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Spirituality
Published in Inge B. Corless, Zelda Foster, The Hospice Heritage: Celebrating Our Future, 2020
It has long been demonstrated that so-called “secondary victimization” occurs in professionals and people who witness trauma on a regular basis: clergy, therapists, police, emergency medical technicians, emergency room personnel, firefighters and, of course, hospice staff. Hearing the stories, witnessing the grief, may result in a mirror image of those symptoms in care-givers over time. Psychic numbing, that hallmark of PTSD, can be masked as depression, burnout, disinterest, ineffectiveness, hostility, or even sexual misconduct (Chandler, 1993). But those whom we call burned out or depressed may, in fact, be disspirited. The holding of painful stories, of grief, sadness and despair, puts the caregiver at risk for development of physical disease as well; there is considerable evidence to suggest that many physical problems, from allergies to the development of cancer occur when people are susceptible, or more specifically, immunosuppresed. For victims to become survivors, and healers to themselves become healed, an accessible and fitting spiritual life than can support wholeness and renewal is essential. We who profess to be the healers of the spirit may first need to be healed ourselves.
Chemically Dependent Lesbians and Bisexual Women: Recovery from Many Traumas
Published in Brenda L. Underhill, Dana G. Finnegan, Chemical Dependency: Women at Risk, 2018
Dana G. Finnegan, Emily B. McNally
Among the effects of trauma on consciousness listed are those of amnesia, transient dissociative episodes, and depersonalization-derealization (Herman, 1992). The trauma of active alcoholism most certainly produces dissociative episodes in the form of blackouts and brownouts. Recovery from alcoholism is often marked by what appear to be dissociative episodes (e.g., "The last thing I remember, I was walking by the bar and then all of a sudden I was sitting at the bar drinking. I don't know how that happened.") Krystal (1988) talks about "psychic numbing" that trauma survivors experience, in which they "are able to observe and describe the blocking of affective responses" (p. 151) and thus function while not feeling. Gay people who are subjected to the constant, ongoing totalitarian system of societal and familial homophobia intensified by their own personal, internalized homophobia learn to survive this emotional battering by "numbing out." They often don't hear (at least not on a conscious level) the homophobic jokes and slurs and innuendoes and whispers. They often don't see the looks, the gestures, the turning away. But to achieve this state, they may dissociate, unconsciously splitting off a part of themselves and keeping it separate and alone.
Supervising Pediatric HIV/AIDS Case Managers
Published in Barbara I. Willinger, Alan Rice, A History of AIDS Social Work in Hospitals, 2012
Other writers have described how HIV/AIDS workers frequently experienced anticipatory grief and mourning and had to confront their own mortality (Halin-Willinger et al., 1999; Winiarski, 1991). The horror and trauma of multiple deaths commonly produced “psychic numbing” (Lifton, 1979), anger, and irritability among workers (Schoen, 1998; Warren, 1998). “Secondary or vicarious traumatization,” resulting in psychological avoidance, desensitization, and hyperarousal (McCann and Pearlman, 1990), came from assisting the emotionally suffering family, as well as the infected child, over time. Absenteeism, stress, sickness, and job turnover were common worker responses (Maslach and Ozer, 1995).
Survivor guilt: The secret burden of lung cancer survivorship
Published in Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 2019
Tara Perloff, Jennifer C. King, Maureen Rigney, Jamie S. Ostroff, Megan Johnson Shen
Survivor guilt is a phenomenon linked to the interpersonal process of “surviving” harm while others do not.14 The term “survivor guilt” was coined by Drs. Stanley Cobb and Erich Lindemann in 1943.15 They defined survivor guilt as the presence of tension, loneliness, or mental pain that was precipitated by visits from loved ones, by mentioning the deceased, and by receiving sympathy.15 Robert Jay Lifton further explored survivor guilt, noting “psychic numbing,” or the cessation of feeling, as a dominating lifestyle characteristic experienced by those who suffered feelings of death guilt.16 Although survivor guilt was initially applied to surviving tragedies such as the Holocaust or Hiroshima, the term was later applied to refer to suffering guilt for surviving HIV + during the AIDS epidemic.17 Unlike survivors of war and natural disasters, survivors of the AIDS epidemic had to deal with their conflicted emotions in the presence of others whom they presumed would die. Survivor guilt during the AIDS epidemic was described as a perpetuating feeling of “why not me” associated with difficulty recognizing and communicating emotional distress and a mediator of depression among this population.17,18Since its initial application to the AIDS epidemic, survivor guilt has continued to be studied among a broad range of individuals diagnosed and treated for serious life threatening medical conditions, including transplant survivors.19,20 In these few studies, the commonality among those with survivor guilt was vulnerability in relation to his/her solidarity with others who died of the same disease.20 Whereas research shows that people diagnosed with lung cancer experience higher levels of distress than those diagnosed with other types of cancer,21 survivor guilt has been an overlooked psychosocial challenge for lung cancer survivors. Although the number of survivor guilt commentaries has been increasing in the medical and psychology literature,22–26, the majority are focused on surviving events such as war, mass shootings and suicide.27–30 Few empirical studies have yet to examine survivor guilt quantitatively among cancer survivors. The goal of the present study was to explore the prevalence and nature of survivor guilt experienced by lung cancer survivors as assessed by both a validated measure of survivor guilt that has been used with other populations as well as individuals’ perceptions of experiencing guilt attributable to surviving lung cancer. Additionally, the present study sought to explore common narrative themes experienced by lung cancer survivors suffering from high levels of survivor guilt. We hypothesized that survivor guilt would be prevalent among lung cancer survivors.