[jackflashdrive]

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do you feel that working there made you more likely to become depressed or suffer other mental illness? i had a friend who stayed in a psychiatric hospital for a week after he had a nervous breakdown and expressed suicidal thoughts to his therapist. he wanted to go in at the time, but i think he regretted doing so. he was heavily medicated during the stay and i visited him several times. i left feeling utterly depressed, not only because of my friends situation, but because of all the misery that was there.

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Going to a mental hosptial for the first time is quite a shock for patients, visitors, and new staff. You simply can't be a staff member and continue to remain affected, though. You'll either need to quit or develop your own way to distance yourself emotionally from the specific tragic elements of patient's situations. The most common method is for staff to conceptualize the patients as 'patients.' I.e., a different kind of being from me (and perhaps undeserving of empathy or sympathy). When you see a social category instead of a person, work gets much easier.