Tips on Finding a Therapist

[barbara55109]

In addition to the often seen plea of “how do I find a renal dietician” I’ve noticed some seeking help finding a therapist. Talking through our thoughts and feelings as we learn to accept/acknowledge/manage our situations can help ease the depression and anxiety that often accompany chronic health conditions. While EVERY therapist says they can help patients with depression and anxiety, there are therapists that specialize in helping people cope with medical illnesses. In the US, most health insurance plans cover mental health treatment. Your first stop should be your insurance plan to find out what therapists are in and out of your network. Get the entire list, not just the first person the member help desk gives you. There are several online search engines that can help narrow your search. Psychology Today and Good Therapy let you search by different key words. There are many different types of therapy. I suggest you look for therapists that specialize in Acceptance and Commitment (ACT), Mindfulness-Based, Solutions Based therapy. I personally did not find Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helpful, but many others do. There are also professional organizations for different types of therapy. Since I knew I wanted an ACT therapist I searched the member list of their professional organization for local therapists. Look for therapists who facilitate group programs for people with chronic pain or cancer. Read the descriptions provided on provider profiles. Look for key words like chronic illness, chronic pain and health psychology. If you find a few options, then make appointments to see 2 or 3 to find a person who is a good fit. Frankly, I’ll suffer through appointments with a surgeon who has terrible bedside manner if they are the best cutter in town, but therapy is different. Therapy isn’t helpful if you don’t find a therapist you can connect with. Hmm, drafting this I realize there is a need for a more indepth article to help CKD people find a therapist... Best wishes

[WinJ3]

Thanks for sharing!

[barbara55109]

I did find an article on the Kidney fund site, kidneyfund.org/kidney-disea.... I do disagree with their assessment of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy though. I did not find CBT helpful at all. CBT focuses on changing thoughts they label cognitive distortions, including overgeneralizing, magnifying negatives. Sorry people, there is NOTHING positive about having an incurable illness that will shorten my lifespan. It may work just fine for other issues, but I don't find it helpful at all for managing chronic illness.

[Calebzztop in reply to barbara55109]

barbara55109 THANK YOU!!! 100% agree!!!

[Michael__S in reply to barbara55109]

First I have to thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge, it open my horizon. I really think that you should share your experience with the AKF and suggest them to add those methods that worked for you on their webpage. kidneyfund.org/about-us/con...

But I have to both agree and disagree when you say that there is nothing positive about CKD. Yes, it's a disease without a cure with a long list of negative consequences; not something that would serve any good to be denied or to pretend that it doesn't exist. It is still critical to be able to see the positive elsewhere in life and take some time to appreciate them, positive psychology and sport science (the little I know about) both aim for a 3:1 (positive vs. negative) ratio. It's something that can be very difficult to achieve at first and one thing that a book titled "10 minute toughness" made me do was to fill a logbook and write 3 things that went well, 1 thing to improve and 2 things I could do to make it happen. I was very skeptical at first, gave it a try and after 5 weeks or so I could see a positive change. It's also something that could be applied with the overall day or the diet itself and there is still plenty of room to find 3 things that went well. That book barely touched something called thought replacement techniques/therapy and look very similar to CBT, perhaps I am wrong. The book in itself appear to be similar to the techniques you described in your post, definitely not a replacement for a psychiatrist or therapist.

All that said, I think I feel the same about CBT in general but still think that it can have its uses and to me it appear to be a specialized tool.

[Aloha49 in reply to barbara55109]

I am a therapist and Internal Family Systems and EMDR helped me much more than CBT. Ask for what you need in a talk therapist: directive, help with healing past trauma, finding health choices and how to cope, dealing with the pain and grief of having a life threatening illness with no cure and very difficult treatment options. This is about quality of life and loving ourselves no matter what and a kind, compassionate listening ear giving great coping skills and allowing all feelings to be expressed and released, and allowed. All the best. Seeing a therapist does help a great deal, sometimes as the only person who really gets you and what you are going through.

[raregiraffe21]

Thanks for this.

[Michael__S]

Thank you for sharing this, it's a goldmine!

[Michael__S]

For those who are interested in educating themselves, I had done a previous version of this course and found its content very helpful, especially the PERMA model of happiness. coursera.org/learn/positive...

The option for free/very low cost MOOC is growing every day, Coursera is only one of many platform and now offer many courses on that topic.

[alport45]

I was so lucky. My HMO matched me with a therapist whose son had kidney disease and had gone on dialysis when a teenager. It was wonderful to have someone who understood my fears. I've had kidney disease my whole life so my trauma around it goes really deep. I think if you are hospitalized with a life threatening disease before you can even talk. it makes the feelings about it almost primitive and thus harder to confront. I tried EMDR but didn't find it the miracle cure that some were touting. Contrary to what others here have experienced with CBT, I did find its twin DBT helpful.