In those situations, asking them to calm down before they’ve vented will be about as useful as skipping straight to antibiotics before cleaning their wound.Īnd yet a lot of people don’t know how to listen to someone venting. But in cases where they’re really upset, you may need to drain their emotional abscess just as you would have to do with a physical abscess. Your instinctual and intuitive reaction may be to try to calm them down, urge them to cool off, suggest it’s not worth getting so upset about. Today as a practicing business psychiatrist and CEO advisor, I’ve noticed that when you’re faced with an upset customer, client, employee, shareholder, child, parent, spouse, friend, it can actually feel like they’re bulging with emotion and about to explode. If you don’t drain the abscess first, and just start with the antibiotics, the undrained pus may prevent the wound from healing. Over time, the wound heals from the inside out. After this procedure, you may put the person on an antibiotic. At that point the pus comes out first, followed by any blood. When you do an I & D, you locate what is the most protruding and bulging part of the abscess, wipe it off with alcohol, than pierce it with a scalpel.
We called the procedure “I & D” which stands for “Incision and Drainage” (I told you not to read this just before you eat). I still remember how it felt when, as a medical student, I drained my first abscess in a patient. Disclaimer: It’s probably not a good idea to read this before you eat.