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Pain
Lessons: Learning to Heal by Ellie O'Steen, LMT Pain
Management Now, as we stated back in Lesson Two, there are basically five stages of grief. There is: the
disbelief/agitation stage Basically, we can say that in Stage Four- the Adjustment Stage, there are also stages of adjustment : 2-6
months is considered the acute and subacute stage Diagnosis
and Nonsurgical Management of Chronic Pain Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary defines 'adjustment' as "biological adaptation to an altered or changing condition, particularly in the environment." During the adjustment phase, there is much to be dealt with in dealing with our 'altered and changing conditions (as most of us already know!). But....why is it that some people seem to adjust better than others? I feel that there are various reasons. Let's explore them...... 1. PAIN IS A LEARNED RESPONSE. How we deal with pain is often related to what we learned in our early years of childhood. Boys are usually taught to 'be tough' and not cry or whine about their hurt. Girls are more often held, comforted, cuddled. Now!!! Before you start throwing eggs and ripe tomatoes at me in great disagreement, let me tell you that I argued this 'learned response' theory too with the physical therapist I worked with. I did not agree but , as I learned to look at pain more objectively and observed the many, many responses to pain of the patients in our Physical Therapy clinics, I began to agree with this argument. I DO agree with you that it IS a very difficult thought to swallow but.....don't worry about it. Just tuck the possibility of this theory in the back of your mind and think it over periodically. Observe people's responses to pain...watch little children, older children, girls, boys, men's, women's responses to discomfort . 2. PERSONALITY TYPE is another factor in learning to deal with life changes. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, proposed four (4) basic personality types which he had theorized from earlier Greek philosophers who had proposed similar thoughts. These theories have been studied and built upon over the centuries by many scholars in the field of psychology. To name a few, William Sheldon, Alfred Adler & Arnold Buss. Yet, I found it quite interesting that the Bible speaks of these temperaments over six hundred years before Hippocrates. Proverbs 30 tells us about them and we will cover these shortly. Each temperament deals with life changes quite differently. Some with much anger; some by withdrawal; some by throwing themselves into a bevy of activity; some by gloom and depression sweeping over them. Personality type may considerably influence HOW pain is handled. Consider also the two following quotes from viable sources: Socrates: "There is no illness of the body apart from the mind." Solomon: Proverbs 17:22 "A joyful heart is good medicine but a broken spirit dries up the bones." LISTEN UP!! This is NOT to say that all pain/disease is in the mind!!! NEVER! Never! Never!! I was fed that line from doctors for 15 years just as some of you have. The pain was in my body and my mind was desperately trying to cope day-by-day while wondering why I had all this pain! True, the two do work together but I didn't know that at the time. In my 14 years of treating people in pain, I always afforded them the benefit of believing their complaints of pain. They know their bodies better than I do. They live with that pain. I will question the level of pain intensity which they report because that is subjective. Pain IS real. How we adjust and adapt to it is formulated in our minds . From that formulation, we make choices as to what we do or do not do. " Okay, I'm willing to consider these factors", you say. "But what temperament am I and how does that affect my dealing with my pain?" Coming
across Tim LaHaye's fascinating book Temperament influences much of what we do and how we do it. Let's pretend we're all together in one room with our counsellor. Someone starts talking about the weather, their friends, their car, etc., etc. That's the Sanguine personality. The 'to the point' person crouched on the edge of her/his seat is our Choleric friend. Over in the corner in the rocking chair is the Melancholic sitting there sighing, looking depressed and unhappy. Oh, the one who just came in late? That's the Phlegmatic...takes her/his time to get around to doing anything and not too conversationally oriented. Do you find yourself in here? A family member? A friend? I like Tim LaHaye's quote "these people are not the temperament they are because they do these things. Rather, they act the way they do because of their temperaments." Temperament is the combination of traits we inherited from our parents, their parents, etc. Early home life, training, education and motivation also exercise influences on our actions and how we handle life but 'temperament' is a strong influences. Each temperament has its strengths and weaknesses. Some are more prominent at times and some are less noticeable at other times. There is usually a stronger basic temperament with a less strong secondary temperament that may overlap. Let's meet some of these and begin to see how we deal with difficult situations in different ways. Tim LaHaye gives them little nicknames which I will stick with because they help to describe the temperament in a way that sticks in our minds. Let's meet them in the next lesson..... |
