Who Reads this Forum?

[DynamicDidactic]

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I often worry about discussion of clinical issues or making light of serious clinical issues on an open forum such as this one. Do you think people outside of the profession (mental health in general) read this forum to get insight on what psychologists/trainees are like in their spare time? Do you ever worry that what you write or how you write it can negatively impact the perception of the field? I do not mean to make a judgment or assign a valence with my question, just wondering what others think.

 

[CheetahGirl]

I hope people outside the profession don't spend time trying to get insight into psychologists/trainees by reading this forum because I think most threads are so specific to our experiences in graduate school & to comb through threads for insight seems like it would be time-consuming and mostly not applicable to those outside the profession. Also, it seems like the moderators have always been prompt in addressing postings that are outside of what SDN can/will/should offer.

I'm generally comfortable posting (anonymously) about my experiences in graduate school, training sites, and city where I live/train. Whenever I post anything involving clinical scenarios, they are always hypothetical and usually a conglomerate of many cases histories heard of the years...so there are no ethical violations there. And over the years, I've only had 1-2 postings that I'm unsure about (one of which was the other night, when I wrote something mean to someone because of personal attacks that got the best/worst of me, and I don't like representing myself in that way). But, other than that, I think this is a great resource for student doctors and appreciate the moral support & guidance here, especially during the internship process.

 

[ikibah]

I'd imagine very few outside of those in or looking into the profession are checking out these forums. Even if someone were to they wouldn't get any crazy conspiratorial "insight". Most the posts are civil and there's not usually anything said that's too damaging to the professions image (imo)

 

[CaliMac]

Can't imagine anyone spending the time to read all this text without an interest in the topics, but it takes all kinds...

Even when newer users post about issues that strike obvious chords with long-time users (psychopharmacology, professional schools, ethical conflicts, etc.), I am consistently impressed (and entertained, admittedly) by the long-timers' responses. The opinions are uniformly intelligent, deeply considered, with an eye to the public nature of this forum, and ALSO showing personality.

Psychologists and hopefuls are not sterile! It reassures this very real person that professionals can also be generous and humorous. And they don't tolerate garbage- reading responses to potential trolls really shows, at least to me, how experts in a field I admire react in times of stress and personal attack.

 

[erg923]

I only very rarely advocate "death therapy" or hitting patients with a hammer...