Week 3

    I really enjoy reading the Hays book. This is my second time now, but I always learn something new when I read it. For example, I did not know about the V codes for religion/spirituality. The interaction of psychology and religion is very interesting to me. If a psychologist is unaware of some religious beliefs or practices, they can easily be understood as delusional, hallucinations, or even avoidant. I think I have talked about it before, but I read "The God-Shaped Brain" by Timothy Jennings which discussed how one perceives and understands God in Christianity can be contributing to their mental health positively or negatively. Even in different religions or in nonreligious people, how we conceptualize a higher being or lack thereof would affect how we understand ourselves and the world around us. We recently discussed a patient in our CBT class that attributed her OCD and depression to punishment from Allah. It was a difficult line to balance- working through the cognitions and obsessions without deconstructing her religion. A family friend recently lost her teenage son in a car accident and she doesn't talk about her grief but her joy that he is in heaven. As a therapist, what do you do in this situation? She is avoiding the pain of losing her son through her religion, but is it my job to say she can't do that? If she says God took her pain away, do I try to dig up that pain and work through it? I grew up in a religious space where people were commonly speaking in tongues and talking about what God was speaking to them. If I client told me that they were speaking in a strange language because they were filled with a spirit that speaks to them I would be worried. 

When would you use a religious/ spiritual code in diagnosing someone? 

    I also liked Hays's point that who decides what is suspicion, paranoia, or distrust? The standards are based on white men who have different experiences than everyone else. I can only speak as a white woman, but I am sure I have behaviors that look strange and paranoid when compared to white men because there are more things I am worried about. It might seem odd that I have to sit in certain places in restaurants, or that I am constantly checking my rearview mirror to know what car is there and how long it has been there, or that I purposefully dress a certain way based on my destination and account for any attention I might draw. They can seem like very distrustful and paranoid behaviors, but they have protection for me. These, amongst others, are skills that I have learned to keep myself safe and out of breaking news stories. I think using the ADDRESSING framework early in therapy is a necessary skill before moving toward a diagnosis or conceptualization, as Hays advocates.  

Journal Grade: 19/20