that long without a diagnosis or getting to understand exactly what the root cause of their problem is?

    Thanks for any insight.

    I hesitate to speak about individuals, but I'd be curious about why they have continued to attend therapy for so long if nothing is changing. I'd wonder what they're getting from it, and whether they're actually motivated to change or if they just like something about the therapeutic experience. The person might not actually be interested in getting to the root cause, or they might not want to actually change. The therapist can only do so much, at the end of the day - the client is the one running the show.

    Assuming they're paying for private therapy, there's nothing to stop a person from going forever, if they want to. In the public sector, I'd question why services are still engaging with them. There is a question of ethics as well - at what point do you stop being helpful and start colluding with unhelpful behaviours?
    spindex wrote: »
    If someone wanted a full psychological assessment how long would it normally take and cost ?

    Is it possible for an extravert to change into an introvert and vise versa ?

    For your first question, I have never worked privately so I'm not sure of costs. But a "full psychological assessment" isn't a thing. We assess to answer specific questions, not to create a personal profile of someone. If someone wanted a cognitive assessment, or an assessment for ASD etc, we could do that, but it's not like when your GP does a blood test and checks for everything 'while they're there' - testing is laborious and tiring and time-consuming for both client and psychologist. An assessment of IQ alone would generally take about 90 minutes to do, scoring could be very quick or take hours, depending on resources, interpretation takes time and reports are lengthy. Assuming hand-scoring and interpretation (as opposed to feeding the scores into a computer), an IQ assessment alone could easily take a full day from administration to finishing the report.

    A person can change in pretty much any way, if they're sufficiently motivated to do so. But my feeling is that introversion/extraversion is a very deeply embedded trait and it would be hard to change from one pole to the other. But you could certainly become more extraverted if you wanted to, or more introverted.


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,514 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Hahaha this is my favourite question by far! My intuition tells me... Limerick will win?




    :mad::mad:


  • Boards.ie Employee Posts: 12,597 ✭✭✭✭✭Boards.ie: Niamh
    Boards.ie Community Manager


    Time to close up quick before osarusan gets any more annoyed :pac:

    A big thank you to our volunteer or taking the time to answer some very interesting and some off-the-wall questions about psychology, it's been an education! Thanks too for all of your questions guys.


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