Thursday, May 08, 2008

The Shrink Rappers Go To APA


First, congratulations to Clink on her new job and her new appointment to a professional society's board. Way to go, girl!

I learned a lot at
APA this year, some of it useful, some of it simply interesting (but useless).

Where do I start?
ClinkShrink already told you that we met some readers.....Hi, Sophizo, Hi, "Shrink Rap," and if you read the comments to Clink's post, well, there were others in the audience. It was fun. I didn't freak and faint. Thanks to Roy for setting this up and for including me. When is he coming to organize the rest of my life? Who is TigerMom?

So at our presentation: I learned about the Psycho-babble bulletin board and met Dr. Bob. I've always wondered about this because when I've Googled myself I've come upon posts to this psycho-babble board by someone with my name. Sort of a weird coincidence, and this funny idea that people (my patients included) who would think this was me posting...stuff I can't control, and the poster has my exact full name. Very weird, but there's nothing I can do about this, and now I know what Psycho-babble is. I, like Clink, loved hearing the very brave patients talk about how this on-line community has provided support, encouragement, and healing. And then the third part of our workshop included a talk about on-line virtual gaming. I wasn't sure what to make of this-- I have a kid who sometimes plays sports on-line, but I'm not aware that anyone I know lives an average of 8 hours a day (3000 hrs/year) in a virtual world with millions of players, hierarchies of players, the exchange of money for virtual 'property.' I'll have to start asking.

I heard Oliver Sacks talk about musical hallucinations. Dr. Sachs has been in twice a week psychoanalysis for 42 years (or was it 46). I had the sense that it was with the same analyst. This probably deserves it's own blog post.

John
Greist talked about OCD--- I'm not sure I learned much new, but it was good to know I wasn't totally out of touch. Dr. Greist is an amateur race car driver.

I went to a very good symposium on treatment for substance abuse. For cocaine addiction, people are using
antabuse (disulfuram), modafinil (I hope I have that right) and d-amphetamine: this brought the predicted questions from the audience about addiction. Marijuana dependence is a rapidly growing reason for seeking treatment-- especially in older folks (meaning people in their late 40's, and 50's) as well as adolescents. Marinol is the pill-derivative form of THC. There were talks on methadone and buprenorphine, and on motivational interviewing.

I didn't learn as much as I wanted to about the metabolic syndrome. One studied showed that people gained less weight (on average) on
zyprexa if they also took modafinil (provigil). They still gained weight, and the study only went 3 weeks out.

Max missed me, the judge enjoyed coffee with my husband, and everyone liked the wind-up walking brain I brought home. I had lunch and dinner and cocktails and overall I felt like The Bernstein Bears and Too Much Conference. Happy to be home.

13 comments:

ClinkShrink said...

Thank you! I'm dying to see the wind-up walking brain. Thanks for the company at APA, it was fun. I'm sorry you couldn't make it to the lunch---I had fun with Dr. Bob and his two UK resident friends (and Roy, of course). We talked geek--Dr. Bob talked about perl and php scripting, and I felt understood.

Hug Max for me.

I edited your chapter. Hope it helps.

Rach said...

I also would love to see this wind-up walking brain in action.

How much of these conferences are devoted to the psychopharm side of psychiatry vs. the psychotherapy side?
I'd love to hear what y'all think about Oliver Sacks (who I think is a pretty cool dude) being in psychoanalysis for all those years - I wonder if he's ever run out of things to say.

Roy said...

Tigermom was one of the speakers (I think), as was green tea.

Anonymous said...

I loved hearing about Oliver Sachs being in psychoanalysis for 42/46 years! I have been thinking I would like to continue with my psychiatrist "forever" and he's already said I can continue with him post-retirement (he joked that I can continue until he goes senile), but I have worried that it's not "normal" to want to continue on. My psychiatrist and I have such interesting and in depth discussions that really go beyond looking just at me as a patient and I really would hate to give that up. Glad to see Oliver Sachs is a living example.

green tea said...

There was definitely no fainting or flusterment!

Oliver Sacks was disappointing, in my opinion. First of all, the stupid convocation arrangements left him exactly 11 minutes to speak. He was shuffling through notes. His talk was disorganized. He looked flustered for sure. Poor thing.

Musical hallucinations, music while dreaming, etc. I wrote down the name of some of the books he recommended, but haven't had time to check them out yet.

-gT

Anonymous said...

I would think mixing modanifil with an antipyschotic would be bad news. I took Modanifil for Narcolepsy and it was like being on speed.

Mamabeek said...

How serendipitous! I just made a presentation about this topic for a class yesterday. It's also related to my dissertation topic and an area of research I intend to pursue as a post grad. I'm a long time gamer, as is my husband, and have met several others in my doctoral program.

SOOOO green you saw Oliver Sachs speak. I think I've read everything he's written...

Did anyone mention using Reality Therapy (Glasser's Choice Theory) for addiction, or only Motivational Interviewing? Good empirical evidence but not much press, it seems.

I second the congrats to Clink!

Sarebear said...

Sounds interesting.

I knew about Dr. Bob and Psycho-Babble before you three started Shrink Rap.

That's actually where I learned about the book, In Session. It's high on their list of recommended reading, that they came up with.

I've never played Second Life (the game with Linden's, money that people regularly and are encouraged to exchanged real life money for, it "does" have a value, as opposed to other online games like Everquest 2, where yeah, you can pay real life cash for in game money, but it's not generally the way things are done. And, in games like EQ, you don't "own" land. In Second Life, you do).

Er, I guess you can tell I know some about this . . . . .

I know someone who plays second life.

I've played Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest 2, and beta tested those and a couple of others.

I'm kinda surprised you haven't had anyone in therapy talk about that sort of thing, maybe they've been too embarrassed, but one's shrink is s'posed to be the one person you talk about the things you would be too embarrassed about with anyone else lol . . . .

Gah, I s'pose it's a little embarrassing, but there are alot more married couples playing MMPORGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, or sometimes called MMO's, massively multiplayer online's, for short, as well as to cover a wider variety of multiplayer games than just adventuring like EQ or Star Wars Galaxies (like EQ but it's Star Wars, was alot better but Sony dumbed it down and they're trying to fix it lol, they forgot the target audience is in their mid-thirties, the people who saw the original releases in the theaters as kids . . .)

DAGnabbit.

ooops. Went on a bit there.

Ah, well.

There are associations, "guilds", groups that are ONLY made of married couples, to keep out the immature kiddos. Although some adults aren't so mature either . . . .

I actually thought about seeing if you three wanted to meet in one, sometime, just to get the feel for what the environment in one is like (there's plenty of quality free ones, MMO's, out there), for what the . . . . sort of er, psychology of playing it is. Besides, it's fun. Would be fun research, and a fun podcast material too.

As far as the Second Life type model goes, that's kind of in a class by itself, although it IS free. It's so different, though, that it's not like anything else, so I'd not necessarily apply everything you heard to all MMO's if they were talking about the Second Life type model of thing, or vice versa.

Anyway, happy to volunteer my services as guide, teacher, online gamer (not like hardcore "hey, duuuuude, argh, etc. lol"), whatever . . . . .

Mamabeek! Wonder if we've been or are in the same games?

ClinkShrink said...

Thanks Mamabeek.

SareBear, I'm not sure I could handle the idea of my co-bloggers having swords, although Roy would be awesome in a MMORG.

Mom said...

Hi,

Tigermom is shrink rap, my handle on a work list serve. Made it up before I met you all in cyber space. Sorry for the confusion. Did any of you go to the standing room only presentation on treating bipolar depression and the pros and cons of using conventional antidepressants? Lots of heated academic discussions. Patty Duke also spoke of being in long term pscyhoanalysis as well.

Dinah said...

Clink: I showed you the brain.

Rach: How do you run out of things to say?? (I could talk forever; no comment here co-bloggers). More psychopharm than psychotherapy, but a lot of everything. The Program is 98 pages long online and that's just the listings, not the details.

Everyone: I spelled Dr. Sacks' name wrong in one place, it's Oliver Sacks.

Green Tea: I too expected a longer talk with perhaps more substance, but buy that time of the evening, I was just happy to hear him.

Anon: Sorry modafinil speeded you up. I wondered if it made people lose weight if you didn't take olazapine with it. I can't take anything that speeds me up because Roy couldn't survive if I added anything more to his To Do List.

MamaBeek: no Reality Therapy.

SareBear: well, patients talk about people they meet on the internet for sex. I did ask someone about the gaming thing now that I know about it and he used to play some and his sibling has gotten sucked into it...now I'll ask. I wouldn't know how to get us into an online game room with you, so I'll have to leave that to Roy to sort out.

TigerMom: I almost went to that but then Roy scowled at me (I was missing lunch to go) and I decided that the answer from my own practice is Avoid Antidepressants In People With Bipolar Disorder, (see my post on Peace and Lithium) and I think I've gone to that talk several years ago (I remember details about it, and I was the in the standing room crowd)...so I went to the Substance Abuse Treatment thing instead. I hate it when two interesting things happen at the same time. I didn't survive until Patty Duke.
--So I still think I might have talked to you a couple of years ago, I can't think of who the patient was, must have been a college student...or maybe it was someone else with your same first name in the 'burbs. Or maybe I'm confused because there was a kid in my daughter's pre-school class with your last name.

Sarebear said...

Sometimes such online games and sex mix, although that's against the games' TOS (terms of service) (ie, I saw a "toon", or "avatar", or "char", all same words, some people look down on the word "toon") with a name full of misspellings of course to get through filters, something like gettin kinky let's play,

there was as he was running around, an invitational air about him.

This was a VERY unusual event, I only see anything sexual related about once every 3-4 months, and it is more veiled than that. there are mechanisms in place to report such things, and I did so, as I'm sure probably many other people did, I would hope. There are also makers of the game IN the game, who may see that, and name filters (as you see, which don't catch everything - I once saw a reference to a crude orientalish word for a female body part as someone's name), but these things don't happen often, at least that I've seen. It can and does, though.

As blatantly as this recent thing, basically looking for a hookup, whether for cyber in-game, over phone, over the net out of game, or in-person meet-up, I don't know, but that is something I've NEVER seen before. Not that it hasn't happened because I haven't seen it, but it's not common or I'd've seen it before I'dve thunk.

Anyway, I wanted to mention another type of gaming online (not gambling), well, and that's not the sort of collectible card game type either (yeah, those come in electronic form now too, and yes you can capture cards and basically the other person loses them so in a way it partially IS gambling, since somebody loses something with some "value" to it, the "better" "cards" having more monetary value to the other players).

Things that aren't massively multiplayer online games, but are just plain computer games, things like, say, oh, Need for Speed, a racing game.

For example, I have Need For Speed 2 (or is it underground 2? I forget lol), and you can play it yourself, like it a regular computer game, which it is, or connect online, and race against friends or strangers.

When you mentioned connecting in an online gaming room, that brought that to mind, as MMO's work differently. It's the massive part that is the difference.

Thanks for the replies, guys! I was afraid I'd just get laughter. Even if the suggestion never meets fruition, which I did not expect that it HAD to, as it was something to throw out there (I'm trying to relax and just be me and not be so afraid all the time), I'm glad you guys responded and didn't laugh at me. Twas a good self-esteem booster for me, and stuff.

Sorry, went on again!!! Lol.

Rach said...

yeah, occasionally I do run out of things to say ... then I turn over to my blog. see the blog. lots of action lately... perhaps there's some sort of disconnect between words coming from the mouth and actual thought processes --? (hmmm?)
(it's 1:15 in the morning... I'm highly choclinated... it's time for bed...)