The bereaved therapist and her patients.
Discussions on the role of self-disclosure during times of personal crisis have been mostly confined to the theoretical. Little clinical material has been published. For the writer, this lack contributed further to the sense of loneliness following bereavement, and to uncertainty in terms of how to provide adequate information to patients while protecting herself at a time of great vulnerability. Using case vignettes, the impact of a therapist's bereavement on patients treated in an outpatient consultation-liaison service is explored. Four patients are described--one woman and two men with very serious physical conditions bringing their own frailty and death very near, and one woman with a psychophysiological condition as part of a borderline personality disorder. The impact of personal crisis is discussed, in an attempt to review how such a situation should be handled, and particularly whether and how patients should be informed.
School of Medicine, University of Auckland, NZ.
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M
Vamos
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001293:Attitude to Death; D001601:Bereavement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy