Experience Of Successfully Overcoming MRI Phobia

Table of contents:

Video: Experience Of Successfully Overcoming MRI Phobia

Video: Experience Of Successfully Overcoming MRI Phobia
Video: Coping with Claustrophobia? How to get an MRI Despite Your Fears. 2024, March
Experience Of Successfully Overcoming MRI Phobia
Experience Of Successfully Overcoming MRI Phobia
Anonim

Experience of successfully overcoming MRI phobia

Reprinted with permission from the client.

A 42-year-old man, let's call him Oleg, consulted a neurologist about headaches. The neurologist sent him for examination: duplex scanning and MRI. And if there were no problems with the duplex, then when the client was pushed into the tomograph, he experienced a panic attack, and, getting out of the machine, refused to undergo this procedure.

In our session with him, he talked about his experiences with the failed attempt.

First of all, the shame associated with fear. There was a strong self-condemnation associated with the fact that he allegedly chickened out. The shame was compounded by the fact that the client rationally understood that there was no real danger. That is, he seemed to be cowardly without any serious reason, or rather, even without any reason at all, which made him experience his own inferiority and insignificance. "It is a shame to be a coward", "A man should not be afraid of anything" - during the session we went out to these introjects. Of course, these were his father's messages, and they made him suffer now, after he believed he showed cowardice in a completely harmless situation.

Another strong feeling was the fear of the irrational that made him get out of the tomograph. For some reason, the doctor did not give him an emergency call button in his hand, as is usually done, pushed it deep into the apparatus (the patient was doing a brain examination) and, once inside, he opened his eyes. Then he remembered only that he yelled: "Get me out!" - and in the next moment was already outside. We can say - at this moment Oleg discovered the existence of the unconscious. What actually controls his behavior is not he himself, his conscious part, which perfectly understood that there is no danger, you just need to lie down quietly for 15 minutes, but some archaic part of his psyche, which acts on its own, without his knowledge and makes him to act as he, it seems, himself does not want, so that later, after performing these actions, he is ashamed of them. And that was frightening too.

The therapeutic effect was what we discussed and came to the conclusion that Oleg is far from the only person who cannot tolerate an MRI (this is exactly how - to move, and not be afraid, as Oleg formulated it at the beginning). This story is fairly common. People who have never even experienced anything like claustrophobia in an MRI machine experience a similar irrational panic.

I asked Oleg what exactly he was scared of when he opened his eyes and found himself in a tight, enclosed space with a ceiling (the top wall of the tomograph) a few centimeters in front of his eyes. Oleg thought about it, and then, with amazement in his voice, said that he was afraid to suffocate. The fear of a confined space for Oleg is the fear of suffocation. The unconscious part of his psyche, finding itself in similar, as it seems to her, threatening conditions reacts instantly, turns on the survival program and forces him to leave the dangerous place as quickly as possible. It is her task - to survive, to avoid dangerous places, and if a stupid person has climbed into such a place - to urgently pull him out of there.

And, yes, a tight space, like a narrow cave, is just the right place to suffocate. For Oleg, this served as an important insight. Rationally, he understood that it was impossible to suffocate in the tomograph - there was quite enough air there. I believe that it was mainly this discovery - the discovery of the idea that he could suffocate in the tomograph and the realization of its absurdity, irrationality and allowed Oleg to successfully pass the examination later.

Further, Oleg distracted himself directly from his fear of being examined on an MRI machine, began to recall his other episodes in which he experienced irrational fear - on an airplane, on a Ferris wheel, etc. I think that after the insight, he "let go" a little, the fear of the tomograph at that moment was gone or significantly weakened.

At the next session, Oleg said that he had called his neurologist, and she advised him, firstly, to make an appointment for an examination in another place where there is an open-type MRI machine (since I myself have never undergone such examinations and did not know that there are different devices, I could not advise Oleg himself), and secondly, half an hour before the examination, take a pill of phenazepam. Oleg said that he had found such a device, in the photo it really does not look so scary, it is not completely closed, and there is definitely enough air there, and that he signed up for an examination the day after this session of ours. We talked a little more about the upcoming examination. Oleg was still afraid of him, but he pinned his hopes on the apparatus being more open and not so scary in it, as well as on phenazepam and on his awareness that he who had previously had a fear of suffocating in the apparatus was irrational, that it was impossible.

I asked if he had any other fears before the examination, for example, to find out that he had some kind of serious, dangerous illness. Oleg admitted that there is. And he is afraid not only of a new attack of claustrophobia, fear itself and "loss of face" in connection with this fear, but also bad results, for example, that suddenly a tumor will be found in his brain.

Moreover, as he saw, he drives this very thought somewhere to the periphery of consciousness, does not reflect on it, covers it with other fears, the same claustrophobia. This discovery also surprised Oleg, he did not understand that he was really afraid of the test results. In any case, he agreed with me that if there is a tumor, the sooner it is found, the better.

At the next session, Oleg came satisfied - he successfully passed the examination, lay under the apparatus for 15 minutes, no tumor or anything else dangerous was found. He said that on the day of the examination (it was scheduled for the evening) during the day he was looking through the Facebook feed, read the post of a psychologist with whom he was on friendly terms and suddenly remembered that she lived very close to the place where he would be examined.

Oleg wrote her a letter in which he described the situation and half-jokingly, half-seriously asked if she would come to this MRI center and if she would sit next to him, holding him by the handle. Oleg assumed that most likely the girl, let's call her Anna, would just laugh it off, however, to his surprise and joy, she took the request quite seriously - she wrote that she would come and sit with him.

So, at the appointed time, Oleg arrived at the MRI Center, on the way half an hour before the scheduled examination time, putting a phenazepam pill under his tongue. Anna was already waiting for him. Together they entered the room with the tomograph. Oleg examined the device, made sure that it really is much more open than the previous one - it will definitely not work to suffocate in it. The doctor put him on a platform sliding into the apparatus and fixed his head. At this moment, Oleg experienced a slight panic, when the coil pressed on his neck, he again experienced a fear of suffocation. However, having shifted slightly upward, I made sure that the coil does not press and calmed down.

The doctor gave him a signal bulb (when it was squeezed, a signal should have rang), pushed it into the apparatus, and Anna immediately took his hand. During the procedure, she held his hand with one hand, and stroked his hand with the other, soothing and supporting. In the pauses between the hum of the machine, she told him how great he was and that it was not long left. All this, according to Oleg's description, was so pleasant and touching that he lay in the apparatus and smiled. There was no fear, only pleasure from the touch of Anna and her voice.

At some point, when the device hummed somehow differently, this sound seemed funny to him, and he almost laughed. And only the understanding that he needed to lie still stopped him. It also seemed important to Oleg that he was lying with his eyes closed all the time, from beginning to end, and refrained from opening them.

In general, everything went well. Oleg was examined, nothing dangerous was found in him, he himself received an experience of successfully overcoming a phobia, and you and I - a description of this experience.

So, the contributors to his success:

1) Open type apparatus

2) Support of a psychologist (Anna)

3) Phenazepam

4) Don't open your eyes

5) Support of another psychologist (me), awareness of the deep irrational cause of fear.

Perhaps for some of you or your friends who are experiencing difficulties with the examination with the help of an MRI machine, Oleg's experience, how the experience of successful overcoming will be useful)

Please write comments, like, subscribe and seek advice!

Recommended: