Reflections and Opinions of a Mental Health Professional
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A Touch of suffering A touch of suffering! A flavor of misery! A breath of pain! This resumes my professional life as a physician, who has the privilege of working with the complexity of the human mind! A physician who is a graduate of the State University of Haiti, School of Medicine and Pharmacy! Right after my graduation, I completed three years of training in Internal Medicine! During this period of time, besides my formal training at the State University Hospital, I had the opportunity to work with my father; who was himself an Internist, a Cardiologist and a professor of Medicine at the Medical School as well as an instructor teaching mostly Medical Semiology at the State University Hospital! I spent some quality time practicing in his private office under his guidance and covering his patients in some private hospitals in the Haitian Metropolitan Area! Right after my formal training, I decided to follow his footstep, by moving to the United States of America in order to further my medical education! My father did exactly the same thing in the early 50's! He spent a few years of Post Graduate Medical Education in Internal Medicine and Cardiology! When I decided to go for my dream, it was for me the beginning of a long journey, which I entitled "My American Journey", which was the object of a novel itself. A novel describing my life in the United States! I indeed left my "Alma Mater" exactly a year after I completed my residency training in Internal Medicine! Even with my wildest guess, I would never imagine, it was going to take me eight years, eight long years of ordeals, eight years of challenges, before I would finally get a chance to be included in the American medical world; in spite of the fact I was more than eligible, since I did pass my "ECFMG" Educational Commission For Foreign Medical Graduate; the medical equivalency test, while I was a third year resident in Medicine, I did pass my English Test, after my first year in this country. I was then more than ready to be included in their medical system, after my first year here! However I had to wait eight years, using all type of strategies and putting in line an incredible will power, to survive in a country where I had to overcome so many obstacles including: a frigid and hostile weather, a language which was alien to me, since I could hardly speak or comprehend any English and I was above all, penniless and had to survive along with my family. After eight long and painful years, I finally started by being granted a year of training in Transitional Surgery. A year of Transitional Surgery, which probably was one of the toughest years of my life, being away from Academic Medicine for eight years, an eternity! I somehow completed the year, may be blessed by some sort of Divine Intervention! The following year, I started a formal training in Psychiatry, which I completed in three years! I then became an attending psychiatrist in one of the oldest psychiatric hospital of the United States, Saint Elizabeth Hospital. A Hospital that became the theater, witnessing the very beginning of my privilege as a physician working with the human mind. During the daily course of my professional life, I come across a good deal of people in distress. People who are the victims of natural disasters, People who lose an important other or a soul mate! People who lose their jobs, their only mean of survival and become powerless at soothing the most basic needs of their family! People who become chronically sick and unable to do most of the things they used to enjoy! People who retire and lose their financial capabilities and the drive to keep going! Every day in my professional life, I see people who think death is better than life! I see people who consider themselves dead while they are still living! I see people, who are so desperate that they refuse to be among the livings, and become creative at finding ways to end it all! Every day in my professional life, I am swimming in a pool of misery, seeing people who numb themselves with drugs and alcohol in order to cope with their tribulations! They trick themselves into a faulty reason for living and end up dwelling into an artificial world! Their survival instinct is dead! Their basic physiological drives are nonexistent! They don't feel a need to eat! They don't feel a need to sleep! They don't feel a need to copulate! All they feel is a need to let go ! All they feel is a total lack of energy! All they display is a total lack of interest for the pleasures of this earth! All they exhibit is a total lack of desire for the pleasure of this valley of tears! As a professional, I am in touch with this tissue of suffering on an almost permanent basis! It seems like I must have a touch of suffering most of the days of my life! A bite of agony seems to be part of my daily routine, being exposed day in and day out, to the suffering and the tribulation of the Human Mind!
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About the Book
"Reflection and opinion of a mental health professional” is a collection of dynamic episodes that I have encountered during my 20 years working with the human mind. This literary work identified the impact of the devastation, which is inflicted to individuals suffering from mental illnesses and disorders. Sharing my insight, I have utilized poetry as the platform to discuss how mental illnesses can create havoc in every day life. My goal is to introduce the mental agony, suffering and distress in a less complex manner so people from different social backgrounds can relate. Poetry has a way of capturing one’s interest, by deceitfully challenging their intellect to further examine the beauty of what was read. For the fearful that stray from reading about such dark, somber tales, I hope to enlighten them to reach within themselves and unveil any secrets that may be dormant or buried in the unconscious part of their mind. The Book is indeed about the product of my twenty years of practice as a Psychiatrist, including the three years I spent as a resident in the “Howard University Hospital Psychiatry Residency Training Program”. Twenty years that had an imprint and really marked me, as a human being and a physician, who has been blessed and honored by the privilege of working with the human mind.
About the Author
Dr. Henry Claude Barbot is a graduate of the State University of Haiti. After obtaining his diploma in August of 1977, he proceeded to do a residency training in Internal Medicine at the State University Hospital, which he completed in September of 1980. Following after his father, Dr. Medrick P. Barbot, he later migrated to the United States in May of 1981 in order to further his medical education. After about 8 years in the United States, he was finally able to access the American world of medicine and completed his training in Psychiatry in June of 1993. Dr. Barbot is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology, the American Board of Addiction Medicine, and the American Board of Disability Analysts. He has been writing poetry in French, his native language, since his teenage years in the country of his birth, Haiti. However, he started writing about the human mind specifically when he initiated his residency training in Psychiatry.