The Freudian Slip

Most of us are aware that physical and mental health are connected and are influenced by each other on a deeper level. This is no different for patients with cancer.

Psycho-oncology is a multidisciplinary field of interest that addresses the psychological, social, behavioural and ethical aspects of cancer and the patients. Often a multidisciplinary team of clinical psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, and psychiatrists is involved, aiming to improve the psychological care and outcomes for the patients and their carers.

Join us in Episode 5 of The Freudian Slip with our guest speaker Dr Dan Hubik. Dr Hubik is a Consultation-Liaison psychiatrist working in the field of psycho-oncology at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He has recently published research exploring strong emotional reactions in palliative care doctors. In addition to his work with cancer, Dr Hubik specialises in functional gut disorders at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and runs his own private practice. He is a board member of the Australian and New Zealand Faculty of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

He will share his insights into the foundation of psycho-oncology, common clinical presentations, as well as his journey as a CL psychiatrist in multidisciplinary patient care in this very specialty.

"Interventional Neuropsychology came from a real desire to develop treatments where we could improve people's cognitive symptoms and improve their prognosis" - Professor Kate Hoy

Cognitive impairment is both common, and amongst the most functionally limiting symptoms of mental health disorders. For example, impairment in memory, attention, language and processing speed are just some of the possible, often persistent, cognitive symptoms in major depressive disorder, Schizophrenia and dementia. Yet, current pharmacological treatments do not have significant therapeutic effect on cognitive deficits. Non-pharmacological methods like cognitive rehabilitation methods show promise, but demand significant time, effort and adherence. Imagine a single effective treatment that could improve cognitive symptoms...

Professor Kate Hoy, head of Interventional Neuropsychology, directs research aimed at developing and translating brain stimulation techniques for the treatment of cognitive impairment. She leads a team conducting clinical trials in conditions like Alzheimer's, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and schizophrenia. Here, we discuss her team's world-first research and commercialisation into brain-stimulation techniques to treat cognitive impairment.  

What happens when a patient presents with real, physical symptoms that we can't otherwise explain with an organic cause?

How can we use our knowledge of anxiety and avoidance behaviours to better understand these presentations?

Somatic symptom disorders are not factitious nor the result of conscious malingering; even so, a powerful stigma continues to veil our understanding. So why are we afraid to diagnose somatising disorders?

Join us in episode 2 with our guest speaker Dr. Andrew Court - a trained psychiatrist and former paediatrician - as he walks us through somatisation and draws comparisons with other somatoform and anxiety disorders.  

Fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, FNDs…what happens in medicine when we are faced with conditions with no clearly identifiable structural cause, and instead, arises primarily from a disorder of nervous system functioning?

Episode 1 is “Functional Neurological Disorders (FNDs)”, featuring Dr. Honor Coleman. We explain what exactly “FNDs” and “somatic symptoms” are, the biopsychosocial origins of FNDs, and how FND is diagnosed, using PNES (Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures) as an illustration. We also touch on management principles and common pitfalls in diagnosis.