Patch Adams Reflection Paper

Patch Adams

I never thought that it was a real life story. Who would ever think that a person who seems to be a lost soul and confused in his life became a good professional doctor. In the story there are a lot of nice messages and scenes taught by the characters that we should apply in our daily life, one of these are Mr. Arthur Mendelson, a man who has a diagnosis of “Genius Syndrome” and the one who loves to ask how many you see in his four fingers, He taught to Patch “Never focus on the problem. If you focus in the problem, you can’t see the solution” and, “See what no one else sees, see what everyone else chooses not to see out of fear and conformity and laziness. See the whole world anew each day.” I think these are the sayings which Patch Adams gets an idea to help Mr. Rudy, the man who has a delusion about the squirrels. Patch really knows that the squirrels doesn’t really exist in their room be he didn’t focus about Rudy’s delusions hence; he seeks an idea how Rudy will get rid about the squirrels. In our daily life when we engage with the different troublesome, we always look it as a bad endeavor and get pity to ourselves. We merely think of how we can solve it. Possibly in somewhat we think, thinking a good solution will conform us to discover a new wisdom that will lead us in dread and risk. Another scene that catches my attention is when Patch asks the patient’s name. Most of the people likely, the professionals call others by their last name, since this is the school taught us that it is the polite manner for calling names, without awareness that they can capture the heart of the person by calling their first name. In that scene Patch breaks the indifference of the patient and professionals with unconsciously builds a trust, a little transference and compassion to the patient.
In the relation of Psychotherapy, Patch uses the Eclectic Psychotherapy in the combination of Group therapy and the Cognitive-Behavioral therapy in the form of Laughter therapy. Laughter therapy seems dealing a problematic and dysfunctional ways of thinking, emotions and behavior in a group manner activity. In the whole story Patch has this motto to improve the quality of life not just delaying death. He uses his humor to make the patients smile and laugh to forget their illnesses. There’s a scene that Patch explains the benefit of Laughing, he said “Laughter increases secretion of catecholamines and endorphins which in turn increases oxygenation of the blood, relaxes the arteries speeds up the heart, decreases blood pressure which has a positive effect on all cardiovascular and respiratory ailments as well as overall increasing the immune system response.” Another thing he emphasizes in the story is the indifference and the treatment between the patient and a doctor. He said Transference is inevitable; every human being has impact on another. For me, having an empathy and sympathy, being a friend and having love, affection and compassion for the patient that doesn’t exceeds the limit for the patients improvement and your professionalism, is not bad. It builds trust and good interaction between you and your patients that will do a lot to their progress however; there is a great danger between the two of you to get infatuated. As a professional you must consider and think ahead the corollary of the things might happen in future.