Tag Archives: doctors
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
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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
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7 Years of Disbelief
For over seven years, I’ve been forced into the role of “my own best advocate.” This is because the people I turned to for care refused to understand what I need for recovery from severe Complex PTSD and quadrilateral Complex … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged chronic disease, connection, CRPS, doctors, healthcare, Mental Health, PTSD, safety, treatment
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Dear Doctor: I Have Lots of Therapists. Including You.
Your Presence Is the Treatment. Or the Harm. It is striking how many doctors, especially pain specialists, have doubly verified that I have a good therapist. Or a therapist. That I’m “in mental health care.” I understand why they ask. … Continue reading
Posted in Mental Health
Tagged Behavioral Health, doctors, IPNB, Medicine, Mental Health, neurobiology, pain specialists, Psychology, therapist, therapy
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Hugs in the Treatment Plan: This Is What Care Feels Like
Six years ago, a gynecologist at ChristianaCare cut away healthy tissue without my consent. That egregious violation of informed consent fractured my sense of safety in a medical environment, my relationship with my body, and my ability to trust that … Continue reading
Hidden in Plain Sight: Predators, Power, and the Systems That Shelter Them
I didn’t set out to study the neurobiology of predators. I got there by surviving them. My interest in this work comes from a long history of being harmed by people in power, capped by what is known as “The … Continue reading
Connection in Healthcare is Essential, But Medicine Sabotages It
Connection is vital in medicine, and is often ruptured by institutional demand for rushing and the culture of separation. That’s two strikes against doctors who want to connect, understand the importance, and need to feel connected themselves, and all doctors … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged co-regulation, connection, disconnection, doctor-patient relationship, doctors, healthcare, IPNB, Medicine, rushing, safety
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The Power of Connection: Patch Adams MD and the Interpersonal Neurobiology of Healing
In the fall of 2020, when I was very near death due to hypercritical allostatic load (overloaded nervous system), I reached out to someone whose compassion I deeply admired. I had watched one of Patch Adams MD’s videos on YouTube—it … Continue reading
Medical PTSD treatment plan
How do I resolve Medical PTSD? Since the medical industry ignores the fact of Medical PTSD, of course there’s no treatment protocol. Which, considering the iatrogenic effects of its other standard treatments, is probably a good thing. So, I had … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged connection, doctors, healthcare, Medical PTSD, MPTSD, PTSD, safety, The Patel Pause, treatment plan, unsafety
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