Year: 2022
Type: article
Study design: Case Report
Abstract: Classic psychiatry patients are rare; real-world patients tend to have overlapping features of multiple disorders. Striving for diagnostic certainty, and treatments aimed at tentative diagnoses, often fail these patients. In such cases, tolerating diagnostic ambiguity and "treating the symptoms" can sometimes be transformative. An important symptom, often undertreated in a diagnosis-based approach, is rumination. We present a case study of a woman who, after 20 years of treatment failure, achieved significant symptom relief when her primary complaint-"labored thinking"-was targeted specifically. However, because no seriously ill person has only 1 symptom, 6 clinicians from different subdisciplines will discuss the patient's other issues, ones that an overfocus on rumination might leave out.
Authors: Alice Flaherty, Douglas Katz, Anne Chosak, Michael E. Henry, Nhi-Ha Trinh, Robert J. Waldinger, Jonah N. Cohen
Institutions: Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4283766007