Description
Interviewer: How are you feeling?
Interviewee: Well.
Interviewer: The psychiatrist decided that this was the situation for you. Did he tell you why?
Interviewee: No, the psychiatrist did not.
Interviewer: Has anybody told you why?
Interviewee: No.
Interviewer: Have you any idea what?
Interviewee: Yes, I am not completely like other people.
Interviewer: What do you mean by that?
Interviewee: People dislike me because I am not completely like them.
Interviewer: And in what way are you different?
Interviewee: I am trying to do something with my life which few people try to do. This influences my thinking and consequently my actions.
Interviewer: What is it you're trying to do with your life?
Interviewee: Play the computer for people.
Interviewer: How is it that playing the computer for people has eventually resulted in your being here in the hospital?
Interviewee: I sit differently when I play the computer, and when I'm away from the computer, I occasionally look differently from other people. And this has caused dislike from people.
Interviewer: They dislike you because you sit differently at the computer?
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: In what way do you sit at the computer that people would dislike you?
Interviewee: I cannot describe it, an illustration of how I sit. And I can't imagine it would make people angry at me or at least dislike me.
Interviewer: How do you know they dislike you?
Interviewee: My father does, and doctors do because of the way I appear in relationship to the way I sit at the computer and occasionally stand when I am away from the computer because of the way I sit at the computer.
Interviewer: How do you stand when you're away from the computer that they dislike you?
Interviewee: I can't describe an illustration.
Interviewer: Does it feel to you any different from the way other people stand?
Interviewee: Yes, it feels different.
Interviewer: In what way?
Interviewee: If this is becoming too involved to describe...
Interviewer: Would I be right in assuming then that you don't feel that you belong in the hospital, but that other people did feel that?
Interviewee: As soon as I express the belief that I do not belong in this hospital, which is a mental hospital, then those who dislike me want to find a worse place for me.
Interviewer: I'm not sure I understand. Could you make that clearer for me?
Interviewee: No.
Interviewer: Is this a way of...?
Interviewee: Yes, I can. As soon as I express the belief that I do not belong in this mental hospital, then those who dislike me want to find a hospital where the living conditions are not as good as this.
Interviewer: But why are you in the hospital in the first place? I'm not clear.
Interviewee: Because I'm working to do something in my life which most people do not do. This influences my thinking and occasionally my actions. And a psychiatrist has noticed this.
Interviewer: What has he noticed?
Interviewee: The actions and the thinking, and has decided that I should be here to change them.
Interviewer: What actions?
Interviewee: How I talk and how I look right at this moment.
Interviewer: And how would you describe the way you're talking and looking right at this moment?
Interviewee: As other people talk and at this moment, however, I've been told that it is not the way other people talk and look.
Interviewer: Have you any idea in what way it's not like others?
Interviewee: No, because I believe it is as other people talk.
Interviewer: So then, from your point of view, not from other people's point of view, you look, you talk, you think, you behave as other people do?
Interviewee: You're very interested in learning to play the computer. You sit at the computer a little differently from the way someone else might, and you stand somewhat differently occasionally.
Interviewee: I stand differently.
Interviewer: Now, that in itself doesn't seem, on the surface, to be sufficient reason for being in a hospital. So what other reasons have been given to you or what other reasons do you understand are the causes of your being here?
Interviewee: I'm supposed to not be mentally well.
Interviewer: And what's supposed to be wrong with you?
Interviewee: No doctor has told me.
Interviewer: What are your plans if things should go well and you were to leave the hospital? Then what?
Interviewee: I need financial help from my father to prepare me for obtaining a job as a computer instructor at a university where I will be able to teach people how to play the computer and also play the computer for people.
Interviewer: Have you had the training yet to permit you to be an instructor?
Interviewee: No, I have not.
Interviewer: Have you tried?
Interviewee: I don't understand what you mean. Have you tried to get the instruction?
Interviewee: Yes, I have tried.
Interviewer: What's happened?
Interviewee: I have not had the correct environment for the instruction, nor the correct financial help for the instruction, nor the correct instruction.
Interviewer: Have you been accepted for such instruction by some teachers?
Interviewee: Yes, and by others, no.
Interviewer: Have you started any such instruction with those who did approve of it?
Interviewee: Yes, with some, it has gone well, and with some, it has not gone well.
