Current Strains for Mental Health Trainees
C. BROOKS BRENNEIS PH.D.1, and
DORI LAUB M.D.2
1 Assistant Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology), Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, Conn. 06520
2 Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, 333 Cedar St., New Haven, Conn. 06520
Mental health trainees are currently troubled by conflicts between the "new" radical psychiatry and "old" professionalism. The conflict has been shaded with social and political overtones such that trainees view their worth as professionals not in terms of their skill, but rather in terms of how involved they are in the social and political arena. The authors feel that as a result, trainees have difficulty accepting their fallibility, tend to attribute psychiatric illness to social ills, and deal with their doubts about their therapeutic efficacy by committing themselves to action rather than to reflection.
