I love earing about conventional medicine integrating hypnosis and finding some real use for it… I love hearing of it being an application in incredibly serious health issus and helped individuals to overcome such.
So I was fascinated, intrigued and loving this particular article today…
This hypnosis article in the Lancashire Telegraph states:
LANCASHIRE Telegraph health expert Dr Tom Smith has told how being diagnosed with cancer allowed him to see a doctor’s role from the other side.
The family GP, 69, was told he had a tumour in his bowel after a routine screening in June.
Surgeons were so concerned that, within three weeks, they had taken away part of the intestine to ensure that all the cancerous tissue was removed.
During the agonising six-day post-operative wait for pathology results, Dr Smith used mental techniques likened to self-hypnosis to help keep him from thinking the worst, and at the end of it was told he had the all-clear.
He said the experience had helped him gain a clearer understanding of his professional role — as well as the value of pain management.
I love tohear of real-life doctors who gain a greater understanding and awareness of illnesses they treat through their own experience, though of course, I would not wish them to havbe to go through such experiences.
Many therapists often arrive in their role because of their own journey… In my experience, many Doctors have been from school to college to University, to Doctor training school and into the medical establishment…It is almost like professional institutionalisation! What they have in terms of academic intelligaence… They can sometimes lack in life experience, interpersonal skills and so on… (I am waiting for the emails from Docotrs today telling me I am wrong!)
This is not universal, I just love to hear of doctors who can empathise… And as for those who actually acknowledge hypnosis:
Dr Smith said the most important thing he learned was from a colleague who practices medical hypnosis, who visited him in hospital on the night before the operation and gave him a few pointers on concentrating his mind.
He said: “She showed me how to think, virtually self-hypnosis. I had to choose for myself the best place and time I had ever had in my life, and step back into them, in my mind. I had to concentrate on the details, and take myself through the scene — re-living the experience.
“I chose a scene in my early teens, when I used to go fishing in a small rowing boat in the Kyles of Bute, and whenever I started to worry about my circumstances, I ‘transferred’ myself to that time. Over the next few days I had plenty of rowing boat time.
“It kept me sane. I’ll use the rowing boat in any future health crises.
That is great to hear, isn’t it?
Now, on a serious note, I had to mention this today….
The Adventure Company and Telltale Games this week announced that it will be releasing Sam & Max Season One, a compilation of the first six episodes from the episodic Sam & Max series, on the Wii next month.
“In Season One, straight-laced canine detective Sam and his psychotic “rabbity-thing” sidekick Max are on the hunt for the mastermind behind a baffling hypnosis conspiracy,” reads today’s press release.
“Players get to interrogate suspects (with amusing results), uncover clues, solve puzzles, and ultimately piece together the underlying mystery that links the episodes.”
(That was like having my very own ‘and finally…’ moment)
Yay! Hypnosis in video games… As if they aren’t all hypnotic…
I suppose I should be ranting and raving about attitudes to doctors…but I can’t. In a way you do us a favour when you talk about professional institutionalisation and lack of interpersonal skills etc. It’s true! And partly because doctors are, in fact, fallible human beings and prone to exactly the same weaknesses and problems as the average person. Perhaps even more so….
It’s possibly surprising that there aren’t more with terrible personalities and difficulties really. Medicine is a popular course and selects out the people who achieve academically. These are unfortunately the same group who also tend to be perfectionists, people who study hard, those who put academic achievement ahead of social commitments and fun! These people decide to do the course at 17 or 18 (and how much does anybody really know at that age?) and spend the next 5/6yrs studying and socialising mainly with others on the same course. Straight into work and climbing a ladder that is generally very ordered with little chance to branch out into the slightly different things. Communication training is starting to come in for some of the exams (the surgeons decided they needed it!) but otherwise psychology/emotional issues/communication are generally met with snorts of derision. Doctors are often said to make the worst patients. We don’t get sick! Absenteeism rates are low because we drag ourselves into work when we obviously shouldn’t. Nobody wants to admit to physical vulnerability so mental health problems would be a definite no-no. It’s a small, cloistered community really. Very little is kept secret and there is always the worry about how things will be perceived as you try to climb the ladder. Anything less than sailing through can be viewed as just not cutting it when it comes to the competition to get on training schemes etc. Not so surprising then that many have problems with alcohol or drug abuse, or leave the profession altogether!
So yes, doctors could benefit from not buying into their own hype and remembering that they (we!) are human…..and with that, being more open to caring for ourselves. Hopefully that will help us in our treatment of others.
Doctors are not the only ones with this kind of thing… Teachers often go through it… SOlicitors and other professionals… Doctors get needled here because of their relation to my own work…
Gráinne, as an extremely hard-working and top-rung doctor yourself, and someone whose opinion I value very highly, thanks for showing us that I am not always right on everything across the board… 🙂