Learning to Play

Dear Dr. Vollmer,

Thank you for this post. This topic is very interesting to me.

As a side note, I always enjoy your entries! I check the PT blog regularly and am consistently drawn to your posts before I even know their yours! I am particularly intrigued by what you write because you touch upon ideas and issues that offer insight into a career I am aspiring to have. At the moment I am completing a MA (in Cinema Studies) and am in the process of applying to medical school (with the intention of pursuing psychiatry).

I look forward to your future entries!

"it is hard to articulate the internal discomfort, and it is easier to focus on sleep since that is a measurable experience."

This is a central struggle, especially for a psychiatrist who is less and less expected to do psychotherapy and more and more expected to write prescriptions. I applaud your courage to focus on the "long term" resolution of patient problems.

As a graduate counseling psychology student, I face this too -- even though I don't have the right to prescribe drugs. (sometimes I wonder if have prescription rights is a blessing or a curse!) There's such a balancing act we play in therapy between bestowing comfort and giving "quick fixes" and bestowing them the courage for the "long term."

It's because of thoughtful psychiatrists like yourself, that the profession will hold together for the long term and not dissolve into pill pushers for fancy drugs.

Zach and Belinda, your comments are very meaningful to me. Thank you for taking the time to read my posts and thank you for making your thoughtful comments.

My 11 year old son has sleep issues related to anxiety, which began around age 7. We found a solution in allowing him to play "soothing" music at a low volume all night. This has worked fairly well and as he gets older, the anxiety problems are less. Medication was never an option for us, seems like our society is more and more reliant on the quick fix, which really only prolongs the problem.

I think the more and more "advanced" we become as a society there will be increasing issues in areas such as sleep. We are constantly being entertained, sold, or having fear driven to our minds. At the end of the day most of us have the "monkey mind" going full tilt. Even when we do get to sleep the mind is still going in our dreams. Daily meditation and breathing are the key. Once you sit with yourself it is crazy how much is going on inside.