Objective Activity
The video features Dr. Sherwin Nuland who speaks about his recovery from severe depression. In the beginning, he discusses the historical development of psychological science from antiquity to modern time. In particular, Dr. Nuland focuses on the benefits of electroshock therapy as a method of treating mental disorders. In order to prove this point, he refers to his own struggles with depression. He describes the symptoms which he had and enumerates different forms of treatments that he had to undergo.
While concluding his lecture, Dr. Nuland said that every person, who suffers from a mental disorder, has a chance to return to normal and more fulfilling life. At the end of the lecture, Dr. Nuland spoke about the impacts of later and indirect impacts of this disease on his family life and career. Overall, this lecture has been rather informative and interesting.
Subjective feelings
While watching this video, I had mixed feelings. First of all, I was really glad for the speaker who succeeded in overcoming a severe mental disorder. Moreover, Dr. Nuland managed to provide a great number of examples that were both witty and eloquent. To some extent, his optimism was transmitted to the audience and to the viewers of this video. However, I would like to say that this lecture demonstrated to me that a patient is exposed to a great number of risks, especially if a therapist sets a wrong diagnosis or chooses an inappropriate treatment mode. Still, this lecture produced a very positive impression on me. The most important thing is that both a patient and a physician retain hope in recovery. Without it, there is very little likelihood that a person will manage to conquer the affliction.
The relevance of this video to class material
In part, this video is related to the class material. On the one hand, it emphasized the importance of proper diagnosis. During his discussion, Dr. Nuland mentions several symptoms which he had, for instance, feeling of worthlessness, insomnia, fatigue, and obsessive ideas. Certainly, the information that he provides is clearly not sufficient for an accurate diagnosis. The thing is that there are several forms of depressive disorder; they ace classified according to their severity.
Moreover, such symptoms can be associated with other diseases such as paranoid depressive disorder and sometimes schizophrenia. Furthermore, scholars and practitioners believe that depression can be diagnosed only the symptoms are observed are quite regularly (Barlow & Durand, 226). Overall, judging from the information provided in this video, one can hardly set the DSM-IV diagnosis which required a detailed description of the symptoms.
One can hypothesize that he was suffering from the major recurrent depressive disorder with psychotic features. Yet, in order to confirm this diagnosis, a physician would have to observe the patient’s behavior for quite a long time; otherwise, he/she runs the risks of misinterpreting the patient’s symptoms.
Dr. Nuland enumerates several forms of treatment which he tried, namely psychotherapy, medication, and finally electroshock therapy. Moreover, according to him, the drugs which were administered to him led to jaundice, while, the use of electroshock therapy brought significant improvements. It has to be admitted that this form of treatment is often criticized and many practitioners are opposed to it, but the example of Dr. Nuland indicates that it also can be quite effective.
Works Cited
Barlow David & Durand Vincent. Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach (5th ed). NY: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print.