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I was hoping to gain some perspective on a recent case I saw at a veterinary practice. I'm a member of the veterinary side of SDN, but decided to hop on over here to get some human psychology perspective. Basically, a man brought his dog in complaining of burrowing bugs in his dog's skin that were also infecting himself. Dog had real skin disease, but NOT burrowing bugs. He did not want to hear our explanation.
How would you address mental illness of delusional parasitosis? We were trying to balance getting his dog the medical care that it so desperately needed with not reinforcing his delusions. We were also afraid that if we came right out and told the man there were no bugs, we would lose his trust and his dog would not get the care it needed and would be further subjected to his picking/putting chemicals on them. We wanted to balance a) taking care of his animals and b) not propagating this man's delusional beliefs, thus harming his own psychological well-being.
How would you address mental illness of delusional parasitosis? We were trying to balance getting his dog the medical care that it so desperately needed with not reinforcing his delusions. We were also afraid that if we came right out and told the man there were no bugs, we would lose his trust and his dog would not get the care it needed and would be further subjected to his picking/putting chemicals on them. We wanted to balance a) taking care of his animals and b) not propagating this man's delusional beliefs, thus harming his own psychological well-being.
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