Luan Hassett

This is a list of things I wish were different about psychiatry. I am following the spiritual principle of owning my experience, which means that I am not stating these as necessary improvements. I am not implying blame of anyone. I am simply expressing wishes, not opinions.

• I want to be able to choose who I hire and fire. I want to be able to assess their character. How much energy do they bring to their work? How much creativity? Capacity for effective conflict resolution?
• I want personal development opportunities instead of research obligations. I wish the experiments we were expected to run were ones whose results we could feel for ourselves.
• I want better financial incentives for doing the job well.
• I want to be able to write more colourful character descriptions in the patient’s files, free from legal imputations of malice or malpractice.
• I want to work with people who are committed to their own emotional evolution. It would be cool to develop training programs for this, and watch the expansion of consciousness permeate all levels of the organisation, through to the patients. This is what the book ‘Reinventing Organizations’ explores.
• I want weekly teaching sessions to be way more dynamic. See above for ideas on how to achieve this. They’re not always bad, but without compulsory attendance they would amount to little more than a failed book club. Enjoyment is one of the best signs of efficiency. Obligation is an error signal.

For balance, here are some of the things that Psychiatry is currently doing really well:

• Having done a fair amount of therapeutic and spiritual exploration over the last three years, it is clear that Psychiatry is where the most profound personal transformation occurs, given the starting point.
• By the end of their training, most Psychiatrists have a very high level of competency at running a complex system.
• There is a deep care and attunement that most Psychiatrists extend to their patients.
• There is a strong emphasis on data. Coming from someone who loves intuition, this is a good thing.