Medical Ministry - Logotherapy Essay Example for Free

Medical Ministry Logotherapy EssayHe ranted and raved uncontrollably. He suddenly turned to me and said Why me? My reply was Why not you? What makes you recover that you atomic number 18 more special than the next person? This confrontational response stopped him in his tracks, made him think about his situation and the anger and feeling sorry for himself disappeared, never to return again. Too often patients with incurable diseases surrender to all the negative emotions that overwhelm them. They become despondent, depressed, fearful and lose hope. All their time is spend fixating on themselves and their wellbeing.They become so foc gived on their problem that the problem can become their all in all world. Patients then get caught in a vicious circle whereby the harder they try not to worry, the more they worry. The greater the effort not to think of their problems, the more they think about them. Without means in these patients lives, how do they mentally ensure quality of life? How do they make peace, emotionally and spectrally, with the situation they contract themselves in? There is sufficient proof that ein truththing can be interpreted from man except the filling of ones attitude in any given set of circumstances.Inner freedom, which cannot be taken away, makes life meaningful and purposeful. My maintain and I met with the oncologist and found out what treatment was required to push the crabmeat into remission. We decided to put our trust in the oncologists ability to treat this disease while we concentrated on living each day with love, humour and purpose. In effect we were practicing dereflection. Looking back in a flash at the chemotherapy he had to endure, on and off, over a seven year period, I realise that disease/illness can be very meaningful.The chemotherapy room was a morbid place, where everyone sat quietly, lost in their own thoughts, with a chemo drip in their arm. My married man changed all that. He got to know all the pa tients and medical staff. He used humour to get people to open up about their situations. He would confine me running around serving tea, coffee and cake to the patients. He instilled a feeling of hope and care amongst the patients. They took an interest in one anothers lives, exchanged useful information, joked and laughed about themselves and their illness sum friendships were formed.The doctor often came to check what all the noise was about in the chemotherapy room. I believe this was my husbands purpose during this period of his life. It was filled with meaning as were the lives of the patients whom he came to know and love. In 2001 the crabmeat came back aggressively and my husband had to fill heavy doses of chemotherapy that almost destroyed his body. He was hospitalised and almost long lost so much weight. He was send home weighing 49 kilograms and so wispy that he became bedridden. He didnt have the strength to walk or to sit up in bed.He began to feel humiliated and degraded due to the fact that he couldnt do anything for himself. He thought that he had become a burden on me and together with a loss of dignity, he became very depressed. He believed that he would be totally helpless for the rest of his life. The loss of hope and meaning can have a deadly effect. Without faith and belief in the future the patient loses his spiritual hold and allows himself to decline by becoming subject to mental and physical decay. Total despair sets in and all the patient sees is a meaningless existence.To provoke patients to find meaning in their lives, the logo healer must have a deep commitment for the uniqueness and dignity of each individual. The therapist must focus on the specific needs of individual patients instead of using a fact or technique effectual for one situation, to make conclusions about a different situation. During my husbands depression he essay to commit suicide but fortunately was stopped before he could commit the deed. I phoned Hosp ice for help. They sent a wonderful woman who came on a regular basis to chat and deal with my husbands emotional needs.Meals were no longer served in bed. I carried him to the dining room table so that he could eat with the rest of the family. He had practically given up eating so I became more forceful about getting him to eat. On a daily basis I exercised his weaponry and legs. Hospice arranged for a wheelchair and if we went anywhere as a family, my husband came along. Together we set goals for him to achieve, baby travel as we called them, the first being the building up of his strength. We did a lot of laughing and some clamant during this time. His depression disappeared and he started ooking forward to each day. He eventually managed to walk again much to his and the familys delight. On his first visit to his oncologist after being bedridden, he was nicknamed The Miracle Man by the medical staff. alas my husband passed away in January 2005. Reading the account of Frankls story of the old general practitioner who suffered with depression after his wife died has given me much comfort. Frankl used a form of the Socratic talk and asked the practitioner what would have happened if he rather than his wife had died first.He answered, How she would have suffered. I can match to this story in so far that my husband would have suffered if I had died first. I have spared him this excruciation and that is very meaningful to me. There are various methods or techniques a therapist can use to assist their patients to find meaning in their lives. There is the parable method which is suited to some patients whereby the therapist relates a parable or tells a story which illustrates the point that no human being is unbosom from illness.There is dereflecting as well as the Socratic dialogue Here is something I came across by an unknown author which can be applied to many diseases and which my husband and I found very inspirational during the period that he had ly mphoma. WHAT CANCER CANNOT DO Cancer is so limited.. It cannot cripple love It cannot destroy hope It cannot corrode faith It cannot destroy peace It cannot kill friendship It cannot suppress memories It cannot silence fearlessness It cannot invade the soul It cannot steal eternal life It cannot conquer spirit