He [the chief psychiatrist] complimented me on how brilliant my diagnoses were: "You can smell a delusion, you can ferret out a hallucination, but"-and this has always stuck in my mind-"did you know that this woman grew prize camellias? Did you know that this man played the piano?" "No," I replied, a little bemused, "I wasn't trained to find the good things." But from then on I started to, and ever since I have looked for the good things. What the patient can do, not what he can't. His deficiencies and his weaknesses are so obvious, but his strengths, tragically, are deeply hidden: that is what makes him a patient, a sufferer. For it is his strength alone that will alleviate his suffering. (John Diamond (doctor))

He [the chief psychiatrist] complimented me on how brilliant my diagnoses were: "You can smell a delusion, you can ferret out a hallucination, but"-and this has always stuck in my mind-"did you know that this woman grew prize camellias? Did you know that this man played the piano?" "No," I replied, a little bemused, "I wasn't trained to find the good things." But from then on I started to, and ever since I have looked for the good things. What the patient can do, not what he can't. His deficiencies and his weaknesses are so obvious, but his strengths, tragically, are deeply hidden: that is what makes him a patient, a sufferer. For it is his strength alone that will alleviate his suffering.

John Diamond (doctor)

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