Debra Wuichet's Speech Analysis

Debra Wuichet is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker from University of Tennessee. She is the Director of Social Services at North Mississippi State Hospital and has been working there for sixteen years. Her topic of the presentation was mental illnesses and schizophrenia. I really enjoyed her speech because I had little previous knowledge of mental illness. Even though I have taken a few classes that discussed the illnesses, I can understand better with stories or a way to imagine a situation and Debra provided that. Information that I thought I knew, was stuff I had assumed from watching television shows and movies. Most of that information is inaccurate. She began her presentation by saying that bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are the
two most common diagnoses at her place of employment. Schizophrenia being the most common of the two. People come to their hospital with this thought disorder with very strange thoughts and emotions. She discussed that one patient believes that he has half an octopus in his body that he swallowed over 2,000 years ago. Schizophrenic patients usually are not aware that they even have a problem and no patient will ever be the same. Debra explained that they will see the same patients return many times because they do not believe that they have anything wrong and therefore, they stop taking medicine that they took while receiving the treatment. One patient has come back for treatment thirty-five times because she does well in the hospital and goes home where she does not continue her medication and has to return to the hospital. The problem with this behavior is that it deteriorates the mind and body of these patients. Debra discussed that hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia are: delusions and hallucinations (auditory, visual, and tactile). No two schizophrenic patients will be the same. Each one will have different delusions and hallucinations. If a patient comes in and says they see “little green men” and need a disability check, chances are they do not have schizophrenia. For the patients that do have the disorder, there are ways that the hospital can help patients get their medicine, even with no insurance and income. Some medicines now come in shot form that last 30-90 days which could help patients remain on their medicine even after discharge. Debra then moved the conversation to bipolar disorder. They ask the patient if they have been more hyper, driving faster, not sleeping because of staying up, or extreme energy. These symptoms are manic behavior. Next, they move to the either end of the scale called depression. They ask if they have been sleeping too much, been depressed, no energy, a change in eating habits, feeling tired, and feeling guilty. If someone experience both manic and depressive stages, they could be diagnosed as bipolar, previously called manic depressive. Schizophrenia, unfortunately, has an onset of late adolescence to early adulthood.
This means that people that were normal could switch to being paranoid or delusional in high school or college. Suicide risks are important to assess as well as homicidal ideas. Patients need to be protected from their self and protected from hurting others. Debra concluded the presentation with questions from the students and answered each one thoroughly.
Guest Speaker Reflection This presentation changed my way of understanding the disorder by providing information and first-hand accounts of working with people with bipolar or schizophrenia. I know understand that schizophrenia is a disorder that has an onset of late adolescence/young adulthood and the patient will seem completely normal until the onset occurs. I feel differently about people diagnosed with schizophrenia now. I understand now that people with the diagnosis do not think their symptoms are a problem, but instead view them as a normal way of life and do not understand why others do not see or hear the same as they do. After learning this new information, I think that it could affect my work with future clients by understanding why they keep seeking treatment for the same symptoms and cannot seem to get any better on their own. I also think that it strengthened the idea that I had about wanting to work with mentally ill
patients.