Anybody watch Mental??

Started by beezley
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beezley

beezley

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There is a new show on Fox called Mental that is based in a psych hospital and follows the goings-on of a charming, dashing (read:British accent) psychiatrist who is the new director of the hospital and is shaking things up a bit with his fresh take on things.

1st episode was last night. My husband kept saying it was awful. I reminded him he is an engineer who loves 'Pinks All Out' on Speedvision.

The main story last night was a schizophrenic who had been stable on meds for 12 years but felt quelled creatively. Prior to his illness he had been a very gifted artist and on the meds he moved boxes at a plumbing shop. He stopped taking his meds because he "thought he could do both" but he ended up threatening his family and they sent him in. The dashing doctor proposed stopping his meds and tinkering up until he got on the minimum effective dosage. How were they going to stablize him off his meds while doing all this tinkering? 'Aromatherapy, naturopathic remedies, juggling....whatever works'. That quote kind of made me go, 'come on'. But whatever. And of course the schizophrenic had a wonderful middle class family that had a nice house in LA, like all people with Axis I disorders, right?

But I think it is cool that the show is on so I am going to continue to tune in for awhile. Just wondered if anyone saw it.
 
watched the show online this morning, thought it was fairly entertaining, not quite as "exciting/suspenseful" as House seeing as the patient isn't on the brink of death and the diagnosis is known from the beginning.

I don't know anything about medicine so I can't comment on the medical content.
 
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i watched it because someone mentioned it here on SDN.
i'm not much of a TV watcher but it was okay.

i felt like a lot of the medical stuff was questionable and there was a great amount of hollywoodization in terms of personality types of docs, etc.

at one point, i remember the patient was having florid hallucinations and they showed his medical records saying "delusional disorder" or something to that effect. things like that make me wonder if i should cut them some slack or kick the writers in the proverbial balls for not having an actual psychiatrist look over their work....

the only reason i would watch this program is to know what the lay public may be thinking about psychiatry.
 
The dashing doctor proposed stopping his meds and tinkering up until he got on the minimum effective dosage. How were they going to stablize him off his meds while doing all this tinkering? 'Aromatherapy, naturopathic remedies, juggling....whatever works'.
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Haven't seen it, I'll try to Hulu it.

I got to say this--based on this description alone, it sounds very unrealistic. Intentionally stopping meds on a patient in that manner, especially factoring in that this guy is threatening while psychotic? To get a patient back to stability somtimes requires more medication than the amount to keep them stable. Its not like stopping their meds, and then reintroducing them back will yield the minimal effective dose again. There's data pointing that maximum benefits of antipsychotics can take months. It might've been safer if the psychiatrist attempted to lower the medication dose or put the patient on an extended release version of the medication (if one was available) instead of stopping them.

As for "lack of creativity" on meds--I haven't seen any data to support that. That doesn't mean several patients don't experience idiosyncratic effects from meds that aren't the norm. However a psychiatrist should've considered that perhaps this guy's complaint of lack of creativity could've really meant sedation, poor concentration, etc from his existing medication, and seen if there was anything he could've done to help that area with a different medication or lower dosage than to take this guy off of his meds.

How were they going to stablize him off his meds while doing all this tinkering? 'Aromatherapy, naturopathic remedies, juggling....whatever works'
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Was this guy at home while "tinkering"? If so--given that he has a history of threatening them while psychotic-this practice is dangerous, not even noting that the above treatments have no to questionable data.

And if he was in inpatient, I'd love to hear what a managed care company would think if they were paying for this guy's medical bill while his doctor gave him juggling & aromatherapy.
 
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Just saw the first few minutes of it on Hulu.

Psychotic guy decompensates

Unrealistic bits...
1-Cop comes to the psyche ward, and cocks his gun and points it at the patient.
2-head character tries to calm down psychotic patient by taking his clothes off and supports his psychosis by telling the guy he's on that guy's side and also against the bad people (the hospital staff). Patients, staff etc are seeing the head psychiatrist with his fat free body calming patient down.
3-residents don't seem overworked and suffering from lack of sleep.
4-psychotic patient released from restraints and within 2 minutes grabs head character with enough criteria to meet agitation, orderly is about to forcibly remove him and head character guy puts his hand up, motioning the orderly away, telling him "its alright".
5-Treatment team doesn't want patients involved in with the treatment team. Gallagher progressively mentions he wants patients involved as if its a completely new idea. Not having patients involved in treatment team is not the standard of care.
6-Gallagher allows patients outside for a party with a live band (as if hospitals have live bands for music therapy groups). Old lady & young patient are making goo goo eyes at each other in a comedic way that will make laypeople love Gallagher's efforts.
7-Gallagher goes to patient's home, and talks to the patient's kids trying to get more information about his patient before he knows the mother is home.
8-psychotic patient escapes from the hospital & find him at work, Gallagher tells the hospital to call the police and tell them not to do anything until Gallagher gets to the work place to talk to the patient himself.

Haven't finished the episode yet, but all in all, seems like its on the order of House in terms of unrealistic dramatic aspects. I do think it can though increase mental illness awareness in a good way since it did portray the psychotic patient's suffering in an empathic manner that validates the suffering they go through.

(By the way, I love House even though it is very unrealistic).
 
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whopper said:
2-head character tries to calm down psychotic patient by taking his clothes off and supports his psychosis by telling the guy he's on that guy's side and also against the bad people (the hospital staff). Patients, staff etc are seeing the head psychiatrist with his fat free body calming patient down.
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Now you've given me reason to want to watch the show!😉
 
I think whopper is right about the portraying the true suffering of mental illness in an empathetic fashion. That is good for the mentally ill and psychiatry. I think the show fell flat in how it portrayed it's effect on families.

They should really consult with some psychiatrists though. A couple of times they would show the patient's chart with diagnosis and one of them was "Dead Cat Syndrome" for this guy who has a bunch of dead cats in his freezer. Now I am not yet a resident (<1 month) but I don't think in any of my psych rotations I have heard of that.

I like how they have a doc on there who is all slick and working with the drug companies too, kind of portrays 2 different sides of medicine. The altruistic Dr. Gallagher vs. the selfish other one.

I will keep tuning in.
 
whopper said:
Just saw the first few minutes of it on Hulu.
....Haven't finished the episode yet, but all in all, seems like its on the order of House in terms of unrealistic dramatic aspects. I do think it can though increase mental illness awareness in a good way since it did portray the psychotic patient's suffering in an empathic manner that validates the suffering they go through.

(By the way, I love House even though it is very unrealistic).
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Yeah, but do you think it increases awareness in a HELPFUL way to imply that the "good" psychiatrist treats that suffering by being OK being assaulted by his patient, that he makes housecalls to get family history, that he's a fun dude who encourages hospital parties for patients...? (If one of our residents had poor enough boundaries to remove clothing and perpetuate splitting, as you describe in #2--he'd be on his way toward a premature departure from the program!)
From what you described, the unrealistic outweighs the awareness-raising by far, and I just don't see that it helps to have patients' and families' expectations about their care be skewed so radically toward the Hollywood model.
 
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Reminds me of Patch Adams (the movie). As well intentioned as that movie was, if everyone practiced as Patch did, you'd have people dying when while in the ICU--the well intentioned, unimmunized medical student without clinical training, nor aware of hospital regulations, illegally mascarading as a doctor screams at a patient to excite him, and the patient is very happy with it (if it were me, I'd call for security & press charges), or that there couldn't have been anything wrong with hiring a guy to treat people without a background check, or Patch's proven method of getting good grades--don't study. Oh yeah I'm sure that works with everybody.

My then girlfriend at the time was sorely upset at me for not understanding why medical training needs to follow that model. I guess that proved to her I was a square.

Yeah I can see the same problems with this TV show, however as with the movie A Beautiful Mind, while there were things in that movie too that were not realistic, it did increase awareness of mental illness, IMHO in a positive sense.

For the sake of awareness, it would be better if this show did follow a more accurate model, and IMHO could still be entertaining, but it could still have some beneficial impact.
 
whopper said:
..
Yeah I can see the same problems with this TV show, however as with the movie A Beautiful Mind, while there were things in that movie too that were not realistic, it did increase awareness of mental illness, IMHO in a positive sense.

For the sake of awareness, it would be better if this show did follow a more accurate model, and IMHO could still be entertaining, but it could still have some beneficial impact.
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In "A Beautiful Mind", you at least did not have psychiatrists behaving completely oppositely to the standard of care. Well, except for letting the wife watch the shock treatments... 🙄
 
Or the monumental decision of Nash to not take his medications, accepting his illness, and choosing to deal with it using the all curative power of love, then presenting it as if that choice works.

What a heartwarming and utterly unrealistic scene.

At least the movie did acknowledge towards the end, when he was an old man, that he was taking atpicals, and learned in a CBT like fashion to ignore some of the symptoms he had--e.g. his hallucinations of his friend & friend's niece, and develop behavioral mechanisms to deal with his symptoms such as ask someone he knows was real if a new person he encountered was also seen & heard by that person too. That requires a great amount of insight and personal fortitude.

A doctor at the NJPA mentioned during a meeting that she wondered if that scene inspired anyone to stop taking their meds--and if so, how much harm it may have caused. Did it lead to anyone dying? Decompensating at a cost of over $50K to the system for the inevitable hospitalization?

Still though, public awareness wise I think that movie did serve some good.
 
I think there was a 20 second scene where they were discussing whether or not to diagnose malingering in regard to some off camera patient.

maybe one of the more realistic conversations?
 
Also the title "Mental" is a little less tasteful than I first thought,

I just remembered that mental is the slang for crazy/insane in England.
 
I'm really loving (not) how Gallagher so glibly decides to break into his patient's home to learn more about him, upsetting the patient's family and causing them to consider taking legal action against him. Then when his boss finds out, he has this smile on his face as if it didn't matter.
 
Reminds me of a remark I read in Psychiatric News back around the time "Silence of the Lambs", "Prince of Tides" and "Basic Instinct" came out: according to Hollywood, bad psychiatrists sleep with their patients and then kill them, whereas good psychiatrists just sleep with their patients. 🙄
 
I think all of Hollywood is infiltrated with the scientologists. Maybe Tom Cruise is a producer of this show...prob not 🙂.

Like I said, I will give it a few more episodes. I don't watch Grey's Anatomy but I know a lot of people that do and that has to be given some leeway for it;s hollywoodization, I mean it IS a TV show. Plus I'm a sucker for a dashing chap with a british accent anyday. I would probably juggle or have some aromatherapy if he told me to 😉

Do you think Hulued is going to become a verb like googled?

Another psychiatrist who sleeps with her patient: The one in The Departed. She is in a relationship with Matt Damon but ends up falling for and getting pregnant by her tormented deep undercover cop patient Leonardo DiCaprio. 'Leo!!'
 
If this show were done by Scientologists, Gallagher would've raped 3 children by now, there would've been intense rape scenes, and then he would've given a demonic laugh. He would have a secret appreciation for Hitler. At the end of the episode, he'd meet up with his fellow psychiatrists at a secret Illumnati/Skull & Bones style meeting where they all show up in black cloaks at some mega-uber mansion. Then a bunch of hot babes would've come out of nowhere wearing masks kinda like in Cruise's movie Eyes Wide Shut.

The unrealistic & idiotic things in the show are for ratings. This is Hollywood's attempt to create a lovable psychiatrist and at the same time garner ratings.
 
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whopper said:
he'd meet up with his fellow psychiatrists at a secret Illumnati/Skull & Bones style meeting where they all show up in black cloaks at some mega-uber mansion. Then a bunch of hot babes would've come out of nowhere wearing masks kinda like in Cruise's movie Eyes Wide Shut.
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You mean this isn't what happens at your APA district branch meeting?
 
whopper said:
If this show were done by Scientologists, Gallagher would've raped 3 children by now, there would've been intense rape scenes, and then he would've given a demonic laugh. He would have a secret appreciation for Hitler. At the end of the episode, he'd meet up with his fellow psychiatrists at a secret Illumnati/Skull & Bones style meeting where they all show up in black cloaks at some mega-uber mansion. Then a bunch of hot babes would've come out of nowhere wearing masks kinda like in Cruise's movie Eyes Wide Shut.

The unrealistic & idiotic things in the show are for ratings. This is Hollywood's attempt to create a lovable psychiatrist and at the same time garner ratings.
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When do we get to ride in the spaceships?
 
Doc Samson said:
You mean this isn't what happens at your APA district branch meeting?
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The hot babes at our district APA mtgs aren't allowed to wear masks...
With masks, we can't properly rate their hotness.

I'm in favor of anything that portrays psychiatric patients as "people" with goals and dreams and angst and families - who are not commonly violent and when they are violent it is usu. due to fear and not malice. It does happen (usu related to drug/alcohol abuse), but it's relatively rare.

I'm also in favor of anything that positively portrays addressing patients with dignity and respect.

I'm not too worried that people will think either extreme of characters on the show is the "norm" for psychiatrists. "House" is fun to watch, but almost no one would want him to be their own Primary Care Physician.

As for the show, I also kinda' doubt it will last more than one season. The writing just isn't up to "House" or "ER" standards. But how would I know?
"Damnit, Jim. I'm a doctor! Not a TV Critic."
 
kugel said:
I'm not too worried that people will think either extreme of characters on the show is the "norm" for psychiatrists. "House" is fun to watch, but almost no one would want him to be their own Primary Care Physician.
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I just watched it and thought the same thing.

I don't sweat something like House, because people have enough exposure to their PCP to not have their view of physical illness changed. My worry about something like Mental is that folks start thinking, "oh, I guess I shouldn't visit a psychiatrist about my anxiety/depression/etc. I'm not like THAT..."

I'd agree with VMSmith that it won't last the season except that my wife and several female friends have remarked how cute the guy in the lead is. You could parlay that into a full season, I reckon.

Shows like this make me pine for St. Elsewhere, but I'm probably just dating myself...
 
notdeadyet said:
I'd agree with VMSmith that it won't last the season except that my wife and several female friends have remarked how cute the guy in the lead is. You could parlay that into a full season, I reckon.
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And now we know why the writers had him take off his clothes within the first 5 minutes of the pilot episode...
 
Several shows for the summer aren't often times expected to succeed. They're just filler.

As for my scientology comment-its based on how we were presented in their video Psychiatry, An Industry of Death. Child Molestation, being an integral part of the Nazi movement, being part of a world wide conspiracy to make untold amounts of wealth at the cost of human suffering, and per their teachings--part of an interstellar alien federation bent on evil.

Well heck, I'm not into chlid molestation, I'm not Caucasian so I'm sure the Nazis would've put me into a concentration camp, I'm not so much into money so long as there's a roof over my head, I can bathe, have clean clothes & eat....

but the Interstellar Federation thing is cool.
 
I’d like to see a better version of this idea by somebody like Alan Ball. Instead of starting each episode with a death the way they did in Six Feet Under, the writers could depict various breakdowns at the start of each episode.
Gallagher is waaaay too smarmy. I’d rather take my chances with Hannibal Lecter. :scared:
 
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VMSmith said:
Thought it was pretty terrible. I doubt it will last a full season.
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I agree. Without even getting to the actual content, the acting on this show is just not good. The lead guy wants to be a smarty pants/iconoclast like House, with the smirk of the lead in the Mentalist. He doesn't pull off either. I like House and the Mentalist...this show is dead on arrival. 👎
 
I wish some other network would do this *right*. Like back in the Chicago Hope/ER days. Someone else in Hollywood has to have better screenplay ideas.

I guess I'll just have to settle for In Treatment, which is monumentally better than Mental.

It's so disappointing! Each week it gets worse, too. Booking an OR and handing out scalpels to patients this time... Yeesh.



But I can't.

Stop.

Watching.

Dammit.
 
So my thoughts on the show are that they are trying to copy house only on a psych unit, the characters aren't that interesting and the premise seemed really stupid. Having said all that, I think it would be really awesome if they showed house as a patient in the psych facility that he checked himself into next season. (only on his own show, not the lame mental one)
 
Mental sucked. The characters were shallow, the acting was terrible. However, the psychiatrist was kind of cute. I mean, when is the last time you saw a shrink who looked like that?

Btw, apparently "In Session" is apparently back on HBO. I think.
 
luft said:
So my thoughts on the show are that they are trying to copy house only on a psych unit, the characters aren't that interesting and the premise seemed really stupid. Having said all that, I think it would be really awesome if they showed house as a patient in the psych facility that he checked himself into next season. (only on his own show, not the lame mental one)
Click to expand...

*House spoiler alert*







They are, for "at least" two episodes.
 
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