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| Impact
of a health condition By Karen Gosling, counseling Director |
|
 In this series of real-life case studies, Karen Gosling recounts client stories compiled from Gosling International's files. The permission of clients has been obtained to present these case histories. Names and places used have been changed to protect cilent privacy. |
| Introduction | |
| Loretta, a woman in her late 30's, of European origin, married with 2 children aged 5 and 3, attended counseling with anxieties about the impact of a recurrent medical problem on her life and family. She had lived internationally for10 years (New York, UK and now Singapore) with her husband's work. Both liked it in Singapore. Two months earlier, she had undergone a second surgery to remove a growing brain tumour from the meningioma (lining of the brain). | |
| The first surgery was just after the birth of her second child, as the diagnosis had (finally!) been made during the pregnancy, after her frEQuent complaints of severe headaches and loss of vision. She had completely lost the vision in her right eye, and decreasing vision in her left eye, which left her very fearful, had prompted her to have a further check, 2 months earlier. After the first surgery, she had responded well to treatment, and had "bounced back", as it were, capable of caring for the children, even when her husband traveled with business, and functioning well with both her life and the diagnosis. | |
| The second surgery had been terrible. She had returned to the USA for the operation, to the doctors who knew her from 3 years earlier. It was an 18-hour operation, she was unconscious for 3-4 days in the Intensive Care Unit, and after a short recovery, an arduous 25-hour flight back to Singapore to a house where she could not rest, because of noisy children. Her body was fatigued, she constantly felt weary and exhausted, and wanted to sleep. Yet when she rested, she found herself bored and restless, and then unable to sleep at night. She was on medication to reduce seizures (common after surgery on the brain) and antidepressants, and was not able/willing to alter these. She complained of feeling depressed and "unable to get going". | |
| Loretta felt that her husband was not understanding that it is different for her this time. Last time, after surgery, she "sprang back" quickly, and Loretta felt that now, just because she was up and walking around, that her husband assumed she was back to normal. The fact that the doctors were positive about her life expectancy did not ease her anxiety, this time. | |
| The event that prompted Loretta to come to counseling was the news that her husband had an offer of a job transfer to Chicago. He was keen to take the offer, but Loretta felt quite unable to cope with an international move at the present time, and had told him so. | |
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| counseling intervention | |
| The
counselor allowed Loretta to "tell her story". Typically, women need
to talk through their problems, in order to process the feelings that
they are going through, and to sort out what they want to do about
their problem. Loretta was experiencing her depression in her body,
and described a feeling of "heaviness", with the realization that
she now had a medical condition that restricted and impacted on her
life. |
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| The
counselor helped her list the problems and to identify those that
she could and could not do anything about. |
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| Loretta
was affirmed in her feelings of despondency and sadness, but a different
label was attributed to the depression. The counselor helped Loretta
to see that she was suffering grief as a result of all the losses
she had experienced, not the least of which was the loss of expectation
that she would bounce back from this surgery as she had the time before.
Loretta was reassured that her reactions to her loss were normal -
it was only the situation that was abnormal.
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| Hope
was conveyed, that the grieving would pass and that time was important
for physical and emotional
healing. The counselor assisted her to consider options of things
she could do in the meantime, to regain some control in her life and
to increase her feelings of well-being and health (eg foot reflexology,
reiki and meditation class). Another part of this process was to help
Loretta identify all previous crises that she had suffered and survived,
and the personal strengths that she had used to do so. This was a
particularly useful exercise for Loretta, who had come to session
convinced that she was unable to cope with anything. |
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| Outcome | |
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| Losses identified | |
**
identified by Loretta as her biggest losses |
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Karen Gosling is counseling Director at Gosling International. She is a graduate of the University of South Australia and holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Adelaide. Karen is a Registered Social Worker in Singapore and is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and the Singapore Association of Social Workers. Gosling International is a leading emotional leadership consultancy based in Singapore, serving committed clients worldwide. Goslings mission is one of education and empowerment; to elevate emotional well-being. Gosling International provides face-to-face, telephone and email emotional leadership consultations for individuals, couples, and family groups. If you want a professional to help you with behavioural change or deal with your emotional distress, personal problems, or are simply troubled by your feelings, phone Karen or Mike Gosling on (65) 6281-5157. Consulting
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