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Do you have to have had cancer to treat cancer? Do you have to be a crack addict to truly get the jones and the pain? Do you have to be an artist to really understand creativity? These questions range from rhetorical to hmmm, but it's tricky.
The cancer question was the philosophy 101 question for medical school. Sounds rhetorical and dopey, but it addressed the anxiety of the real question, "Who am I, in my stupid white coat, to relate to this sick/dying person?" Early on, young docs are looking for a place, an identity, a way to be of use. The fear, that you are just a kid with a stethoscope, a bottle of pills, or a knife in a sea of clamoring humanity is valid, you are.
I figure there are two ways for a young doctor to get his game on faced with this overwhelming stress. One is the Path of Technique. Get so good and confident at the things you can do, diagnosis, surgery, pharmacology, that you truly believe you are the causative element, the arbiter of change. Two is the Path of Empathy. Listen and feel your patients' feelings and your own to the extent that the details of symptoms, jobs, lives, relationships fade by contrast. Granted, the second path won't sew up a gash, but it is as or more important than the first.
The more patients come through my office each day, typically for 45 minute therapy, plus/minus pharmacology, sessions, the more I shift into the Path of Empathy. Do I have to be an artist to understand why a painter/patient of mine feels blocked, trapped, afraid, angry? Maybe knowing some details about the New York art scene helps. Tapping into my own constructs and feelings of creativity, untrained, sloppy drawings, or a puppet I make for my daughter, definitely helps. But, mostly, it is about listening, hearing the flow and jerky anomalies, inconsistencies in a person's narrative, and feeling what that might make them feel.
Technique, discipline, virtuosity are incredible things. In three years of surgical training, before becoming a psychiatrist, I could barely get my head around those skills, but definitely admired them. Weirdly, or maybe not so weirdly as it is at the heart of the oldest philosophies and religions, I am finding that letting go of some of the need for discipline and "expertise" is incredibly liberating and human.
We see the "experts" on TV. They give the facts, the criteria, and their assessment. But do they always really get it? And if they do get it, why can't they make me feel like they get it? TV begs for definitive answers and sound bites. America wants concrete, definitive answers, not confusing ponderances. And the expert's very status as expert depends on his giving a rarified answer that only a select few experts could give. These are all valid explanations for experts missing the opportunity to connect. Still leaves me feeling ripped off, empty. I guess I could be an expert. But it's much more fun to listen, talk, play. GD
