Exposure Therapy

Posted on 28 Feb 2014 @ 5:24pm by Lieutenant Olsam Mott & Lieutenant JG Victoria Crawley

1,457 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Episode 05 - Solstice
Location: Starfleet Medical, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: MD 16 - 1300 hrs

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Olsam cloistered himself in a borrowed office at Starfleet Medical for the better part of the afternoon, working steadily to line up a list of contact persons with whom to discuss Lieutenant Teth Miir's case. Although neither himself nor Lieutenant Miir had served on board the ship yet, the resources on the Galileo had seemed like the best place to start. Given Teth's long history with counselors, the Bolian doctor had decided that a different source of information might be wise to pursue at the outset.

"I'm trying to reach, uh, Lieutenant..." Olsam paused, looking to the notes on his PADD. "...Crawley?"

Victoria, hearing her name, picked up her PADD and walked over to the man who had called her name. A Bolian. Interesting she thought, sizing him up.

"That's me. Is anything wrong?"

"Yes," he replied, smiling. He stood there for a long moment before realizing she wanted him to explain. "Oh! Well. My friend Teth is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by survivor's guilt over these Borg implant things in his head and I tried to remove them but the surgery wasn't very successful even though Dr. Choka thought we could push ahead and just remove them anyway but I put a stop to that because it could have caused irreparable neural damage and I just don't think you should risk your patients in that kind of way so we stopped the surgery but we didn't get all the implants out like I had told Teth that we might be able to do and that seemed to make him upset all over again because he blames himself for living when all those other people died at the hands of the Borg and then I told him he was being selfish but in retrospect I don't think that was a very kind thing to do so he got really mad at me and I had to come back and apologize and tell him we'd look into alternative therapies even though I don't really know what kind of alternative therapies there could be except I kinda have my own idea about how to help him but I'm a physician not a psychologist so I hopped on the ship's directory and found our psychologist and now I'm here because I think a mental health professional probably has a better idea about how to treat him except we can't use counselors because he is a counselor and I don't think he's had very good experiences with counselors before so let's try to find something that doesn't involve a counselor or at least maybe disguise the counselor as something else so he doesn't realize the counselor is a counselor. Can you help?"

By the time he finished, Olsam was gasping for breath.

She just stared at him for a few seconds, a bit overwhelmed by the sudden rush of information that was thrown at her, but recovered quickly and offered the Bolian a reassuring smile.

"Of course! Anything I can do to help. Do you have a case file I could look at, maybe his personal/medical history?"

Olsam blinked. "Uh. I guess that would've been faster, huh?"

He input a few commands on his own PADD, bringing up the medical files of the ship's personnel and scrolled through the interface until he found Lieutenant Teth Miir. He handed the PADD over to Crawley with a smile.

"There you go. So, what do you recommend for an alternative treatment regiment? Shock therapy?" Olsam almost looked hopeful.

Victoria studied the PADD for a minute, not saying anything as she scanned through the information that flashed across the screen. Realizing he was asking her a question, she looked up sharply and shook her head.

"No, definitely not shock therapy. I mean, not at first. He doesn't seem to be an immediate danger to himself or others." She checked something in the PADD. "Is he on any kind of medication?"

"Oh, no, he's way too grumpy to be on any kind of medication. Should we just medicate him then? I'm his roommate, so I can probably manage to slip him something in a drink every day if you think that's a good idea."

"No! Absolutely not!" Victoria was horrified at the thought of medicating someone without their consent and the words just kind of shot out of her mouth. She reddened and looked back at the PADD in her hands mortified that she might have offended him. "I'm sorry, I meant no. That's not the best way to medicate someone. On Earth, the patient must consent to being medicated, otherwise it's considered entirely improper. I'd also like to wait until it becomes necessary to medicate him. Sometimes, the patient may be able to come out of their problem without needing medication. Other times, the patient is too unstable to start therapy without medication to stabilize his or her condition."

She took a deep breath and looked back up at the Bolian, an apologetic smile on her face. "Sorry, I'm ranting."

Olsam lifted an eyebrow but decided not to engage in a debate on medical ethics; he had medicated plenty of patients against their will when they were a danger to themselves or others. That didn't exactly apply to Teth at the moment, though. "I think he needs to have sex. Is that a thing? Sex therapy? Is prostitution legal on Earth? I don't remember... Maybe I should just take him to Risa."

"Risa? I don't think...that may not be necessary. I'm thinking more along the lines of exposure therapy," she responded, flicking through the files on the PADD. "Unless you've tried that already..."

"Exposure therapy? You mean like leaving him out in the elements? Drop him in the desert, or abandon him in frozen tundra? That's a great idea!" Olsam said, brightening. "He'll learn resilience and self-confidence. It'll toughen him up, test his mettle. Everyone benefits from a survival experience. Or dies. Oh, I hope he doesn't die. He's my friend."

"No! Not exposure to the elements!" She bit her lip, trying to hold back a smile. "It's a type of therapy we use on Earth for several mental disorders, including PTSD. It's proven very effective in several cases, and I think it might be worth a try."

"Oh, okay. Sooo... What do I need to do? What am I exposing him to? The Borg? Cuz that seems dangerous. I don't even know where to find any Borgs. Do you? Wait, don't answer that. I don't want to know, it's probably classified. I'm just a doctor, I don't need to know non-medical classified things. That's how people get abducted in their sleep by the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order or Section 31."

She laughed a little, amused. "No, you're exposing him to what he's afraid of. In his case, it would be the memory of what happened. You should probably start by having him talk about what happened to him in as much detail as possible."

"Hmm, yes, okay. And then what?" Olsam inquired, thinking it was going to be tough to expose Teth to another savage beating in a dark alley. Where did things like that happen? The holodeck? Nimbus III?

"No, he doesn't actually need to go through it again, but he needs to know that the ordeal is over and that his fears don't have to rule his life." She paused, thinking. "Do you want me to help you? At least at first?"

Olsam paused, thinking, too. "Hm. Well. I suppose that might be helpful... I don't think he likes other psychologists, though. Come to think of it, I'm not sure who he likes." He fell silent again, pondering Teth's interactions. "Maybe just Bolians. Anyway, will you just sort of...hide in the bushes and tell me what to say? Oh! Or wear a Bolian disguise. How attached are you to your hair?"

Laughing again, she looked down at her PADD as an alarm started beeping. "Schiesse!" She exclaimed, and looked back up at the Bolian man apologetically. "I"m sorry, I have a meeting in a minute. Why don't I put together a preliminary care plan and send it to you to look at? You can tell me what you think will work and what definitely won't work, and then we can go from there." She smiled again and held offered her hand. "It was great meeting you!"

"Okay!" Olsam said, shaking her hand. "Thank you for seeing me and helping me and talking to me... Oh, your meeting. Right. Be seeing you!"

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Lt. JG Victoria Crawley
Psychologist
USS Galileo

&

Lieutenant JG Olsam Mott
Assistant Chief Medical Officer
USS Galileo

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