Re: Alcoholism
On 3 Oct 1996, Rene Duba wrote:
> Bernard,
<SNIP>
> I gave training to therapists at alcohol & drugsclinics. Many of them seemed
to
> suffer from burn-out symptoms. Substance abusers seemed to 'use' human
relations
> in the same style they 'used' addictive substances, which seemed to me a
factor
> of severe wear and tear to the therapists. Some became severely dissociated,
> others also cynical, others -noticing the effect- quit their jobs. I remember
my
> first impression: Who are the patients and who are the therapists? I couldn't
> distinguish on a psychological level. Your experiences?
My mother is a Physician's Assistant who has worked with cancer
patients undergoing bone marrow transplants for the past 12 or 13
years. For the first seven of those years she worked at a
children's hopsital. The survival rate was around 40-50%. I
don't know how many of her patients died, but it was a lot. She
is an extremely caring person -- if she kept an emotional
attachment to each of those patients, she would be seriously
depressed (or worse, like the therapists above) right now. She's
not -- she's still loving and caring, and goes back to work every
day with the knowledge that around half of the people she helps
will die anyways.
How does she do it? Early on at the children's hospital, her
boss taught her to leave work and everything associated with it
at the hospital. She emotionally separates (dissociates) work
from the rest of her life. She is associated while at work in
order to respond effectively to her patients (without becoming
overly involved emotionally though.) She is strongly associated
at home (my mother is very kinesthetic/emotional). I'm not sure
if she dissociates from her home-life while at work, but that
isn't necessarily important.
What's my point with this? The therapists whom Rene mentioned
above didn't learn to use self-dissociation effectively
(deliberately). They paced their patients, but never lead them
to more resourceful states, and ended up getting locked into
those states themselves. An important part of therapist training
should be how to use self-dissociation.
Brent
>
> Kind Regards,
> Rene Duba
>
References:
- Alcoholism
- From: Rene Duba <100773.2566@CompuServe.COM>