Talk Radio is Cluster B

[whopper]

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Somewhat OT but did you ever think that "talk radio" shows several cluster B traits? I'm not trying to blame either side, in fact I think both sides do it. (I don't know if we're talking the same "talk radio"--some refer to the term to passionate politcal commentary that now goes across the AM dial. Others refer to it as any talk show on the radio.)

I admit I at times enjoy listening to opinionated & passionate commentary of talk radio, but I also find several people feeding off of it in a negative manner.

E.g. its histrionic, splitting (trying to portray America as 2 sides engaged in a type of war; trying to portray one side as all good, the other as all bad with data that can be easily pointed out as biased & one sided), attention seeking, blaming, etc.

Several of my higher functioning SCPT patients that believe the government is spying on them just are addicted to talk radio as if its gospel, then take it a step further into the utterly delusional.

Now, while I mention all this, I admit I do occasionally enjoy listening to it. Its just that I also need to time away from it to not get caught up in its hysteria.

Reason why I bring this up is the more I've progressed in psychiatry, the less I've liked talk radio and similar media forms. Have you ever noticed the same? This could affect your outlook on what you want to do.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

This comment was just deserving of its own thread.

Talk amongst yourselves....😀

 

[Anasazi23]

I've been listening to WABC and WWOR in New York City since I was a kid.

I swear that michael savage has stolen many of my lines and rants.

I claim (and I have witnesses) that I coined the term, "liberalism is a thought disorder." And he came up with "liberalism is a mental disease." He must have been on the other side of the booth in back of me at the dark Irish bar.



Nobody take offense, go ahead...say it. 🙂

 

[billypilgrim37]

While other kids were watching SNL at age 13, I was watching Rush Limbaugh's short-lived half hour show on ABC Saturday nights at 11:30. Of course, I was also sent off to Jerry Falwell camps a few summers, and remember my family a) assuring me AIDS was God's attack on teh ghey, b) greatly approving when our preacher told a woman that if she had something to say at the Wednesday night business meeting, her husband was right there beside her to say it for her.

Do I need therapy for my redneck conservabaptist past?

My favorite thing about Michael Savage is that he has a phd from Berkeley in some sort of weirdo hippy ethnomedicine thing. Proving that Michael Savage is the 13th model of Cylon.

 

[whopper]

My favorite thing about Michael Savage is that he has a phd from Berkeley in some sort of weirdo hippy ethnomedicine thing. Proving that Michael Savage is the 13th model of Cylon.

13th Cylon--man I miss Battlestar. Haven't caught the last season because of USMLE Step III.

Listen to WABC too. Don't get it well in south Jersey. Its fun at times, but I also think its splitting in action. I think there's people who can take it in a positive manner, but I also find there's plenty who take it as gospel. This goes for everyone. I tried to listen to Air America and couldn't take in any of the shows. They weren't as entertaining but just as splitting. (I'm not really conservative or liberal as a whole, there's plenty of stances I agree with on both ends. I don't really want to say I'm a moderate either because some of my stances on either aren't held by those considered "moderate").

Tying this to psychiatry-its kinda like religion. There's people who use religion in a positive way, but some are religiously preoccupied. I got 2 SCPT patients and they listen to talk radio all the time. I decided not to try to stop them because that'll just reinforce their belief that I'm part of some gov conspiracy out to control them.

I used to listen to Hannity 2-4 days a week, the full 3 hrs (and I'm not a conservative). Now I just listen about 1 hr a week and start switching the dial after about 10 minutes. I guess I've just become more sensitive to stuff I'm finding cluster B, and I think he's the least one of all (don't listen much to the other conservative speakers because at least Hannity has respected people with opposing points on the show.) I find myself not able to listen to talk radio as much when I'm discouraging similar behaviors in my patients. I'm not talking about opposing viewpoints, but the tendency to split against people who disagree with your own opinion.

 

[MBK2003]

I wholeheartedly agree. I used to be able to listen to the "other" political side talk radio demigods for at least the humor of it, but now the "borderline" hairs on the back of my neck stand up within 4 minutes and I compelled to change the channel. I like to use my CBT/DBT skills and when I'm listening to primitive defenses flying out of the radio, my first instinct is to try and moderate the splitting/projection/denial. I was thinking that for me, it was an effect of 4 months on a borderline & eating disorder inpatient unit, but given others' experiences it may be a by-product of psychiatry training.

MBK2003

 

[whopper]

I was watching Hannity & Colmes yesterday and a conservative guy from the Media Research Center (a conservative think tank that upholds the notion that there's liberal media bias) was on.

Anyways, the guy told Alan Colmes, something to the effect of -I can think of 4 examples of liberal bias Alan, name me 4 now! (remember, Fox debate gives about 5 seconds for each person to respond), since you only know 1 that shows I'm right-

Geez, talk about a primitive defense mechanism. I felt like it was a little kid arguing with an adult.

Again, I'm not really liberal or conservative. To balance it out, Randy Rhodes talks about conservatives like she was married to one and now is in the middle of a divorce.

I was especially offended when several talk radio hosts had doctors on their show that were trying to prove Terry Schiavo was capable of complete recovery, even though none of the doctors had treated her as their patient, and their knowledge of the case was only based on what they read in newspapers and what they saw in videos--complete violation of the standard of care. Did this cause a problem? I think it did--Michael Schiavo received death threats, politicians and talk show hosts portrayed him as someone just trying to off his wife.

When the autopsy showed she really did have a large hole in her brain, and she wasn't capable of recovery, I don't remember any of the talk radio commentators apologize or take back their comments.

This for me was one of the death knells in my passion for talk radio. When you got a guy criticizing people like Sharpton for doing something like this, and they pull the same without apology......

(and to balance that out, I hope all of you know Sharpton ruined a police officer's life in the Tawana Brawley fiasco.)

Anyways, tying this into John Nash's Game Theory--this has become a problem with modern politics. Game Theory is based on the notion that when there's competition, it can be positive--leading to better products for consumers and a strive for improvement. It can also lead to a scorched earth where the competition is causing more harm than good. Cluster B's as we know tend to do the latter.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

I wholeheartedly agree. I used to be able to listen to the "other" political side talk radio demigods for at least the humor of it, but now the "borderline" hairs on the back of my neck stand up within 4 minutes and I compelled to change the channel. I like to use my CBT/DBT skills and when I'm listening to primitive defenses flying out of the radio, my first instinct is to try and moderate the splitting/projection/denial. I was thinking that for me, it was an effect of 4 months on a borderline & eating disorder inpatient unit, but given others' experiences it may be a by-product of psychiatry training.

MBK2003

I have almost the same reaction when listening to most talk radio. Most of what I hear is: denial/defense mechanisms, then rant/projection....repeat. I chuckle at the liberal talking heads because they are out of touch with reality ("Hug a tree on three!"), though the hardliners for the other side aren't exactly functioning in the real world either ("[insert group] has caused all of our problems, they are evil!!!"). I wish we got Ann Coulter down here, I think that would be a blast. I catch her on a variety of shows here and there, and I'm enthralled by her interactions. She ranges from calm and collected, to a raving loony (clinical term!) who busted out of a ward and is trying to block the mind control of the liberal media (redundant in her eyes). I happen to agree with much of what she says, but like Micheal Moore and the plethora of people on both sides before them.....if they scaled it back maybe 15-20%, it would be A LOT harder to dismiss either as a fringe person. Scary, huh?

-t

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Geez, talk about a primitive defense mechanism. I felt like it was a little kid arguing with an adult.
...

Which is why Jon Stewart (oops--guess I just revealed where I get my news!) used to have clips of school-aged kids reading off of the transcripts of these shows.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

SCPT

OK.....time for the stupid undergrad psych major question of the day.......what's that stand for? I'm assuming it has something to do with paranoid schizophrenia by how it was used but I wasn't sure.

 

[whopper]

Schizophrenia: Chronic Paranoid Type.

Some schizophrenics are higher functioning, and don't show too obvious signs of thought disorder. These are usually the SCPT types (there's other types such as disorganized type & catatonic type which show strong signs of thought disorder).

Several SCPTs believe in some type of delusion that the government is after them or there's some type of conspiracy going on with the gov. Now that there's an ample media source in the talk radio market and on the internet that can feed almost every paranoia--well now you got something that some of these people feel legitimizes their delusions.

Which is why Jon Stewart (oops--guess I just revealed where I get my news!) used to have clips of school-aged kids reading off of the transcripts of these shows.

For Cruise's sake--geez that's funny. I'm sorry I missed those episodes. I think being childish is what a lot of them are doing, even when I agree with their viewpoint.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Schizophrenia: Chronic Paranoid Type.

Some schizophrenics are higher functioning, and don't show too obvious signs of thought disorder. These are usually the SCPT types (there's other types such as disorganized type & catatonic type which show strong signs of thought disorder).

Several SCPTs believe in some type of delusion that the government is after them or there's some type of conspiracy going on with the gov. Now that there's an ample media source in the talk radio market and on the internet that can feed almost every paranoia--well now you got something that some of these people feel legitimizes their delusions.



For Cruise's sake--geez that's funny. I'm sorry I missed those episodes. I think being childish is what a lot of them are doing, even when I agree with their viewpoint.

Thanks! I like this forum on here because I learn stuff and most of you are not nearly as nasty towards me for my presence in "your" forum. 👍

 

[Solideliquid]

A few months ago I had a long discussion about this with one of our inpatient attendings. SCPT has really nothing to do with paranoid ideations. The "paranoid" in SCPT is simply a classification that was tacked on. Again, folks with SCPT do not necessarily have to have paranoid delusions, or have a suspicious disposition like folks with paranoid personality disorder.

That's not to say that some SCPT, who DO have delusions as part of their psychosis, never have paranoid delusions, they can.

SCPT simply means that these folks do not exhibit negative symptoms of schizophrenia (blunt or flat affect, alogia/avolition, thought disorder or cognitive impairment, disorganized speech/behavior, and so on).

Schizophrenia: Chronic Paranoid Type.

Some schizophrenics are higher functioning, and don't show too obvious signs of thought disorder. These are usually the SCPT types (there's other types such as disorganized type & catatonic type which show strong signs of thought disorder).

Several SCPTs believe in some type of delusion that the government is after them or there's some type of conspiracy going on with the gov. Now that there's an ample media source in the talk radio market and on the internet that can feed almost every paranoia--well now you got something that some of these people feel legitimizes their delusions.



For Cruise's sake--geez that's funny. I'm sorry I missed those episodes. I think being childish is what a lot of them are doing, even when I agree with their viewpoint.

 

[jjbmsiv]

Which is why Jon Stewart (oops--guess I just revealed where I get my news!)

You and me both (though I adore Colbert's schtick sliiiiightly more). I can't take my news in any other form these days, it's pathetic. Though, I do exercise my libertarian-leanings by reading Reason.com.

 

[whopper]

CPT simply means that these folks do not exhibit negative symptoms of schizophrenia (blunt or flat affect, alogia/avolition, thought disorder or cognitive impairment, disorganized speech/behavior, and so on).

A better explanation than my own. Thanks for putting it on. Doctors are supposed to teach in addition to practice.

By the way, I agree--I like this forum because I'm learning from the other residents here. When you're in a program with only 20 residents and a handful of attendings, I sometimes wonder if there's something I'm missing. This place helps fill the gaps, especially with some of the knowledge & patience people have here.

 

[Solideliquid]

It was really funny because I was so confused...I was like "So, you are saying chronic paranoid schizophrenics are NOT actually paranoid?" lol.

A better explanation than my own. Thanks for putting it on. Doctors are supposed to teach in addition to practice.

By the way, I agree--I like this forum because I'm learning from the other residents here. When you're in a program with only 20 residents and a handful of attendings, I sometimes wonder if there's something I'm missing. This place helps fill the gaps, especially with some of the knowledge & patience people have here.