Tag: types of therapy

The impacts of chronic illness can have a negative effect on individuals due to the accompanying stress and anxiety. When this stress and anxiety is enduring and prevents a person from returning to their baseline functioning, it is called post-traumatic stress.

Post-traumatic stress has serious implications for people with chronic illnesses.

Biological

• More bothersome symptoms
• Increased depression
• Increased utilization of medical care

Psychological

• Embitterment, including bitterness, defeat, anger, hostility
• Demoralization including hopelessness, helplessness, isolation

Social

• Isolation
• Alienation
• Stigma

With therapy, people with chronic illness are more likely to experience post-traumatic growth, which is the process of positive transformation after a trauma.

 

Post traumatic growth has been shown to improve people’s mental health, their overall health status, and how they experience their symptoms.

 

Many people report positive self-growth as a result of adapting to chronic illness. Therapists can help their clients with chronic illness achieve post-traumatic growth many ways, depending on the time and progression of the illness:

At time of diagnosis:

• Encouraging social support
• Offering understanding that is free of guilt or blaming
• Providing psychoeducation
• Providing a sense of safety
• Bringing awareness to potential impacts on biological, social, and psychological aspects of life

In transitional periods of life:

• Encouraging social support
• Providing psychological support

Long-Term

• Providing continued psychoeducation
• Encouraging continued social support
• Providing continued psychological support
• Increasing cultural and social awareness
• Respecting the individual’s self-management

I am especially interested in working with clients and their families who are affected by chronic illness.  My first career was as a nurse and I have personal experience with chronic illness. Reach out if I can support you, your partner, or your family as you deal with chronic illness.

 

 

 

The shooting at the King Soopers in South Boulder last week was, at the least, a distressing and deeply disturbing experience. By definition, it was traumatic, in one way or another, to practically every member of our community. Someone I know who regularly shops at the King Soopers commented “I can’t get it out of my head.”  She described vigilantly reading every news story, compulsively checking for new tweets that might provide updated information, and repeatedly talking about the details of the shooting with her partner. She even described lying awake at night, while she imagined walking down each of the aisles of the store and trying to picture the horror that unfolded in them.  

She wondered why was she doing this? Shouldn’t she be trying to avoid thinking about this awful and upsetting event?  Yet, she described these thoughts as intrusive and out of her control, no matter what she did to distract herself from them. The clinical term for this is rumination. 

Actually, what my friend is describing is perfectly normal. In fact, it is the first step to healing from a traumatic event. According to trauma experts, revisiting the trauma and rumination are part of the cognitive process through which new insights emerge that lead to meaning making and posttraumatic growth. Meaning making is comprehending an event and acknowledging its significance.  Post-traumatic growth is new ways of viewing ourselves and the world after a traumatic event (Werdel & Wicks, 2012).  

In other words, we let our minds think about a traumatic event in an effort to understand what happened, and this helps us regain a sense of control over the event. Maybe we imagine what we would do differently during a traumatic event or why it could not happen again. We tell ourselves stories to explain how such a thing happened, and we try to fill in any gaps with actual or imagined information, so the story makes sense to us. We also consider why the traumatic event matters to us. We might think “I feel sad because I know what it’s like to lose a loved one.”  Then we begin to develop new assumptions, such as “I need to take these precautions to stay safe” or “I am braver than I realized.”  Talking to a therapist can help you work through this process.