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posted
It should be interesting to get the perspective on this from our resident mental health professionals and spiritual directors.


Go Ahead, Be Repressed
by Rich Lowry

The book cited: One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance.

quote:
"The universal prescription for trauma [is to] talk about it with any trusted person who will listen," writes one psychologist, capturing the therapeutic conventional wisdom.

But it�s not so. Studies of earthquake victims and Gulf War veterans show that talking about their experiences didn�t have any effect on their trauma-related anxiety one way or the other.

Such is our faith in talk that it has become widely accepted that if cancer patients attend group-therapy sessions they are likely to survive longer. If only it were true. An extensive 2001 study by Pamela Goodwin � an oncologist worried that patients felt obliged to participate in group therapy � found that "expressive group therapy does not prolong survival in women with metastatic breast cancer."

Those disinclined to share their emotions might actually be harmed if forced to participate in therapy. In a Montreal study, heart-attack victims with a repressive coping style � i.e., they just don�t want to talk about it � who received monthly phone calls to monitor their "psychological distress" became more psychologically distressed. They were more likely to visit the emergency room or be prescribed tranquilizers than repressors who were left (blessedly) alone.
quote:
Dwelling on your feelings can be a problem, especially if you�re feeling down. A researcher who compared depressed individuals told to ruminate on their feelings with those not so instructed found that over-thinking tends to "impose a lens that shows a distorted, narrow view of our world." Indeed, it can "take you down paths to hopelessness, self-hate and immobility."
quote:
A 2000 study by University of Memphis researchers found that nearly 40 percent of those "receiving grief therapy actually faired worse than a matched group not receiving treatment." A 2003 report by the Center for the Advancement of Health found that grief counseling and therapy "may not always be effective, and in some cases may be harmful."
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Picture of jk1962
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Well, I'm not a health professional, but I can tell you that I never attended the Cancer groups because to me it was just more time that cancer was taking away from me, and I wasn't about to let that happen. I suppose my therapy was in doing things for other folks that had it....sending cards, taking food for them after chemo, calling to visit...that kind of thing. It was really good for all of us, but all those folks have passed now, and for some reason I can't seem to get into it again. I dunno..maybe cause it's been so long ago now..not sure.

Another tactic that our school counselor uses is to have them keep a journal and write all these feelings they have down. Remember the cheerleader that I mentioned who fought with my daughter? Yeah..she did that...it reinforced all the ill feelings she had and drove her to violence, so I'm not real keen on that one either. My eldest daughter tried the whole keeping a journal thing, and it didn't take her long to see that the effect was adverse, not positive.

But...it could all depend on the individual as well. Talking is great sometimes, but I don't think it's a cure-all and can even have the opposite effect because it keeps the person dwelling on all the "bad" junk.

My .02 Wink

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
<w.c.>
posted
Terri:

Volunteer work can be essential, or something like it, and we see that in hospice, where family members begins to volunteer once they reach a certain stage of healing during bereavement. Working in the garden, painting, hobbies that are meaningful and engage the senses, all can be a great help. But trauma that cripples somebody from being able to recover their ability to accomplish routine activities needs special attention, if it persists. The trick is in finding a therapist who knows that one size doesn't fit all.
 
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My bias on all this (particularly concerning grief counseling) is that it is healthy to make readily available a shoulder on which to cry. Some need to talk and to cry rivers and to be given advice on how to deal with tragedy. Others need some space and privacy and be allowed to deal with things in their own way. However, as this article points out, it seems the "official" bias is towards viewing us all us Chatty Kathy�s who can be cleansed in a minute of all deep wounds if we will just avail ourselves of the all-powerful and wonderful grief counselors. This attitude is typical in the firefighting and law enforcement professions where one often has no choice but for mandatory counseling. Granted, these days that�s more about "CYA" in case some cop or firefighter should go nuts and start killing people. Counseling wouldn�t be mandatory and such an official procedure if all they were worried about was helping people through trauma.

But other than that, I�m open on the subject. I think it would be wise for us all (especially grief counselors and those who employ them) to remember that people come in all different types and that people aren�t necessarily odd or repressed just because they don�t want to talk to some stranger in the midst of a tragedy. In fact, I would tend to view a person as a bit odd if they were comfortable doing so.

Yeah..she did that...it reinforced all the ill feelings she had and drove her to violence, so I'm not real keen on that one either. My eldest daughter tried the whole keeping a journal thing, and it didn't take her long to see that the effect was adverse, not positive.

Good point, Terri. That seems to be one of the lessons here. We assume that writing all this stuff down is a good thing. We assume that facing each and every "repressed" emotion is a good thing. But what, seriously, if it�s not? Or�what if this is good for some and not others? That clearly seems to be supported by the examples you give.

Believe me, I don�t want to turn this into an attack on mental health professionals. But I think this subject does go to show that we need to remain sensitive to what other people need and to not simply bang them over the head with our pet theories. I would bet that WC would agree that the better mental health specialists would have an entire bag of different tricks and techniques from which to choose.

If one were to proceed with such an attitude it could, on the practical level, mean that a session of quiet centering prayer might break out in the offices of some mental health professional.

But alas, the State is never so flexible. Once they get in into their heads that grief counselors are what we need then grief counselors are what we get. I have to admit that I�ve rolled my eyes more than once upon hearing, say, after some horrible school shooting, that the grief counselors were swooping in. If I were a crude, insensitive individual I might think that these kids could use a counseling session or two just to get over the bad effects of the grief counselors.

Talking is great sometimes, but I don't think it's a cure-all

That�s great wisdom. In fact, for anybody advocating grief counseling (mandatory or otherwise), that�s pretty much all I would need to hear from them to have confidence in their competency.

First, do no harm�.well, unless it would hurt the feelings of the grief counselors or those who think they are the best choice to thrust into people�s faces on short notice just after some horrendous event.

Ooop. I think my bias just showed. LOL. Wink
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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This seems to be the case, although the idea of talk as intervention for all persists in most helping professional circles. When people present as "repressive" types, which I see everyday in hospice work, and during the following bereavement stage, the tendency is either to view their lack of verbal engagement as a withdrawal, or to simply leave them to their own devices.

A wise and compassionate counselor you surely must be, WC. And surely these situations of long-term care or the cases where people voluntarily avail themselves of a mental health professionals are different. In the former there is time to assess people as people and whether directly talking about some very personal stuff is a good idea or not, and in the latter it is, more or less, healing through talking that people are looking for. (And paying quite well for in many cases.)

Used by itself, talk therapy tends to reinforce the very maladaptive coping responses that keep trauma locked into the nervous system. Even in non-repressive types, trauma isn't usually resolved through story-telling, since such an approach is based on the obsolete notion of + versus - emotional charge. Catharsis can be initially helpful where emotion is repressed (provided the person is inclined to that response), but after a period of catharis most people aren't aware of the differences between emotion, thought, and presence, and tend to get addicted to + and - charges as separate from each other within the way they tell the story.

That�s quite fascinating. Speaking for myself, I know that all my words taken in totality have probably changed me very little. They are expressions of emotion and thoughts and certainly there can be cathartic releases involved from time to time, but they are just so many words. So when you say that talk used by itself can actually reinforce maladaptive coping responses then I can only say "hallelujah". That makes much sense.

So I wonder how many people who are visited by these grief counselors, and who engage only in talk, are left actually in worse shape because such profound events as the death of fellow students or co-workers are sort of trivialized into the equivalent of a 30 minute word-out. It wouldn�t surprise me at all if a simple 10 minute prayer session would do more good. Ooops. Separation issues, especially at school. Perhaps that�s reason enough right there for schools to butt out with their grief counselors. They are using this opportunity to sell their version of religion: secular humanism. Or, of course, I�d be happy with letting people pray if they wanted to pray. But how convenient, once again, to have a captive audience of kids for indoctrinating them into the TRUE answers to life�s miseries.

Anyway, that's another way of looking at this. Wonder if they touch on that in the book.
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The trick is in finding a therapist who knows that one size doesn't fit all.

Absolutely, w.c. That describes a therapist that is TRULY a therapist, in my opinion.

But I think this subject does go to show that we need to remain sensitive to what other people need and to not simply bang them over the head with our pet theories.

You got it, Brad. What I found most frustrating, not only with my illness, but most recently with my Mother-in-law's physical problems, is this faction of the medical community who see you as a "case" rather than a person. It's frustrating and almost degrading, too.

I think grief is probably one of the most difficult things to work through. That particular type of emptiness and loss, knowing that there's no "fixing" it because death can't be "fixed", often leaves us in such a state that we can't mobilize one way or the other. It's like a nothingness that can't be filled up. We eventually get past it, but there's always a hole that remains in us. The other part of that is that I think it makes the ones around us uncomfortable if we don't "recover" fairly quickly. That reaction can be almost as devastating as the loss itself.

I have great respect for doctors and mental health professionals. I just wish that along with all the smarts that it takes to arrive at those professions, there was just as much wisdom included.

I remember one of my oncologists that I could've just kissed..lol. He said that he never paid a whole lot of attention to statistics because they weren't people, and people can't be crunched like numbers. Yep...he got my respect right that minute. I still think of him often, and I'm thankful that he was a man of wisdom as well as incredible knowledge (he was board certified in 3 different specialities...whew..a very smart man).

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I think grief is probably one of the most difficult things to work through. That particular type of emptiness and loss, knowing that there's no "fixing" it because death can't be "fixed", often leaves us in such a state that we can't mobilize one way or the other. It's like a nothingness that can't be filled up. We eventually get past it, but there's always a hole that remains in us. The other part of that is that I think it makes the ones around us uncomfortable if we don't "recover" fairly quickly. That reaction can be almost as devastating as the loss itself.

That's a touching description, Terri. My beef with the concept of grief counseling (and admittedly my concept is probably simpler than the reality) would be that it tries to turn a very private, individual process into something resembling an assembly line. In my experience the main thing that people need is the presence of other people. They need these other people primarily to listen, not talk. They don't need their pain "managed" they need their pain to be held and acknowledged. A grief counselor sounds like an intrusion by nature. Oh well. Welcome to the new world where everything now is just a psychological problem.

But in all seriousness, I'm glad that we have our Terri alive and well and speaking with us. You�ve related accounts of your cancer experience before and it's apparent that it has changed you�and probably for the better. What a heck of a way to gain humility and wisdom, but it's clear ya got it. Smiler
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My beef with the concept of grief counseling (and admittedly my concept is probably simpler than the reality) would be that it tries to turn a very private, individual process into something resembling an assembly line. In my experience the main thing that people need is the presence of other people. They need these other people primarily to listen, not talk. They don't need their pain "managed" they need their pain to be held and acknowledged. A grief counselor sounds like an intrusion by nature.

I agree with that Brad. It's one thing to have a caring person or two who is there for you during a time of grief and quite another to be shuffled through a system, albeit a well-meaning system. In some ways, we've allowed death to become an exception to life rather than teaching (and learning) that death comes...period. It isn't unnatural; it isn't an anamoly; it is something that WILL come. Not that we should dwell on it or anything, but just that no matter how many age-defying products we use, we need to be aware that age can't really be defied and tragedy is no respecter of persons. We seem ill-equipped for this stage of life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a ho-hum approach to death but more like an acknowledgment of the fact that it is and a bit of preparation to address it when it comes.This is where I think our faith plays, or can play, a great role. For the Christian, we can see the "beyond" of physical death. It doesn't make the hole go away, but it does give us hope.

I'm glad to BE alive Big Grin ! I can't imagine not having met the SP folks Wink . Yeah, the big "C" brings changes and not all of them for the bad, many things are for the good.

Blessings,
Terri
 
Posts: 609 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: 27 April 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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In some ways, we've allowed death to become an exception to life rather than teaching (and learning) that death comes...period. It isn't unnatural; it isn't an anamoly; it is something that WILL come. Not that we should dwell on it or anything, but just that no matter how many age-defying products we use, we need to be aware that age can't really be defied and tragedy is no respecter of persons. We seem ill-equipped for this stage of life.

Eric, in his transformation thread, has said some amazing things in this regard (and I think your words, Terri, are particularly peachy as well). Me, I can honestly say that I fear living more than I fear death, but I�m getting better. Smiler And I think as Eric so eloquently stated, at least in so many words, that we allow life to be stolen from us if we keep an unhealthy fixation on death.

At least in my mind I have this grand picture of a universe that makes sense. The laws of thermodynamics are themselves transformational laws and directional laws. After all, these laws point to definite "arrows of time", to a universe that is clearly headed somewhere. I would seem somewhat vain, small minded and clearly lacking in imagination if I were to cling to life for dear life, so to speak. I will die and I�m not entirely sure what that means. I am alive and I am not entirely sure what that means.
 
Posts: 5413 | Location: Washington State | Registered: 21 September 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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