We may be making small inroads, but it's been so refreshing to meet with like minded counsellors and look at ways we can collaborate together to help support our clients who are experiencing the psychological impact of medical trauma and/or medical anxiety. Interestingly, Wales, Scotland and England are still behind Ireland and the US so far in resources, but the numbers will we hope gradually start to expand. The intention is to offer combined resources, whether that looks like group meetings, workshops, and educational presentations for clients, or tailored, inclusive training packages to our clinicians and Health Care Professionals, educating them in a trauma informed care (TIC) method of working, with a compassion focus at it's heart. A TIC approach provides a cultural shift around the nature of care, compassion and empathy as it actively works to create environments that promote safety, trust, empowerment, and healing. It’s a system that recognizes how trauma and/or anxiety affects a person’s brain, body, and behaviour, and responds in ways that promote safety, trust, and healing instead of re-traumatization. In simpler terms, this means understanding that many people have experienced health anxiety and shapes policies, interventions and systems that are sensitive to those experiences.
I love this quote from Thomas Moore's 'Care of the Soul in Medicine.'
“The soul of a hospital resides in the awesome spirit of healing found there. That spirit might be reflected in the architecture and décor or in the attitude of those who work there. Many hospitals give the impression of being factories for rebuilding bodies rather than temples of health and healing, and that is another way of saying they lack soul. A hospital with soul is a place of healing. A hospital without soul is a body repair shop”
My passion at the moment is not just to support my clients through their lived experience, but generating awareness through conversations with the Health Board about investing in a different training approach within the medical environment. Can supporting our clinicians from a point of inclusivity, empathy and understanding impact on their ability to harness the mantle of compassion for patients, themselves and each other? Can investing in them bring a sense of re-connection, and ‘soul’ back to the vocation that brought them to the profession in the first place?
