So today was a really interesting day (or morning at least).

My host aunt here is a psychologist in the main public hospital here in Santiago, and when my host mom heard that I study psychology and am really interested in it she asked if I would want to shadow my host aunt at the hospital for a morning. I said sure, because I figure I shouldn't pass up an opportunity like that, and showed up this morning at the hospital unsure of what to expect.

My host aunt works in the hospital it seems primarily with the internados, or the people who have been brought there and have to stay there until they get better (rather than those who voluntarily show up and come and go). So, needless to say these cases are all pretty extreme in comparison to the rest or especially in comparison to a private clinic.

She has several university students who shadow her four days a week in the mornings. The university system works differently here in that within your four years studying psychology you do practicums and when you leave you are a psychologist. So things are much more accelerated than in the States.

I wish I could write everything here but I obviously can't so I will try and get the highlights...

One of the first things she did was show me the "figura de dibujo" test where basically they have the people draw pictures of people. Then based off that they interpret the drawing to the personality of the patient and or things that might have happened. They showed me two drawings, one of which they said indicated that the person has issues with sexuality because of the way they drew the women in the picture. It was really fascinating, I'm not going to lie.

Then we moved on to the ward, which was super overwhelming. I walked in and a man was screaming non-stop for about twenty minutes. Then random patients were dispersed throughout, all who looked very drugged and very out of it. Many could not speak, or really function.

In an effort to cut this short I'll get to the most interesting part of the morning, which happened at the end. My host aunt told me that we would be doing a consult with a patient.

The patient was 18, a young girl, and she clearly looked very out of it-- I think she may have already been put on some drugs but I am not positive. Anyways she began to talk (which was hard to understand as she slurred her speech and apparently had done that all her life). And when she began to speak about her problems, it became clear that she was presenting with symptoms of schizophrenia. She hears voices and thinks that the devil talks to her.

From a psychology major point of view it was really fascinating to see that. We learned about it last semester in my psych class but it's so powerful to see a person in real life who actually has it. It broke my heart. And really was just such a powerful experience all around. I really am not doing it justice but I have no other idea how to describe it.

I should probably wrap up the blog now but honestly it was a really great experience and really got me thinking. One of the interns really got me thinking too because she was talking about how she really wants to do a study of children whose parents have left them here while they went to the United States. It seems that they have had quite a number of children presenting with symptoms lately who fall into that category. I think that really would be a fascinating study.

Anyways that's all for now. I'm glad my love for psychology was rekindled today though, I missed it :)