Category Archives: Healthcare
When Healthcare Feels Dangerous: How Practitioners Shape Our Capacity to Heal
When I tell a practitioner that I’m not doing well, and they dismiss or minimize what I say–what I share of my lived experience–it makes everything worse. It increases my sense of unsafety. It pushes me even further onto Red … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged attune, attunement, compassion, doctors, healthcare, healthcare practitioners, IPNB, relationship, witnessing
Leave a comment
Survivors in the Lurch: How Doctors Disregard Their Role in Resolving Medical Trauma
Recently, I heard the same line I’ve been hearing for years. A prominent pain specialist told me that doctors don’t have the time to help me recover from medical PTSD. The conversation always drops straight into the same rut: “Are … Continue reading
Posted in Accountability, Healthcare
Tagged attunement, Doctor, doctor-patient relationship, doctors, Empathy, IPNB, Medical PTSD, MPTSD, pain, pain specialist, relationship, therapy
Leave a comment
My Survival Is the Punchline: Cartooning the Awful Truth
I make cartoon watercolors because my system won’t let me keep it all inside. When something is too much, too absurd, too violating, or too flat-out dismissive, I feel compelled to get it out on paper. It’s not an intellectual … Continue reading
Posted in Abuse, Healthcare
Tagged accountability, art, cartoons, creativity, expression, integration, medical abuse, Medicine, psychiatry, watercolors
Leave a comment
Why Homeostasis Matters More Than You Think
Most people don’t think much about homeostasis, but it’s the foundation of well-being. Homeostasis means the body and mind are in balance, able to meet life’s demands without burning out. It’s the state where we feel grounded, connected, and alive. … Continue reading
The Most Dangerous Part of Being a Healthcare Practitioner
Working in healthcare can be meaningful and even life-affirming, but it also carries a kind of stress that is often invisible and unspoken. From an interpersonal neurobiology perspective, the danger isn’t just in burnout or long hours. It’s in what … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged care, connection, danger, healthcare, Medicine, practitioner, safety, suffering, support
2 Comments
Dear Doctor, Please Pause and Take a Breath Outside the Door
Dear Doctor, please pause and take a breath outside the door. It’s good for both of us. I know the system you work in demands too much, too fast, for too little. It rewards efficiency over empathy, billing codes over … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged breathe, connection, disconnection, Doctor, dysregulated, healthcare, IPNB, Medicine, mindful breath, pause, presence, safety, stress reduction
Leave a comment
How Repeated Medical Abuse Conditions the Nervous System
Fabrizio Benedetti’s insights into conditioning in his book, “The Patient’s Brain: The neuroscience behind the doctor-patient relationship,” are highly relevant for understanding how repeated medical abuse can shape a person’s nervous system. Conditioning—where the nervous system learns through repeated experiences—plays … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare, PTSD
Tagged doctor-patient relationship, health, healthcare, Medical PTSD, Medicine, pain, PTSD, trust
Leave a comment
Safe Hands Helped Me Face a Memory Too Heavy to Hold Alone
The body often holds onto what the mind can’t touch. Early experiences we didn’t have the chance to process can stay with us for a lifetime. Working with a safe witness can help the body and memory meet in a … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged abandonment, baby, birth, birth trauma, connection, craio-sacral, freeze, healing, Moro Reflex, osteopath, safety, shift, traumatic birth, witnessing
Leave a comment
The Midwife Who Couldn’t Stop Talking
Having midwife care for the births of my two babies and for years after, I recently turned to midwives again. My trust in gynecology had been destroyed by non-consensual cutting and the institutional betrayal that protects the abusive doctor and … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged accountability, apology, blabbing, dysregulation, Interpersonal Neurobiolgy, IPNB, midwife, misattunement, relationship, repair, rupture
Leave a comment