Tuesday, April 17, 2007

My Three Shrinks Podcast 16: Encyclopedia of the Weird


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ClinkShrink here. I volunteered to help Roy by editing one of our podcasts--heaven help me, I did the best I could. Be patient, I'm using Windows. This is podcast number 16 which was actually podcast number 14 taped about a month ago and taken out of order for no particular reason.

April 17, 2007
Topics include:


  • First up are the Top 25 Crimes of the Century, a topic that could only be mine. It's a Time article that lists some of the most infamous or unusual crimes, but I have a couple bones to pick about their choices. Roy and Dinah just think I'm weird for even knowing this stuff. [Listen in to find out Clink's favorite crime. -Roy]
  • Next we answer a question from Driving Miss Molly regarding how much and what kind of preparations psychiatrists do before their patients' appointments.
  • Finally we do the Shrink Rap blog rollcall, where Shiny Happy Person deals with medical training in the UK and under the NHS, Roy flirts with the Girl with the Blue Steth, and Intueri talks about bipolar disorder in kids.
Find show notes with links at: http://mythreeshrinks.com. This podcast is available on iTunes (feel free to post a review) or as an RSS feed. You can also listen to or download the .mp3 or the MPEG-4 file from mythreeshrinks.com.

Thank you for listening.

16 comments:

Sarebear said...

GREAT podcast, guys!

Thanks for editing, Clink!

Was Manson on the top 25 list? I don't recall hearing his name.

I got a mention, cool!!! I listen to my therapy sessions at other times besides exercising, too. I feel it's REALLY helpful because I "get" things that maybe I was too much emotionally reacting to "hear" or take in during the session, or other aspects of therapy just really are helpful for me to listen to again. I just set my mp3 player (Samsung something or other) on the ottoman between us, closer to him than me (I'm loud, he's quiet, comparatively and relatively speaking, of/between our voices), and hit the record button. I'm amazed at the clarity. It's been the best thing to help me get more out of therapy, besides of course my commitment and pushing through hard stuff and the work I do. The best external aid, I guess I'd say.

I used to record on tape, but he refused to get a new tape recorder and alot of the time the recording was too faint; it'd go in and out of its proper audio/dynamic recording volume level in fits and spurts.

I also find it really helpful, for one of the reasons it first came up in our early sessions; I'd be writing something down that was really GOOD, that I had an AHA moment over, that I knew I'd forget . . . after a couple times of this, he suggested recording the sessions, if I wanted to, and away I went. I use the mp3 player much, much more for therapy, than I do for music (although I have both on there at once).

Probably much more than you wanted to know, but I think it'd be an interesting subject or post, on a broader topic, although including therapy recordings too, of how technology can and does aid in psychiatry etc.

sophizo said...

Just started listening. Ironic that Columbine made the list and you posted this podcast right after the VT massacre. Do you think the VT event will end up on this list in the coming years like Columbine did?

How much in the world do you guys get per hour??? $190/hr isn't much at all. The guy I used to work for gets $300/hr in his private practice and if he kept a waiting list, it would be long. You guys need to charge more! Or is it just based on where you live that determines the cost? If that is the case, Baltimore is a big enough city that I would think you could easily charge $200/hr for private practice. hmmmm....

You guys might want to comment on Intueri's post on her fellowship choices. One possibility is Baltimore, but she doesn't want to go there because of the horrible crime. You going to let her pass up on your home just because of some measly crime statistics? ;-)

Otherwise, good podcast. I just wish you spent more time going over the top 25 crimes of the century. I don't think you went into enough detail or discussed it long enough. It's a very interesting topic.

DrivingMissMolly said...

John List, Dinah--he was on the list I started composing during the podcast.

He also murdered his mother who lived with them.

He coldly composed letters about his crime and left them on his desk addressed to his priest.

I admire, if you can call it that, the fact that he was so cold and systematic and that he got away with it for so many years.

A forensic sculptor made a bust of him and it was broadcast on America's Most Wanted and that is how he was caught.

Lily

DrivingMissMolly said...

Roy--I also love the comma. I wish I could perfect my use of the semi-colon, however.

BTW, +1 on Susan Smith. I actually prayed for her! I was so sucked in!

Other criminals/crimes I "admire;"

1) Ed Gein
2) JonBenet Ramsey
3) Armin Meiwes (fried penis, anyone?)

Clink: You are a walking encyclopedia!

Thanks for addressing my question, guys.

Lily

DrivingMissMolly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ClinkShrink said...

Thanks everybody. It was just a weird and awful coincidence about the podcast topic and the Virginia Tech shootings.

Lily, I'm impressed you knew about Armin Meiwes! Now there's an obscure but unique crime. I had to dig back in the archives for this post with links to the Armin Meiwes-related song Mein Teil. (Warning: it's loud. Or should be played so.)

Sophizo I'd love to charge more but my patients don't pay for my services so I guess $0 + a rate increase is still zero. I gotta get me one of those private practice job dealies. (Thanks for being interested in my topic. Now I don't feel quite so weird. Or at least I can claim not to be.)

Midwife with a Knife said...

Nice podcast, as usual. Clink, when you were talking about climate controlled storage, for a little bit, I thought that was how you were referring to prison, for the killers. :)

Sophizo: I know you weren't asking me. But... if you count the hours I actually work, I make $9.21/hour. If you count the hours I officially work, I make $10.81/hour.

In terms of the MMC/MTAS thing, it sounds like a wacky version of the match, where the stuff that usually counts (grades, USMLE scores, research experience).. or its British equivalents don't really count, and their equivalent of the much dreaded "personal statement" counts for all the points. Also, there seem to be (if I can do the math.... I may be wrong) 30,000 applicants for 18,000 jobs. It's as though the British government is taking advantage of the change in systems to unemploy half of people who are the equivalent of senior resident type docs. I would be so mad if, after all of the suffering of medical training (am I a whiner if I say that medical training involves a lot of suffering), I then didn't have a job, or any skills that could really translate into a job. I could be wrong, though.

Sarebear said...

Lily - I SO understand the . . . like, wheeeeee! feeling, thing. I really should get to your blog more often but I've not had much gumption for doing anything, even eating.

What about Waco? Or do mass suicide thingies not fit in this (alot of me wonders if most of them did NOT want to die, but were forced to by the leader and fire-setters, thus being mass murder, not mass suicide (mass murder for the kids, too, because not old enough to choose).

Rach said...

Great podcast guys (although I'm halfway through at this point... so far so good).

As I was lying in bed listening to PC#16, I was trying to figure out what chocolate bars to equate to each of you (I'm the kind of person who needs to see a face in order to recognize a voice). This is what I've come up with:

Clink: your voice reminds me of an Israeli chocolate bar that I love - it's a bittersweet chocolate bar with poprocks in it. I think it's because your voice pops in and out of the podcasts.

Roy: you get the Aero bar - the aerated milk chocolate bar, where you can feel the bubbles.

Dinah - kit kat for you. Crunchy but smooth.

Sorry if this is weird, but I have wayyyy too much time on my hands... So there ya go. You're all like chocolate in my book - can't get enough!

ClinkShrink said...

Good question SareBear. Cult-related killings are different from spree killings because usually multiple people are involved (leader & helpers) as opposed to a single perpetrator.

Rach: So I get to be an exotic foreign chocolate filled with hidden surprises? Cool, works for me. I'll leave it to Dinah to comment on being a chocolate bar that's a bit nutty but sweet.

sophizo said...

rach....those Israeli pop rock chocolate bars are my favorite! Too bad we can't get them here (or at least I've never been able to find them).

DrivingMissMolly said...

Sarah--I can't believe that you tape your therapy sessions! I couldn't do that, I think, because I am a ruminator! That's what my first shrink said I was, about, oh, 15 years ago! I would dwell on it even more!

I think they mentioned the Tate murders on the podcast and those were Manson murders.

My therapist is hard of hearing and I feel like I do a lot of loud talking.

BTW, you don't have to visit my blog. There's a LOT of profanity ; ) Besides, it's just the ramblings of a crazy person!

Sophizo--I am amazed this doc makes this much, but I suppose it is due to his specialization and the shortage of child shrinks. I thought my doc charged alot!

Clink--I'm glad you're impressed! I enjoy true criminals. Did you ever watch the show on satellite called "Most Evil?" It was about murderers that were assessed on a "scale of evil" that this shrink made up. I cannot remember his name. Kind of a generic old white guy shrink...It was on the Discovery channel. I think he's a prof at Columbia.

How about Albert Fish? Not just a cannibal, but a child cannibal at that. Yeesh!

I also wish you'd spent more time with the crime.

On Armin Miewes, it fascinates me that he somehow linked butchering with love (eroticized it). The book I read mentioned how some neighbors occasionally butchered animals and that he liked going to this home. How does a mind eroticise something unconventional like a foot or in this case, butchering? Who knows. Can you believe he only got 5 years for killing that guy?

Thanks for the explanation differentiating cult killings. I was thinking of Jonestown, but you're right. He had helpers.

MWAK--The fabulous year I taught third grade (2001-2002), I figured my pay was a little over $5 an hour because of all the time I had to prepare and do extra work.

Take care!

Lily

Sarebear said...

I ruminate too, alot. The thing is, listening to it gives more . . . well, therapeutic stuff for me to ruminate on. Often, though, I have to turn it off every 3 or 4 minutes, to take something in and think, or, more often, cause I don't like my voice, or HEARING me say a particular thing is uncomfortable, or something. I come back to it though because hearing how we solve problems in therapy, how we explore stuff too, how he helps me see some of the traps in my thinking, and other stuff . . . hearing these things really helps the Good Stuff that is the work of therapy, settle into my bones like a comforting, reliable blanket that I can turn to again and again. It helps reinforce what I learn, and the progress I make, which is good, because hell if my progress isn't measure in nanometers . . . . And, frankly, sometimes when I just want to hear my therapist's voice, although I know even when I do that that I'll become engaged and really think about what's being discussed, and let myself react and feel about it too.

I joke that it's my pocket therapist. There was ONE time I tried to retreat into the headphones and the comfort of the therapeutic relationship, after/during having an argument with my husband, but as I did so and in the first minute or two of that, I KNEW in my head and heart that that would not be an appropriate use of the recordings, and that I should not use it in any way that interferes with participating in any relationships I have. So I stopped it, and that's been the only potential harmful or inappropriate use of such a thing I came close to or could think of.

Probably much too TMI, but hey, it works for me . . . .

Rach said...

soph,

I don't know where you are, but I can get them where I am. You can also order them online. THey're made my Elite, which is a division of Rokeach foods. Or... have someone go to Israel for you (if you can't go yourself) and buy a case of them. That'll last you a while.

Roy said...

Lily- "Axis II T-shirt"... I think I did a spit-take when I read that! If a pt came to me wearing this shirt, I wouldn't be able to contain myself.

Rach- aerated? So I'm full of hot air? No, no, it's the bubbly personality.

DrivingMissMolly said...

Roy,

That does it! I'm def going to wear it.

I got it via CafePres. Just enter "psychiatry" into the search. They have tons of them.

A tee I liked but didn't buy says "Lord help me to be the person my psychiatrist medicates me to be."

Lil