Please also see the following blog essays.
"Reflecting days since I opened Riverside Mental Clinic" (Japanese/English, Total 3 posts)
"A note about medical treatment in the blog of Riverside Mental Clinic" (Japanese/English)
Thank you so much for visiting our website of Riverside Mental Clinic for Women.
Our treatment aims to provide high quality medical service for women. Therefore, we take only 5 women a day.
We understand the importance of the universal health care insurance system. However, because the system was built based on the concept to provide medical treatment for all, people tend to face the limitation in moving the treatment forward. Psychiatric treatment is not an exception. In Japanese psychiatric outpatient care, psychiatrists spend averagely 7-8 minutes per patient. Sometime, 3 minutes or even 1 minute (!).
This situation tend to bring medication-focused treatment. Mentally ill patients often ask doctors for a treatment with fewer amount of medication. In order to make the treatment happen, they have to learn various things such as life style modification, stress management, meaning of life etc. But, 7-8 minutes are not enough to learn them.
So, can't patients expect doctors to treat them taking enough time to listen to their stories?
There is another challenging point in the current psychiatric care system. One of the treatment goals tends to be that patients' symptoms get stabilized and the patients can manage their everyday life. This goal is important in some medical conditions. However, is this goal enough for all people? Some patients feel in their treatment process, "How long does this suffering last? I cannot stand it. I will definitely get out of the suffering to be better and happier!"
For those patients, the goal is not enough. They have to set goals in the most positive condition that they could ever be. Some of them may need to remember their past lives to let go of the suffering which have lasted from their past lives, in order to be truly liberated from the suffering.
The treatment of Riverside Mental Clinic covers what the current psychiatric care does not cover. I appreciate to have precious time in the sessions, thanks to you.
Ai Suzuki, MD, MPH, PhD
Director
Riverside Mental Clinic
PS：
In my blog, I made a comment on a phrase that I heard from my patients from time to time, "How long does this suffering last? I cannot stand it. I will definitely get out of the suffering to be better and happier!" This phrase was used to be listed on the top page of this website.
Please see:
About the website of Riverside Mental Clinic (Japanese)
Thankfully, the readers loved the essay. Please also see: