Health and Psychology

I met a delightful psychologist yesterday at a Los Angles County Psychological Association (LACPA) meeting specializing in providing services to chronic and persistent mentally ill patients.  We spent some time talking after the meeting about the similarites between chronic and persistent mental illness and chronic or undiagnosed physical illness.  We talked about the impact of anxiety, difficulties with compliance with treatment, problems with stimatization, and issues regarding informed consent, privacy, and involvement of family and others to help maintain a supportive environment.  We'll probably end up puting together a special interest group in working with chronic and persistent mental or physical illness.

Anyone dealing with a chronic illness, serious illness, or persistent recurrent illness has to go through many stages of dealing with the illness, coming to terms with the treatment plan, and dealing with the challanges of the medical profession or alternative care professionals.   The same is true with mental illness.  I spoke with a man who just learned his wife had cancer.  I met him in a waiting room where the surgeon openly discussed her condition within earshot of me.  The surgeon left after a few minutes and the man was left with many questions.  How did this happen?  Did she do something wrong to get this?  What's going to happen to our life?  How will she deal with this?  How will I deal with this?  What's available?  What are we going to go through?  Will she get better?  These are the same questions that any family member of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression or any other serious psychological issue will face.

So here is some basic information:

• Find support groups for people dealing with the same condition.  Support groups are now available online as well as in-person especially in large cities and towns for most mental illness and physical illness.
  
• Get information to find out about available treatments and treatment providers.  The National Institute for Health and The National Institute for Mental Health are good starting points.  Governmental organizations such as the American Psychological Association or the American Medical Association can give you information about the professionals who will be involved in your care.
• Stigma and superstition exists.  Use caution in disclosing your personal health care information to people outside your support system.  Although these conditions are common, not everyone is supportive, educated, or able to manage the information.  There are still people who believe that any type of illness is the result of misbehavior.  The fact is that many of these conditions are genetically based, and individuals "did nothing" to "catch" the condition.  Some people think that chronic mental or physical illness is contageous, which is generally not the case.
• Work toward getting better or stabilizing your condition.  Most chronic and persistent conditions can stabilize and many can improve over time.
  
• Remain optimistic.  There's many research articles showing the optimism impacts both physical and mental health.  Having things to look forward to and changing focus to what is possible despite the illness often helps to improve overall functioning and quality of life.