Card Sort Exercise

Another visit by my Community Psychiatric Nurse today, so I thought I'd better do the homework she set me last time she was here.

This homework consisted of a pack of cards, with various depressive symptoms written on them, which I was to sort into order of when each symptom occurred. The idea being that I will be able to identify the earliest symptoms of a breakdown and make changes to my life that will prevent things getting really bad in future.

I was instructed to make extras cards for things particular to me and to leave out any that didn't apply (I left out 3, and made quite a lot more).

Although it sounded at first like a rather trivial exercise and somewhat tedious, the conversations that it started were actually rather interesting and revealing. I'm doing my best to drop cynicism about such exercises and go with them at the moment. Most of them are actually turning out to be much more helpful than they might appear to be at first.

Management of mental illness may include pills, but pills alone are very much not the answer - they are just one component of successful treatment of such illnesses. I was very surprised at just how helpful sorting a bunch of cards into order turned out to be!