Learning about Trauma Therapy and Medical Trauma can help you or someone you love.
Perhaps you can relate to one or more of the following:
- You had a “routine” surgery that did not go as planned, and you are suffering with symptoms of anxiety or post-traumatic stress.
- Your surgery seemed to go as planned, but you have lingering feelings that something is just not right.
- You found out that your surgeon mistakenly left an instrument inside you, and they had to go back in to remove it, leaving you feeling highly anxious and distrustful of doctors.
- Anesthesia failure caused you to wake up during surgery, unable to move or cry out for help, and left you with terrifying nightmares, flashbacks, and extreme anxiety.
- Prolonged immobilization following an injury either enhanced an existing psychiatric condition or triggered a new one, including anxiety disorder, depression, or bipolar disorder.
- You underwent emergency surgery as a result of a car accident, a fire, or an assault, and you don’t know whether your PTSD symptoms are related to the original traumatic event, the medical procedure, or both.
- Your doctor made a blatant mistake in your treatment, causing you to feel highly anxious and distrustful of all doctors and medical personnel.
- You suffered medical traumatic stress as a child, and continue to experience psychological and physiological responses that include feeling anxious, re-experiencing of the event, and/or the avoidance of medical treatment. These responses can vary intensity, and can interfere with healthy functioning.
There Is A Solution
The list above includes only a few of the possible incidences of medical trauma that unfortunately occur every day in this country and around the world. Doctors are human beings, and, like all of us, can make mistakes. The good news is that constant and continuous efforts in the medical community have resulted in improved tools, equipment, and procedures that are designed to minimize these mistakes. For instance, there is now equipment in every operating room that lets the surgical team know that a patient is in fact fully anesthetized.
Further, for those who are suffering from symptoms of medical trauma, you do not need to go on living this way. Help is available in the form of trauma therapy, and two of the most effective treatments are EMDR Therapy and Somatic Experiencing. Please refer to my website page on EMDR for more information.
Take the first step….
If you or someone you care about is suffering from medical trauma, and you’re ready to do something about it, I would like to help. Please contact me via email or phone so we can discuss how we might work together to put an end to your suffering once and for all.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Linda K. Laffey, MFT
