Scary things

Driving home today I heard on the news that a psychiatrists was stabbed at a major Boston hospital. Also, and almost as upsetting, was the the guy who stabbed her was almost immediately shot to death by an off duty security guard.

It seems from early news reports that it was a man who stabbed a woman psychiatrist. The security guard did not work for the hospital.

Stabbing or shooting a therapist has happened s couple of times that i know of. Last year in NYC and a few years ago in a town up near whey I work.

I have really never felt frightened. There have been a few irate husbands who have blamed me for their wives leaving them. One wife told me that he was going to wait for me in the parking lot. That was about ten years ago. I still glance over my shoulder when I am the last car in the parking lot, and it is him that I have in mind.

I have been threaten in my office about three times. Two males patients got angry when I told them that their grandiose opinions of themselves were not warranted. I tried to word it more tactfully than that but apparently the message got through too clearly. Both threats were neutralized when I raised my index finger as a quiet reminder that they should sit down and reflect on what I said.

The third threat was from a woman who threatened to take her shirt off in the office. I guess I am not like the therapist on "In Treatment," who I hear has boundary issues. I think I convinced this woman that even thought I did care for her, it was not in that way, and that while the idea was tempting, it really would not be good for either of us, or what we were hoping to accomplish in therapy.

Being in private practice can be dangerous. I usually have other people who are working on the other side of a thin wall in our suite that has three offices in it. As a therapist it is important to be able to control the mood of what is going on in the session. I think that is comforting to the patient.

But if someone comes in angry and determined, and if unintended, unreal, or totally imagined slights or insults have festered in a mind that has not been working too well, bad things can happen suddenly.

I don't know if the reaction had to be immediate and fatal. That seems a bit too extreme and too American. Maybe he had to do it to save the doctor's life. I don't know, I wasn't there. Scary, all around.