IAmA MHT (Mental Health Technician) at an acute inpatient psychiatric hospital. AMA!

Why are so many of you abusive and disrespectful to patients?

While I definitely would not use the words “abusive” or “disrespectful” to describe myself and my interactions with patients, I understand where you are coming from in asking this as I have seen/heard some of my own coworkers do or say things that could fall into those descriptors.

In short: I don’t know, and I wish I had an answer for you. There are many people in this field who have no regard for patients and their care, and it breaks my heart. I personally don’t know how you can be in this field and not love the people you are taking care of, because this job is a hard one and isn’t particularly well-paying, and it seems like there would be easier jobs out there to apply for if this isn’t something you are 100% passionate about.

I am so sorry that you’ve apparently had negative experiences with MHTs in the past, and I wish there was something I could do or say that would make sense of why someone would treat the people they are supposed to be taking care of in such a way.

How often are patients illnesses as a result of drug use? Also narrowing it down, as a result of psychedelics?

In the particular area that I work, drug-induced psychosis is actually pretty common. I can’t even begin to describe how many college-age patients we’ve gotten that come in experiencing symptoms of psychosis because they smoked a bad strain of K2. We had a girl for about 2 weeks while we basically waited for all of the drugs that she’d done to come out of her system to see whether or not her behavior would go somewhat back to normal. Meth is another pretty common one that can mimic symptoms of a psychotic episode.

How was the process of getting the job? I imagine places like this have intense screening and interviews.

First, I had an interview with both the director of nursing and the hospital CEO. Then I had to come back after my interview to take what was essentially an aptitude test. In order to be considered for hire, you had to receive a certain score on that test. From there, I had to complete a background check and drug screen.

After that, I had a week of orientation followed by a week of shadowing other techs and then I was on the floor!