Scariness

Saw a schizophrenic patient the other day. He came in because he had some strange hallucinations (which were different to his normal ones). Usually he gets hallucinations of people he has seen - of smaller versions of the originals. He can tell that they aren't real because of this. He also has 2nd and 3rd person auditory hallucinations as well as some somatic hallucinations.

For the last couple of weeks, he has been getting hallucinations that he has been getting rather anxious about. He's been seeing knives in front of people. And he's been thinking about harming other people.

As you can imagine, I was rather afraid after he told me this. Dino and I were interviewing him; and instead of following the normal practice in psychiatry of ensuring that the patient is not between the interviewer and the door, we found ourselves boxed in by this man. With the thoughts of knives and hurting people.

I spent most of the interview thinking about my escape routes. The window beside me looked particularly inviting!

Thankfully, his psychosis was well controlled and we surived the interview.