I previously published an article, entitled About "Regarding a person Who recovers". It documents the actual situation and recovery of a family member with schizophrenia, and it does not describe my recovery as a patient as a psychiatrist. At the time of publication, the main purpose was to disclose the real name of the family member.
Since the disclosure, I have met many patients and families, and learned their true thoughts and strengths that I would have never known simply through consultation, and this totally changed my perceptions of them.
Meanwhile, I also received many comments from medical professionals who were also family members of patients at the same time. I learned that they were struggling with conflicting emotions of being a family member as well as a professional, and I realized the isolations of families, and persistent stigma attached to psychiatric disorders.
The disclosure broadened my perspectives as a psychiatrist. Now, more than 30 years after becoming a doctor, I still question myself: 'what have I done?', 'Have I listened to the voices of patients and their families?' I still have persisted, as a psychiatrist, until today.
Psychiatry is a field that can be neglected if you do not question its contradictions. I think this is also why 'patient-centered recovery' has been neglected, and, as a result, psychiatry has been left behind.
I often hear people asking: 'how can we increase numbers of psychiatrists?' I did not become a psychiatrist because of my own experience. I believe that, by providing medical care that the patients and their families can appreciate, from those families, some younger members will desire to become psychiatrists; that is the way psychiatry should be developed.
For that purpose, I believe it is necessary more than anything to approach each case with great care, valuing the 'real voices' of patients and their families, and respecting their strengths.
<Author's abstract>
As a Child of a Parent with Schizophrenia, as a Patient, and as a Psychiatrist: A Message to All JSPN Members
Yakitsubenomichi Shinryojo
Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica
117: 228-233, 2015
<Keywords:patient, family, stigma, psychiatry>