I really thought I had been on the upswing lately- in a better mood, more equipped to handle the callers who refer to psychologists as 'psycholologists' or request to be referred to a 'a psychiatric mental health therapy doctor'. I was able to laugh rather than cringe as callers ask for 'a mental health'. Heck, maybe there is such a thing as 'a mental health'. I might even benefit from going to one.
So for the past 9 months, I have been a receptionist at a behavioral health HMO. I affectionately refer to it as 'PsychoHell'. I'll let you guess what it's really called. My name for it is a good description of the the work environment I enter every day.
I answer phone calls, sometimes almost 400 per day, from patients and therapists who are usually dissatisfied with something. Some are in such grave condition that they request the care of 'a mental health'. Let's imagine for a moment what 'a mental health' could be. I think of it as a last resort. If talk therapy, medication, hospitalization and then home intervention fail to improve your condition, you might need 'a mental health.' So if you're an enuretic, encopretic adult with auditory hallucinations, psychosis not otherwise specified, who hasn't responded to intramuscular injections of Haldol, requires therapeutic holds and is admitted by the police to the mental hospital for wearing a snowsuit in July.... you might need a mental health.
