The Snake Trail Test

Psychiatrists have a way of assessing judgment during the mental status examination. Typically they'll ask a question like, "If you found an envelope lying on the sidewalk and it was addressed and stamped, what would you do with it?" The typical answer, the one that will get you a 'good' rating on the judgment line, is: "I'd mail it." Duh. There are other possible responses, some of them more interesting or creative than others, but that's the response you get most of the time.

I had a chance to come up with a new "judging judgment" type question this week. I call it the Snake Trail Test. Here's how I came up with it:

As coincidence would have it, one of the best local climbing spots near here also happens to be a repository for copperhead snakes. Since I've taken up climbing I've now seen more copperheads in the wild than I've ever seen in any zoo. Whenever I see a snake, I warn any hikers I happen to see in the area. Many hikers are parents with small children. It's been interesting to see the wide variety of responses.

One parent immediately grabbed the kid and said, "No no honey, don't go down that way. We'll go on this trail instead." Another parent still went down the trail, but cautioned the kids and made sure they stayed on the far side of the path, away from where the snake was spotted. The most interesting reaction came yesterday, from a young tattooed woman hiking with four kids under the age of ten. After I gave her the warning she shrugged, pointed back over her shoulder at the trail she had just come down, and said, "Yeah there's another one back there." Not a word to the kids and they all scrambled on without a care.

The psychiatrist within me thought: "Checkmark for 'poor' judgment." Then I thought again: "Maybe she's an herpetologist. Maybe she comes from a charismatic poisonous snake-handling cult. Maybe she's been hiking here for 20 years, has seen lots of snakes and never had a bad outcome." There were a lot of reasons why someone might not be freaked out by the idea of a poisonous snake in the trail.

My new Snake Trail Test has got me thinking about how we interpret judgment.

Judgment is formed through learning, experience, culture and a multitude of other personal idiosyncratic factors that a psychiatrist might or might not be aware of. The best way to sort out 'normal' and 'impaired' judgment is to ask followup questions. "Why would you do that?" is a good one. "Why not do this?" is another good followup question.

I didn't have a chance to ask the tattooed lady more questions, but I bet if I did she might have given me a good education about snakes.
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Note from Dinah: Here's a post from Edwin Leap about what Not to bring to the ER with you, and it includes the snake that bit you.

Everybody Lies

Back in the Dark Ages when I applied to medical school, all applicants were required to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory or MMPI. This is a personality test designed to identify psychopathology by examining the answers to literally hundreds of questions, many of them innocuous-sounding or not clearly related to any pathological answers. For example, one question that stood out in my mind was "I like to paint flowers." Now, I happen to like flowers and paintings of flowers but never in my life have I ever even tried to paint flowers. You're supposed to answer "true" or "false" to this question. Keep in mind that the answer to this question was going to have some bearing on whether or not I got accepted to medical school. OK, you make your best guess on the "right" (non-pathological) answer, whatever that's supposed to be, and then you run into this question:

"I always tell the truth."

Oy. Talk about your wife-beating question. (In other words, "Sir, when did you stop beating your wife?"). If you answer "yes" then you're obviously lying because everyone fibs now and then. If you answer "false" then you look like a dishonest person who couldn't be trusted to hold a friend's purse much less a scalpel.

So anyway, that brings up the issue of truth-telling in psychiatric treatment.

No patient ever tells the truth. Not the whole truth, not at first, and not in the way they want you to hear it. It's not a matter of intentional dishonesty or deception and it's not a character flaw, it's just being human. I've had friends (not my co-bloggers) who have told me, "Oh, only your patients lie." Well, as Dinah puts it, in my little bubble world it would be nice to believe that the only misleading people were the ones inside the prison walls.

There are many reasons not to tell the whole truth, or to tell it in a way that puts the best light on things. Self-deception (or therapist/psychiatrist) deception is a way to look your best to help the therapeutic relationship form. It's a defense mechanism for people who are feeling self-conscious about their problems or embarrassed about their background or humiliated by their real or self-perceived failures. In extreme cases, it's a way of protecting oneself from negative consequences (eg. "If I tell my doctor I'm suicidal, I'll get 'put away'.") For my patients inside the walls, it's the way they've found to cope with life and get their needs met because they learned early on that simple requests for help often didn't work.

The gradual unfolding of truth, the step-by-step admission of distortions, is part of the treatment process. It's a positive sign that trust is growing between patient and doctor. In psychiatric treatment, at least in my clinic, you don't get punished for admitting you lied.

So now in all honesty, I'll admit that I'd love to paint flowers.

(Wow, this is a first in the history of the blog---I've posted over myself!)