There's obviously a lot here to respond to - I may come back.
But one thing hit me. You know that most of my patients are similar in demographics to the kids at your school than to the kids at the other school, right? And I was at the methadone clinic one day, doing an intake. My patient had been involved with some violance (both victem and perptrator) and had basically been living in a situation where his peer group were people who stood around during the day and did drugs or worked on getting more drugs. And we - another classmate was watching/helping because she hadn't seen an intake there before and I'd done 2 - were talking with him. "Depression" didn't come up as a word, but we were talking about feelings and I was thinking in the back of my head all the things I would like to have the real psychiatrist talk with him about at some point, depression things, anxiety things, possibly PTSD things. And I was also just trying to put myself into his reality.
I remember two things vividly from that encounter. One was the awe in the eyes of the other student - like me a somewhat sheltered white female - after we left the room. She said "You were really good at getting a rapport with him - he seemed so different from us and I didn't think we'd be able to relate to him at all." And the other is what he said to us about "feelings" and the people around him - friends and family. He said "You can't talk about your feelings. They think you crazy, you talk about your feelings." My classmate said, "but you're OK talking about feelings with us?" and he agreed that was fine. I guess because we clearly didn't think he was "crazy"
no subject
But one thing hit me. You know that most of my patients are similar in demographics to the kids at your school than to the kids at the other school, right? And I was at the methadone clinic one day, doing an intake. My patient had been involved with some violance (both victem and perptrator) and had basically been living in a situation where his peer group were people who stood around during the day and did drugs or worked on getting more drugs. And we - another classmate was watching/helping because she hadn't seen an intake there before and I'd done 2 - were talking with him. "Depression" didn't come up as a word, but we were talking about feelings and I was thinking in the back of my head all the things I would like to have the real psychiatrist talk with him about at some point, depression things, anxiety things, possibly PTSD things. And I was also just trying to put myself into his reality.
I remember two things vividly from that encounter. One was the awe in the eyes of the other student - like me a somewhat sheltered white female - after we left the room. She said "You were really good at getting a rapport with him - he seemed so different from us and I didn't think we'd be able to relate to him at all."
And the other is what he said to us about "feelings" and the people around him - friends and family. He said "You can't talk about your feelings. They think you crazy, you talk about your feelings." My classmate said, "but you're OK talking about feelings with us?" and he agreed that was fine. I guess because we clearly didn't think he was "crazy"