Re: "Diagnosis Goes Low Tech"

OCT. 16, 2003

To the Editor:

Re ''Diagnosis Goes Low Tech'' (Arts & Ideas, Oct. 11):

Many patients feel that they are not given the time they need to feel either cared about or well cared for. High-tech studies have not only supplemented but also replaced clinical acumen, and concerns about lengths of stay exist on the first day of admission. Physicians feel rushed and patients do, too -- the latter not only by the medical community and managed care but also by unrealistic expectations that technological advances should afford them the quick fix.

While technology has been responsible for profound advances in our ability to care for patients, we must not lose sight of the low-tech role of listening as an essential ingredient in healing. In our fast-paced world, this point of view has become devalued. I am glad to see within medical education that the pendulum is beginning to swing.

LARRY S. SANDBERG, M.D.

New York, Oct. 11, 2003

Re: "Shrinking Hours"

OCT. 14, 2013

To the Editor:

Richard A. Friedman laments the fact that a therapy “hour” is typically less than 60 minutes, suggesting that this is an ominous sign of our times (“Shrinking Hours,” Sunday Review, Oct. 13).

What is remarkable is that a typical psychotherapy session has changed little, if at all, for so long. As a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for 25 years, I have always kept my psychotherapy sessions at 45 minutes, a time that is by and large typical of most practitioners.

In other words, despite the hyper-focus on efficiency in our culture and the devaluation of intimate conversation, given the intrusion of modern technology, psychotherapy remains an invaluable modality precisely because its practitioners value time.

What is ominous is that giving patients adequate time — within psychiatry and other branches of medicine — is increasingly rare.

LARRY S. SANDBERG
New York, Oct. 13, 2013

The writer is a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Re: "Going Home Again"

To the Editor:

Re “Going Home Again” (column, March 21): David Brooks, in talking about Sting’s TED talk presentation, writes convincingly about what he calls “historical consciousness” and the creative aspects of “going back.”

This is the essence of an insight-oriented psychotherapy, in which the emotionally alive process of reflecting on one’s past liberates the individual in living a more fulfilling future.

It is precisely because the process of looking back can feel painful or overwhelming that it is often fended off. The psychotherapist, a benevolent guide, serves to catalyze that process.

LARRY S. SANDBERG
New York, March 21, 2014

The writer is a psychoanalyst and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical Center.