Brief Existential Psychotherapy Approach in the Stress of Medical and Surgical Patients
摘要
The patient with medical or surgical pathologies often presents psychological suffering secondary to the change imposed by the somatic disease. The manifestation of the physical disease has acted as a stress agent: the state of health is lost; there is a condition of threat to bodily integrity and, in the case of some diseases, to survival. An uncertain path opens up, made up of diagnostic tests, waiting stress, hospitalizations, interruption of one’s life routine, treatments to face, medical and possibly surgical. The effort to adapt to the new condition is high. Normal life is interrupted and often experienced as suspended. Anxiety, apprehension, worry, sleep disorders, demoralization are common; even death anxiety, full depressive episodes, anger, mixed mood states, sometimes dissociative disorders of consciousness affect some the cases. The common psychotherapies to treat psychiatric patients are poorly suited, as theory, purpose, method, and time. BEP focuses with a brief or ultra-brief approach in the consultation-liaison on the patient’s needs, on coping with the disease crisis, mobilizing resources, acting according to an existential perspective, and finding meaning in life and purposes. Since the disease and stress involve the body, BEP also uses mind-body interventions.