The Truth, The Whole Truth, And A Good Dose Of Weirdness

Psychiatry, as a whole, is an unusual occupation—but working at Green Acres sometimes seems a couple standard deviations beyond the norm even for shrinks.

For example, how many psychiatrists ever find themselves in a court hearing, on the stand, being cross-examined by one of their own psychotic inpatients? Such was the Twilight Zone-like experience this morning. The hospital had filed a petition to extend a patient’s involuntary hospitalization, the patient had fired his attorney and received permission from the court to represent himself, and I was a witness in the matter. In the process my patient asked me to testify on such topics as, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea not to lie so much?”, and “What do you think of this judge?”, and “Why does that attorney have such a funny nose?”

Meanwhile the patient’s (ex-)attorney was relegated to the back row of the courtroom. During my direct testimony, he once or twice verbalized reasonable “objections” on his client’s behalf, but the patient loudly exclaimed “objection to the objection!” and told his attorney to keep his mouth shut, or he’d be thrown out for contempt.