What is it about?
This article explores how psychiatry residents develop negative emotional reactions toward patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Through ethnographic research in a psychiatric ward and in-depth interviews with residents, the study reveals that emotions such as anger, fear, and even disgust are learned during medical training. These emotions are shaped by senior psychiatrists’ stories, clinical practices, and the institutional culture of psychiatric settings. The emotional distancing and dehumanization of patients are not accidental; they are part of a socialization process that helps build a professional identity while reinforcing stigma.
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Why is it important?
Patients with BPD are often labeled as "difficult" and face strong prejudice from mental health professionals, despite being frequent users of psychiatric services. This stigma can damage therapeutic relationships and lead to poor outcomes. By uncovering how residents in psychiatry learn to suppress or distort their emotions, this research highlights the need to reform medical training. Recognizing and working with emotions – instead of silencing them – could lead to more empathetic care and better treatment for marginalized patient groups.
Perspectives
As a researcher working in mental health, I have long been concerned with the often-overlooked emotional dimensions of clinical practice. This article was born during my postdoctoral training, through five months of participatory observation in a psychiatric ward. I worked side by side with psychiatry residents, sharing their office space, accompanying them during ward visits, and even spending a night on-call. What I witnessed was not simply the formal learning of clinical skills, but the subtle and powerful emotional socialization that takes place in everyday interactions. Residents were not just learning how to treat patients; they were learning how to feel about them. Especially in the case of patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, I observed how emotions like frustration, fear, and even disgust were passed down, normalized, and rarely questioned. This work reflects my deep concern that medical training, when stripped of emotional reflection, risks perpetuating stigma and reinforcing clinical detachment. I hope this study contributes to a broader conversation about how mental health professionals are trained, and how we might create cultures of care that are not only clinically competent but also emotionally conscious.
Dr Chrysovalantis Papathanasiou
Panteion Panepistemio Koinonikon kai Politikon Epistemon
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The sociology of emotions in the psychiatric practice: how residents in psychiatry learn to dislike patients with borderline personality disorder, Sociology International Journal, January 2022, MedCrave Group LLC,
DOI: 10.15406/sij.2022.06.00303.
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