Illness as opportunity

This next series of blog posts will deal with the complicated and controversial field of psychology known as psychosomatics. Psychosomatics is basically everything to do with illness, being sick. Therapists, even though most of them are not medical doctors, are no strangers to sick people needing care. Whether it is to navigate the jungle of the medical system, to cope with debilitating side effects of treatment, or simply to ask: what does this illness say about me, as a person? How can I speed up my healing process? How can I deal with the possibility of the treatment not working and the worst case scenario coming about? All this, and much more, is talked about in the intimacy of the therapist’s office. 

At first, a patient comes in ill. After some time, in the large majority of cases, they get better. Sometimes the progress is spectacular, sometimes it is slow and laborious yet undeniably there. Often the simple act of talking to an empathic human being in a safe setting suffices to bring down the psychic tension and alleviate numerous physical ailments. Once the improvement is felt, some patients choose to stop therapy, and some keep coming back. These patients want to understand why they fell ill in the first place, so they can prevent an eventual relapse, and feel safe and secure knowing it is them who have some control over the illness and its consequences. Therapy has the following benefits:

1. Understanding why we fall ill
2. Understanding what we can do do get better
3. Understanding how to heal completely
4. Adopting a new attitude to life, new behaviours and a new identity that will prevent a relapse
5. Being comfortable in this new identity as a healthy person.