Toronto is an amazing city (see later posts)
Highlights:
- Implications of the Prenatal Hormonal Milieu for Psychosexual Development - Amy Wisniewski, Ph.D., Urology/Pediatric Urology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
- Dr. Susan Bradley's talk on gender identity disorder and its relationship to autistic spectrum disorder, and then her amazing talk : Moral Development Compete with Concern about Social-Emotional and Cognitive Development in Our Efforts to Prevent Mental Health Problems? followed by Hayley Wood's, PhD presentation of her research with GID kids and underlying ASD.
- Lenorre Terr, MD gave an impressive overview of her work with the children/families of the Chowchilla incident and her encouraging us 'younger ones' to consider undertaking clinical research work
- Peter Fonagy and colleagues presentation on the use of mentalisation in the treatment of borderline personality disorder from a neuroscience perspective
- other talks on transition to adult health services for both chronic medical problems and psychiatric was particularly useful. including strategies of how one could make this smoother - it included the need for infrastructure in order to support it.
Although i would have loved to have attended all the available seminars - this was unnecessary. As i listened, i noticed that there was an underlying theme to all of them. In terms of what constituted an ideal environment for rearing well adjusted and healthy children/teens regardless of their physical/psychiatric concerns. The importance of connections is something that we probably don't pay much attention to, perhaps we take it for granted, perhaps we don't appreciate its essentialness? There is something so crucial about connection (and the degree + quality of connectedness throughout the lifespan) with your community, your primary care givers, your friends your family, your doctor/nurse etc...
More and more i realise that psychiatry is really about human relationship. If we were to forget about everything else and just remember to attend and preserve the sacredness of human relationships i think we might be okay.
I suppose that this is not going to be news to a lot of you - and it doesn't surprise me either. But throughout the year i've began to really get a grip on what it all means. Is this the 'bigger picture' that i've been looking to see?
