Carefully! "Healing Psychosomatics"

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Video: Carefully! "Healing Psychosomatics"

Video: Carefully! "Healing Psychosomatics"
Video: 3 Keys Managing Life's Challenges 2024, March
Carefully! "Healing Psychosomatics"
Carefully! "Healing Psychosomatics"
Anonim

By the will of fate and personal choice, we (myself and my colleagues, doctors and psychotherapists) have devoted several years to working with cancer patients. Perhaps this will seem strange to some, but I can say with some certainty that the psychological history of each of the patients was and to this day remains unlike anyone else. Each has its own story, each has its own experiences and, accordingly, reasons.

However, speaking about the reactions to the disease, about the reactions to treatment and prescriptions, about the behavior of the clients-patients themselves in the clinic, we can highlight some common points. And in this note, I want to mainly note what is closer to me - expectations from working with a psychologist … These expectations are not specific for cancer patients, they are also found in diseases such as diabetes mellitus, vision problems, cardiovascular diseases and diseases of the musculoskeletal system, gastrointestinal tract, etc. Any disease can be included in the enumeration, and the more difficult the situation, the more often hopes for "healing" and "psychotherapeutic miracles" surface.

Yes, regardless of the complexity of the treatment process, it happens that medicine is powerless, even if it is dermatitis, infertility, irritable bowel syndrome or vegetative-vascular dystonia. Then patients are more inclined to look for the cause of their problems in psychosomatics. Of course, in some cases, there really is a certain psychological component that prevents a person from getting rid of a problem or illness. However, for the most part, people believe that it is worth starting to think “correctly”, positively, repeating health-improving affirmations, letting go of grievances, accepting what is not to their liking, etc., and the illness will recede.

It is thanks to such patients that I wrote a memo about the client's expectations in psychotherapy and about the real possibilities of the psychotherapist himself and I want to share with you. From simple to complex:

What a psychologist can and cannot do in dealing with psychosomatic diseases

A psychologist cannot identify your psychological problems with just one medical diagnosis

A psychologist can look at your family history, including histories of various pathologies and your birth scenario in the direction of health (attitude to the body and caring for it) and illness (onset, course and resolution). By studying your history, your life experience, and your worldview, the psychologist can help identify destructive patterns and attitudes that make your body speak for you. They are all different and often hide in the most unexpected places in your story.

A psychologist cannot give you a universal recipe (advice), the use of which would help you to be healthy

The psychologist can explain to you that there are no universal methods of work, because all people are exceptional and individual. Since no two people are alike, there is no recipe that is equally suitable for both of them to work on themselves. In this case, the psychologist considers the client as a unique personality and, with your help, finds what is needed (suitable) for you in any particular situation to resolve a specific issue.

A psychologist cannot cure a person from any disease by an independent method

The psychologist can explain to the client-patient how psychological problems, including stress, negative emotions, traumatic experiences and even upbringing, affect the functioning of the body, disrupt metabolism and suppress its protective (immune) functions. And then he can teach the client to reduce this negative impact, which in turn helps to restore the metabolism and immune functions of the body.

In cases of hereditary psychosomatosis, the psychologist helps to identify generic patterns (destructive attitudes) that lead to the disclosure of these genes, and also helps to neutralize their impact so as not to be passed on by generations.

The psychologist cannot make decisions for you

A psychologist can guide you in your strengths, teach you how to find and use them. And at the same time, the psychologist can draw your attention to essential things, phenomena and solutions that you for some reason overlooked (look at the problem more broadly, calculate different options, weigh the pros and cons).

A psychologist cannot cure mental illness, including varying degrees of mental retardation

A clinical or medical psychologist helps to find constructive ways for the patient to interact and respond with others during the period of remission (between attacks). The psychologist helps to draw up individual development plans that allow you to reach the possible maximum. Helps to socialize, choose the right place of study, program and even suitable work for people with a special diagnosis. The psychologist can promote the disclosure of certain talents in patients, and note the possibilities for their improvement.

A psychologist cannot heal people, either through psychotherapy or otherwise

A psychologist can help you find the individual psychological causes of your illness. Remind that in addition to psychological, there are spiritual causes, physical, chemical, bacterial and viral, radiation, etc., and that it is their combination and combination that provokes the disease, and work can be effective precisely in eliminating all (key) causes. After all, if the physical cause is not removable (like dead cells, for example), then no new attitudes will help revive them. And at the same time, in working with irreversible or partially reversible processes, the psychologist will help to accept what is inevitable and change, what is amenable to correction. The psychologist cannot reverse disability, prolong life, stop death, etc.

In situations with incurable diseases, the psychologist provides information about the essence of the disease, how to live with them and how to make this life better psychologically, socially and physically. The psychologist helps to improve the psychological climate within the family, where the person with a special diagnosis lives, helps to find answers to the questions of the goals of life and illness, etc.

In accepting the inevitable, the psychologist can provide information about the essence of the ongoing processes, how everything begins, how it goes and how it ends. Teach pain relief techniques, both mental and physical. Teach techniques for relieving stress, reducing anxiety, fears, etc. And of course, be there when you need support and feedback (response).

The Psychologist Can't Take Your Pain

A psychologist can share your feelings, comfort, and teach you how to comfort and reduce your own pain on your own. Can teach you the skills of dealing with mental pain to transform it into positive feelings. Be there, listen, give feedback (respond gently), thereby sharing your pain.

The psychologist cannot make you unresponsive or insensitive

A psychologist can teach you to look at phenomena and events from a different angle, which in turn affects the perception of painful and negative situations, making them either acceptable or positive, with the extraction of working tools for the future.

The psychologist cannot make you forget the negative part (situation) of your life

A psychologist can help you "remove" negative memories from your past that prevent you from living fully today, help you change your attitude towards them and derive positive experiences from them. As a result, leave the past in the past with pleasant memories and gratitude, and build the present and the future on the basis of the experience gained and new, positive sensations.

Psychologist cannot return deceased loved ones and deceased relationships

A psychologist can help you go through the difficult path of loss: be with you in difficult moments, explain and listen, help you not stand still and not get stuck in the experience of grief over and over again, help you find quality resources to improve the environment without the departed, save fond memory of him and let go.

The psychologist cannot give immunity from losses

A psychologist can teach you to find your inner, hidden reserves and use them in work with difficult life situations and circumstances. The psychologist can explain how the processes of mourning proceed, what can be expected from oneself and from others at such moments, which reactions in this state are the norm, and which ones are worth paying attention to, where to look for answers and what questions.

The psychologist cannot change the world around him

A psychologist can explain and help manifest in practice the change in your attitude towards the world around you for the better; changes in your perception of the world around you, for the better. In case, if you do not want these changes, the psychologist will contribute to the search for your personal tools for successful coexistence in this world.

A psychologist cannot force someone from your environment to change or change their attitude towards you

The psychologist can contribute to the search for your personal tools to change only you personally and your patterns of behavior and interaction with which you "show" yourself to others. As a result, you will be able to look at your relationships with people in a different way, understand and accept them better. Other people will change their attitude towards you, not because any influence or pressure has been exerted on them, but because you yourself are changing and it still does not make sense to treat you (does not have the same effectiveness / result). Perhaps as a result of your changes, some people and situations will leave you, but new ones will also come, often more promising, positive, helping and life-affirming.

A psychologist cannot be responsible for your mood, your work on yourself, your quality of life (both spiritual and material)

A psychologist can give you tools to work on yourself, teach self-improvement techniques, expand your worldview and perception, explain cause-and-effect relationships in the behavior and reactions of you and those around you, draw your attention to the elements of destructive behavior or way of interaction for you, teach you to work and cope with stress, negative emotions and crisis states, etc. However, whether you apply these methods and information to improve the quality of your life or not depends only on yourself.

In the case when client-patients do not place vain hopes on working with a psychologist, their joint work is easier and more effective. And at the same time, it is important to remember that working with true psychosomatics is exactly the kind of work that does not happen quickly.

If you know those who believe that a psychologist can heal and heal a sick person with their sessions, share this note with them.

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* What a psychologist can and cannot do in dealing with psychosomatic diseases // Lobazova A. A. "Individual work with a psychologist". Informational methodological manual in the framework of the program of support and rehabilitation of cancer patients in the MC "Panacea 21st Century". Kharkov, 2008.

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