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"Why me?"
A Positive Attitude Is Important!
"The best attitude to take if you find yourself in hospital after an
accident is, "Not my fault, guv". This is what Dieter Frey,a Munich psychologist,
discovered when he interviewed accident victims at the University Clinic
in Kiel, then followed up their treatment and recovery.
His 300 subjects were injured at work, driving, or playing sports, and
suffered everything from broken bones to concussions. Two days after they
were admitted, Frey asked them whose fault the accident had been, whether
it could have been avoided, and whether the patients believed they could
influence their recoveries. Patients who said they had learned something
useful from their accidents, but that they could not have avoided them,
were out of the hospital in just 20 days. They suffered fewer blood clots
and heart problems during their stays.
But those who thought they could have prevented the accident, or asked
questions such as "Why me?" remained an average of 40 days. Those who thought
they could do nothing to help their recoveries also stayed longer, and
stayed off work for an extra two months compared with those who believed
that getting well was up to them.
Frey comments: "With these results we can predict, two days after an
accident, how quickly a patient will recover." He urges doctors and nurses
to get the patients involved in healing themselves: "If they do that right,
they will have, in effect, a free therapy at hand."
We think this research is interesting and deserves a few comments:
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Dr. Frey's research supports a number of studies suggesting that people
need to feel in control over their responses to incidents in their lives,
but not necessarily feel in control of the incidents themselves. People
can still feel in control--even over an uncontrollable event. In other
words, I not be able to do much about being in the wrong place at the
wrong time, but I can take responsibility for what happens to me after
this event.
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HMO's, and other insurance carriers, need to look at the costs of cutting
back on mental health care after someone has had an accident. If two or
three hours of counseling could cut back a hospital stay from 40 days to
20 days, the savings would be considerable. Most doctors and nurses simply
don't have the time to do psychological counseling with their patients,
nor do many of them know how to motivate patients to change their minds.
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Frey's reminder that "Why me?" is designed to slow down healing time is
something we all need to look at. People use this expression all the time,
and if it means twice as long a hospital stay, then perhaps we should eliminate
the expression from our daily self-talk. I hear people say it about even
such things as parking tickets! "Why me?" "Why not you?," is perhaps a
better question. The last time we checked there were no guarantees on bad
things not happening to normal people.restroom.
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Janelle M. Barlow, Ph.D.
Author of The Stress Manager
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