It seems that clinicians and consultants feel obliged to be totally honest with their patients these days and, in doing so, do not want to offer ‘false hope’ of recovery.
In my opinion, there is no such thing as ‘false hope’ only ‘hope’. A life without hope of improvement is the fast track to depression.
I have been privileged to be able to help past clients, many of whom had lost hope through M.E., chronic pain or years of mental health problems.
My underlying premise has always been’your body knows how to heal itself and all you have to do is provide the right conditions in which that can happen. There is clear evidence of this. You can cut your finger and over a period of days, observe how it repairs and mends all by itself, and you don't need to do anything for that to happen, so we know the mechanism is there.’
A doctor friend said to me recently, ‘medicine is what we do to distract the patient while nature takes its course.’
We know that the placebo effect is a real phenomenon and clinicians should also be aware of the nocebo effect, the power of negative expectation, similar to the voodoo curse.
I am a bereavement counsellor also and was disturbed to attend a talk given by a hospice worker who, to illustrate her point about total honesty with a dying patient, told the story of a man who asked his consultant how long he had to live.
The consultant replied, ‘no more than 28 days.’
After the man died, the hospice worker was at the house and noticed a calendar on the wall with every day crossed off since that conversation. The crosses ended on day 27.
I think there is a lesson for us all there.
Frances Masters MBACP (Accred) UKRCP GHGI
www.oldthatchcoaching.co.uk
