Neurotic_Bakeder

Neurotic_Bakeder t1_j86u4lx wrote

This is mostly just a bad headline imo. The way they measured "training" was 1st versus 4th year psychology students.

However, my psych undergrad focused on psych research and literature, not counselling skills.

The article concludes saying that this study highlights the need for specific training around perspective taking and empathy for counselors, rather than hoping you just suddenly develop mentalization skills after reading 300 articles on abnormal psych or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I can read about rats pulling levers all day long, but I don't expect that to make me any better at helping a client breathe through a panic attack.

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Neurotic_Bakeder t1_j86twb0 wrote

Psychiatrists are kinda famous within mental health fields for really struggling with empathy. They're deeply entrenched in the disease model, which isn't super compatible with clients' lived experiences, and med school is....a lot.

Finding a therapist you vibe with can help (though I'm biased as hell, being a therapist myself). It doesn't fix things, necessarily, but it can at least make you feel like you're not shouting into the wind.

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Neurotic_Bakeder t1_j22rfkj wrote

? I don't know if you read a very different study than I did but that's not what this seems to say.

The purpose of this study was to track anxiety & mood disorder prevalence among trans people, by looking at rates of treatment/medication, and to see if hormone treatment or surgery had an effect on the rates of mental health treatment trans people seek out.

They found that most people getting hormone therapy for a long time seek out mental health support at about the same rate as those who have just started. For surgeries, they found that, the more time that passes since that surgery, the less mental health support trans people seek out. That indicates that gender affirming surgery is helpful and has a positive effect on trans people's mental health.

You are correct that trans people experience mental health struggles at a higher rate than others, but you've got it backwards - once you support the gender issues, the mental health stuff gets easier.

DOI that comes up for your link: https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.19010080

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