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A Brief Lapse
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:1007.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings. |
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As a psychologist in a pediatric oncology treatment center, I have days that are no more or no less crazy than those of anyone else in a teaching hospital. One day in January was no different. My last outpatient of the day was a young man who had survived acute lymphoblastic leukemia years earlier. In his continuing labor to make sense out of his life, he was now actively considering suicide. Although his struggle was not new, an increased level of anger, rage actually, scared me. Fearing that in a state of fury he might attempt to kill himself, I wrestled with the need for an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.
Although I like to think of myself as a competent clinician, like many clinicians, I go through peaks and valleys of self-confidence. At the time I was seeing this patient, my self-confidence was in the "fair to partly cloudy" range. After . . . [Full Text of this Article] AUTHOR INFORMATION
George F. Blackall, PsyD, MBA
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