This paper will be looking at some tools that are available for changing the way
we experience illness and which can make real a holistic approach to medicine
for the individual sufferer. It will be
particularly geared to the individual suffering from chronic illness. In some ways it is a reflection on the NHS
expert patients programme as outlined in the handbook Self-Management of Long-Term Health Conditions -- a handbook for
people with chronic disease 2002.
The handbook is useful because it illustrates an emerging approach to
chronic pain and reflects many contemporary attitudes. Although I have not myself participated in
the Expert Patient Program I have participated in a similar programme run at St
Thomas's Hospital to help people manage their chronic pain. Although these kinds of programmes are a
positive innovation, personally I have found them somewhat limited particularly
because of the lack of attention to issues of spirituality or meaning and it is
this which I will first address.
The Expert Patient
Programme is very sensible. It is very
rational and well rooted in common sense.
It tells us that we can choose how to manage our chronic condition
You can choose to:
·
suffer
and do nothing
·
just
take your medicine
·
or take
charge and be an active self manager
In the first
chapter it gives seven self-management steps which involve deciding what you
want to achieve, planning to achieve them, putting your plans into action and
giving yourself a reward. I'm sure
people do find this useful but something about it always makes me feel
uncomfortable. In particular I never
liked the idea of rewards -- I don't want to give myself rewards, it makes me
feel like child who's been given a sweet for being good. There is a different way of experiencing
illness and medicine, described by Dostoevsky in his obscure but brilliant book Notes from Underground. When I first read this as a teenager it
was a revelation I thought "Yes this is what life is really like". It starts:
I am a sick man... I am an angry man.
I am an unattractive man. I think
there is something wrong with my liver.
But I don't understand the least thing about my illness, and I don't
know for certain what part of me is affected.
I'm not having any treatment for it, and never have had, although I have
the greatest respect for medicine and for doctors... I refuse treatment out of
spite. That is something you will
probably not understand. Well, I
understand it. I can't of course explain
who my spite is directed against in this matter; I know better than anybody
that I am harming nobody but myself. All
the same, if I don't have treatment, it is out of spite. Is my liver out of order? -- let it get worse!
We live in a very
rational world. It is all targets and
outcomes, success and achievements, rewards and the little luxuries that make
life sweet. But as was demonstrated in
the recent BBC TV series Life on Mars,
with its return to the messy world of the 1970s, this orderly rational world
can be very dull. Sometimes, especially
when we are pushed to the edge, we want to return to something more real, more
visceral... more human. This is the
problem with the Expert Patient Programme, at least as described in the book --
I suspect and am told that the actual meetings when people get together are
much more real. Rationality is only a
secondary tool, healing perhaps springs from a more emotional and visceral
place -- what I call spirituality.
Spirituality, in
its modern usage, is essentially about the meaning that we find or give to
life. It is, perhaps, where we can hold
together the rational, sensible parts of us with those more emotional and
visceral reactions to life which tend to come to the fore when we are ill.
The expert patient approach seems to be telling us to find
meaning in our illness by rationally managing it so that we can achieve our
life goals. Questions such as 'why am I
ill?' or 'what have I done to deserve this?' are not addressed. This is fine but we do nonetheless tend to
find to those questions seeping into our minds along with other such awkward
questions as 'what's the point of it all?' and 'what is this illness trying to
tell me?'. These all tend to undermine
the 'rational' approach and cause us to look for bigger stories which might
help give us a bigger meaning. Some
religions might tell us to submit to the will of God and accept our suffering,
not a very popular notion in the West, but as was demonstrated when Sri Lankans
were interviewed after the tsunami, it has a dignified strength. More popular in the West are new-age notions
that in some way we have brought the suffering upon ourselves and we must
'listen to our bodies'. Christians might
seek to hear the word of God in their pain, as St John Chrysostom said 'it is
not in vain, nor without reason, that we are subject to illnesses'. We all need to find some story which can
encompass not only our physical experience but the way it makes us feel and the
questions that it causes us to ask.
The Battle with Despair
Illness threatens to drag us into despair. It causes anguish to rise up in our
souls. If illness is a monster which we
must overcome -- like the monster Grendel which Beowulf fought with his own
bare hands, then despair is Grendel's mother -- the second monster which
threatens to overwhelm our defences.
This is one reason why a rational approach may let us down -- calm
rationality tends not to be much use in the face of gnawing fear and
overwhelming anguish. Certainly calmness
and rationality can have their uses -- as they do for the General overseeing
the battle from the hilltop, but in the pit of the battle it is the more visceral
qualities of courage and bloody-minded determination which are likely to be of
more use.
In the struggle with illness -- especially chronic illness,
we need to develop a confidence in our own ability to survive. This may not necessarily be a confidence in
our ability to overcome the illness -- death or disability may be inevitable
but we need to find some way of feeling that we are still worthwhile and retain
a basic human dignity. Again there are
different ways of finding this confidence.
The way other people treat us will have a big effect -- if our illness
is distrusted by friends and family it will take a very strong personality to
hold onto self-confidence. Similarly if
we feel God is punishing us and there is no way out, this can be oppressive and
restrict our ability to respond effectively to our illness. But any sense of being loved -- whether that
is human or divine, will strengthen us and give us some perspective on our illness. We do need perspective and here the calm
rationality of the expert patient approach can be helpful -- the battle can't
be fought just by the soldier on the front line we need the General’s eye view
from the hilltop. This will help us make
sensible decisions and improve our condition.
We therefore need the courage and strength to fight our
illness on the front line of pain and anguish but this needs to go hand-in-hand
with a wider perspective: a rational weighing up of options, a determination to
pursue programmes which will help us and the wisdom to resist things that don't
help us. This will also enable us to
co-operate with people who can help us -- family and friends but also
doctors. The Expert Patient Programme is
certainly correct in saying that we can make choices about our illness. There is no illness, apart from states of unconsciousness,
that won't benefit from us deciding to take responsibility for ourselves and
manage things as best as we can. But we
must also be gentle with ourselves, recognising the powerful emotional forces
that are unleashed in us and that being sensible and rational is not always the
best approach. Illness is a crucible for
the formation of the human spirit. It
can literally make us or break us.
Although I have
argued that management and planning is insufficient to create meaning in the
face of chronic illness this does not mean that it isn't important. I have found that the distinctive
characteristic of people struggling with a chronic illness is that they have to
exert significant control over their lives, otherwise they descend into
chaos. That busy, energetic life full of
family, friends and interesting work with the occasional spice of carefree
adventure which seems to be the modern ideal is not possible, rather life has
to be reimagined in a quieter and more controlled fashion.
The Expert Patient
model provides a template for this more controlled life although I suspect that
few people actually follow it religiously -- in fact I suspect that it operates
in much the same way as the monastic ideal did in mediaeval times. It is aspirational and does affect practice
but does not very accurately described most chronically ill people's day-to-day
life. Verity Reds Diary -- a story of surviving ME, an interesting but
not altogether satisfactory fictionalisation of the life of an ME sufferer is
constructed round this struggle with the ideal of orderly control which
ultimately gives way to a strange kind of new age fantasy. It is a kind of modern day Notes from Underground, and again
illustrates the limits of rational approach is to chronic illness.
Action planning is
a tool that is suggested by pain management programmes. Personally I have not found it a helpful
approach, even though I do have to exert considerable control over my
life. But I don't sit down and work out
what I want to achieve and the steps necessary in order to achieve it, my
approach is much more instinctual -- I gradually work out, over time, what I
need to do and find encouragement in my own ability to keep true to my emerging
praxis. What I find helpful is to think
in terms of wisdom -- a knowledge about my condition and what I can and can't
do which emerges out of experience rather than a process of rational planning. In this process when things get worse is
important. It is often a time to
reassess and try and work out what I've done wrong, if anything, and how I can
improve my self-management. This has
helped lessen my depression when I have relapses, because I know that they will
generate a learning which will be helpful in the future.
No doubt different
people will find different approaches helpful.
What seems important is to find some process of planning and/or control
which will enable the individual to change his/her experience from a random succession
of pain, depression and disappointment into something which makes sense and has
some sense of journey and purpose to it.
Chronic illness and the struggle with it is not about returning to where
we were previously, but it is about a journey into a new place which, while it
may not be full of peace and joy, can at least be expected to have some hope,
love and a sense of meaning.
I have tried to illustrate what are the problems and
potential with a managed approach to change and the need for an overarching
story or journey in which to locate any attempt to improve health. I will now go on to outline six key areas
which can, I believe, act as tools for bringing about change and gateways to
new opportunities.
- Honesty
and self-awareness.
- Communication
skills.
- Assertiveness
and resistance.
- Skills
and techniques.
- Community
and friendships.
- Letting
go
I was once offered a job working for a project in west London. However, when I went through the process of
induction issues relating to my disabilities came up -- I hadn't mentioned them
on the application form because I had always managed to find ways around them
in the past and I liked to focus on my abilities rather than disabilities. The situation worried my prospective
employers and they withdrew the job offer.
Whether they acted illegally or not I don't know but it did make me
realise that I was significantly disabled and I could no longer go on
pretending I wasn't.
There are political issues around disability which need to
be addressed and there is a time for confrontation but if this does not go
hand-in-hand with an honest self-awareness of our own situation it will,
ultimately, be detrimental. We need to
be honest about what we are experiencing and aware of how this makes us feel --
there is no point trying to make out everything is okay when inside we are
seething with anger or overwhelmed with vulnerability. Illness often increases our self-awareness
and this is why it is often experienced at a time of personal growth. Hard as it may feel, the pain and loss of
illness can be transformed into something positive and life enhancing. Not that we can force this to happen, or in
any way feel that this should happen
but being honest with ourselves and becoming more aware of what we are feeling
will, I would suggest, open us up to new possibilities.
Going to the doctors can be a strange experience. I wait for ages and am finally summoned in to
the inner sanctuary. At this point my
mind goes totally blank and I forget to ask a question that had previously been
foremost in my mind or mention the symptom that had been most troubling me. Only afterwards do I kick myself for my
memory loss but I feel too embarrassed to go back.
Patient-doctor communication has become an increasingly
important area. People are realising
that it is a key to 'better health outcomes'.
There is, however, a tendency for doctors to criticise patient’s for
'non-compliance' and other forms of 'bad behaviour' whilst patient
organisations are often critical of supercilious doctors who treat patients
with arrogance. The situation is, of
course, more complex so it is good to see doctors making comments like this
"In looking at these 36
studies we learned many things. For example, research on non-adherence to
doctor's instructions has focused on bad or poor behavior by patients rather
than on the clarity of the physician's instructions or whether the physician
actually checked to see if his or her instructions were understood by the
patient. The physician assumed that the patient understands and thus will
comply.” Richard Frankel, Ph.D., IU School of Medicine professor of medicine
and Regenstrief Institute research scientist
If doctors can look at their communications skills then it
should also be incumbent on patients to look at their own! Communication, anyway, is a two-way process
-- good communication to one person is bad communication to another. We need to find an appropriate way of
communicating with the different people who need to know something about our
illness. Doctors, parents, children and
employers will all need a different message and different personalities and
intellectual capacities will need to be taken into account. I have certainly found that writing about my
own experience has been helpful to my family in understanding what I'm
experiencing and in the same way that my self exploration can help others it is
also certainly true that making the effort to communicate with others can give
you more insight into your own condition.
Illness is not something that we experience on our own. It makes us dependent on others and good
communication is a key to turning this into a helpful interdependence rather
than an exercise in mutual incomprehension.
I went to see a consultant about skin problems that had been
troubling me. In the normal process I
had to undress and wait for the consultant who was accompanied by a gaggle of
students. When the examination was
complete he asked me whether I was okay with taking drugs and I replied that I
was. He suggested that I take a small
dose of antidepressants as he felt this could suppress my skin
sensitivity. I said okay but almost
immediately knew that I wasn't happy with this.
I never took the medicine and I never went back.
This is, I suppose, an example of being a noncompliant
patient. I just didn't like the idea of
taking antidepressants -- even in a small dose not designed to treat
depression. Of course it would have been
better if the consultant had fully explained the situation before asking for my
consent rather than asking the obscure question about taking drugs. My mother says that even as a small boy I
would be reluctant to do anything until it was fully explained, and I am exactly
the same now. I need to have a high
level of knowledge about something before I really engage with it. I would have had a better experience of
doctors if I had been fully aware of this and was more upfront about asking for
explanation. Not that this would necessarily
have helped, there are plenty of doctors without the time, inclination or skill
to give me the kind of level of explanation that I really need. Although our medical culture seems to be
increasingly encouraging the assertive and empowered patient there are doubts
about whether our systems can cope with this.
It requires time and a maturity on all sides which is not easy to
achieve.
Nonetheless the ability to be assertive without being
aggressive does seem to me to be a key gateway to improving one's health. I have often found that saying no to
treatment has been important for me because I have had to give myself more time
to think and reflect on my experience.
Any treatment is more effective when it can be undertaken from a place
of confident belief rather than speculative wishful thinking.
Some years ago I went on a pain management course. Much emphasis, on the course, was put on the
importance of stretching and we were taught a comprehensive programme of
stretching which I followed in a dedicated manner for a number of years but it
never really seem to do any good. Later
I learnt about the self massage of trigger points. This I found of enormous benefit but it did
not resolve all my problems, now I am finding that returning to doing some
stretches does have a real positive benefit in combination with trigger point
massage.
Much of the Expert Patient handbook is about
techniques. Techniques for taking
exercise, techniques for communicating better, techniques for eating and managing
medicines -- even techniques for enjoying sex.
This is very helpful and most people will find that there are certain
techniques and skills which will be useful to them -- even crucial. I would certainly say that about trigger
points. Successful techniques are
important for a number of reasons:
- The
concrete decrease in pain or increase in functioning which they can
achieve
- The
confidence boost you get from finding something that is of real benefit to
you
- Developing
a rhythm to your life around the use of skills and techniques
- The
increased understanding of your body which they can give
- The
ability to share something positive with people who are suffering from
similar problems
But techniques do not always work. When therapists confidently tell you that you
will experience improvements and you don't it can be a real dent to your
confidence. Techniques are not solutions
but part of a management package that you have to put together over time and in
which you will become expert -- the recognition of this is one of the strengths
of The Expert Patient program.
Michael Mayne's much loved book A Year Lost and Found details his struggle with what he later came
to call ME. Comparing his story with
that of others who have suffered from the same condition I was struck by the
support he received from his church and family.
He was allowed the space and quiet to recover and it occurred to me that
this must have been hugely instrumental in the relative mildness of his
experience. I have also found my family
and understanding employers hugely important in enabling me to manage my
condition.
The other side of this was brought home painfully to me when
I was pastoring a church. A lovely,
gentle older woman had started coming to the church but she became ill and I
went to visit her at her home. I was
immediately struck by the strange atmosphere in the home which she shared with
her brothers and son and as she began to share her family history her struggles
with her mental health seemed to be largely a very reasonable reaction to the
poisonous environment in which she lived.
A little while later she was admitted to hospital and eventually
received ECT, this seemed to revive her and arrangements were put in place for
her to move out of the hospital into a flat with her son. But the flat she was offered was in need of
extensive redecoration and this immediately depressed her, sending her back
into a spiral of degeneration. I felt
completely impotent in the situation -- what could I offer? I could not offer her a new family, or a new
community in which this gentle soul might find some healing, even though this
was very obviously what she needed.
So often the quality of our relationships is the key to
healing and yet how do you provide new relationships for someone else? Doctors, councillors and therapists of all
kinds can only provide a very limited form of relationship. People often seem to be looking for a truly
nurturing relationship so that they can escape from the poisonous entanglements
in which they are ensnared. This points
to the fact, that useful as interventions might be, it is only in the
day-to-day realities of our lives that any healing will truly be found and
paying attention to mundane experiences should be our first priority.
Some years ago I reached the low point in my illness. My voice had been a problem for many years
and I had visited doctors to see if anything was wrong but there was no obvious
problem. I enjoyed drama and public
speaking and reading aloud but was aware that this was getting more difficult,
then suddenly my voice deteriorated dramatically. My life seemed to fall apart. Because of my widespread chronic pain I have
to use a voice recognition system to use the computer but with the sudden deterioration
I was unable to do this. I was not able
to work. I was not able to do very much
at all. I remember one warm April
afternoon lying on the sofa thinking that my life could now consist of not much
more than thinking beautiful thoughts.
Tears came to my eyes but I found a strange peace descending on me. There was now no more struggle.
From this point I have slowly began to improve. True, finding the trigger point technique has
been important but there has also been an important process of accepting my
weak humanity -- I am not the strong competent man I would like to think I am
but rather I am frail, self-deluding and not so different from that weak,
gentle member of my congregation for whom I could do nothing. This is not to say I do not have strength or
significant competencies but I must let go of them if I am to gain the wisdom
that I need. This is one of the stranger
insights that I've gained on my journey.
I do not understand it. Certainly
it is out of tune with those self-improvement gurus who tell us to believe in
ourselves and discover our self-esteem, not to mention our cutthroat,
competitive world of the market. Yet it
seems to me that to let go, to recognise that I can't cope, to recognise that
the world is too big for me, is only being honest. When we experience chronic illness the myth
of masterful humanity disappears: we are not able to manage the planet, we
cannot even manage our own bodies! We
have failed, and there is no shame in accepting this, rather it is a place from
which to start. A place from which to
rebuild our idea of what a human being is.
A starting point which includes illness rather than seeks to banish
it. Perhaps, in encouraging us to let go
of our notions of world mastery, chronic illness has something to offer our
fragile world. And to recognise that our
chronic illness might give us gifts to share with others could be a crucial
step on a path to healing.
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