My coauthor just sent me this story from a hypnotherapist in Alabama who used Verbal First Aid in a random emergency.
Verbal First Aid Emergencies
Ladies and Gentlemen, you just never know.
I was driving on the interstate when a guy on a motorbike hit something in the road in front of me. His bike flipped three times and fortunately he landed off the interstate. I was the first to get to him. He was thrashing about and screaming that he couldn't breathe. I knew I had to get him to lie still and calm down. So, I calmly told him that the worst was over, that I wanted him to be still, to stop the bleeding and conserve his blood and to breathe slowly and deeply until the paramedics got there. I can't remember what all I told him but he did quit bleeding and his breath did slow and deepen somewhat…until the paramedics got there. Then, he started bleeding again and became hysterical again. At that point, it wasn't up to me anymore and I left. I made a mental note about putting time parameters on what I would say if the situation ever arose again. You may very well have saved his life that day.
He continues:
You might even use the mistake I made with him to illustrate a point if you need. The mistake was that I told him to stop bleeding, release the pain, breathe easily, etc… UNTIL THE PARAMEDICS GOT THERE. So, he was fine for the 15 minutes or so it took for the paramedics to arrive but as soon as they pulled up he went right back to bleeding, writing in pain, and all the other issues. At first I couldn't figure out what happened until my own words kept shouting in my mind. I hope I never have another emergency like that, but I'll for sure never make that mistake again.
And speaking of mistakes…a big one in confession form to come in Huffingtonpost this week. There's no being perfect at this. We just–as they say–make progress.
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According to experts in neurobiology, when we are afraid we are at our least intelligent. Literally. We stop thinking like grown human beings with our cortex and frontal lobes and start thinking with that small walnut of a lizard brain we call the limbic system.The other day I had a personal experience of just how foolish fear can make a person. With all my training in psychotherapy, trauma, and crisis counseling, with all my years in the trenches seeing the very worst that humanity is capable of, with all the professional composure and philosophical peace I have made with the suffering and idiocy of the world, I still acted like an ass in a thunderstorm. One little peel of thunder and off went my adrenal glands, madly galloping away with my cerebral cortex, disappearing into the sunset, never to be thunk [sic] of again.
It’s all about a small insect…well, he wasn’t very small at all and that was where the first problem began. He was a six inch, armored tank of a whip scorpion, what locals in New Mexico call the Vinegaroon.
Baby Whip Scorpion
My husband and I were sitting outside in the morning with our teas, watching the slow trickles of last night’s rain slide from the roof into the canals and down the side of the house. It was a cooler morning than we’d had in weeks of 103 degree temperatures and we were relaxed in the western breeze.
I watched the rain and thought about a catchment system, following the water upwards to the canal when I saw him.
I nearly dropped my mug.
“SCORPION!” I thought.
I pointed. That was the only word that came out of my mouth for about 3 seconds, which is a long time when you’re trying to speak.
My husband looked where I was pointing, saw nothing (it was still early and the sun hadn’t fully risen) and kept asking “What? What?” The more he asked, the less I could speak.
I’d seen and reluctantly dispatched scorpions before. But they were less than an inch long and pale, seeming somehow less threatening. This one was on our portale, it was about 6 inches long if you don’t count the whip at the end of his thorax, it had an exoskeleton to make a Hummer jealous, and it was MOVING.
“It’s a scorpion!” I finally eeked out.
How pathetic, I thought even as I was being pathetic. A damsel in distress over a bug. But I was already in the hooks not of the bug but of my own neurobiology. My limbic system had been turned on, the adrenal glands were on red alert, and all I could think of was that damned thing could kill our little dog and do some serious damage to our bigger one. In my fear, I forgot about everything I ever said I believed in–the sanctity of all life, the intricate balance of the ecosystem, the divinity and love of God in all His creatures. And I do feel that way, now. Then, I had all the philosophical wisdom and forethought of a swamp croc.
After we both went over to look at it, my husband, being the saner of us, asked, “Are you sure it’s a scorpion? It kinda looks like that bug we found by the garage that time and it turned out to be a big nothing, remember?”
“NO! What about the dogs?”
“Well, I don’t know…what if we put him in a bucket?”
“How?”
“A shovel.”
As he went to get a shovel and a bucket, I herded the dogs inside and kept a watchful eye on what I thought was the most venomous creature I’d ever seen.
By the time Dave walked across the house, into the garage, got back out and crossed the courtyard, my fear had infected him and his limbic system had apparently kicked in. So, instead of scooping the poor fella into a bucket, he picked up a shovel and swung hard enough to crack the stucco. The bug never knew what hit him.
While knowing his death was quick and hopefully painless gave me some measure of absolution after my adrenalin crawled back to the walnut whence it came, it didn’t make me feel less stupid or remorseful when I found out that he was in fact not a scorpion at all, but a vinegaroon—a rather harmless, non-toxic night stalker that eats crickets and other unpleasant pests. So not only was he not a scorpion, not only was he not harmful to my dogs or me, he was an asset to our garden.
They say it takes 1/12,000th of a second to go to red alert but that it takes a lot longer to think a situation through.
Stupid is fast. And, as I found once again in my life, fast is also pretty stupid.
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The Sacrament of Hello. Human Communion. In the wave of one person on a long, open road in New Mexico. It's why I became a social worker.
http://nmchronicles.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/our-lady-of-the-open-road/
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About a year ago I heard a sermon about two brothers, Cosmas and Damian, both of whom were doctors. Trained in Syria they practiced as physicians in the seaport Ægea, now Ayash, on the Gulf of Iskandrun in Cilica.
Through their work, they attained great status as healers. They were revered as the “anargyroi,” the Unmercenary physician,s because they decided to stop charging for their services and to offer the gift of healing purely out of their devotion to God.
They never starved or lacked for anything, although they were brutally tortured and beheaded in 287AD during the persecution under Diocletian for not recanting their beliefs.
After I heard their story–despite their unfortunate ending–I made a decision about my practice as a holistic psychotherapist. From that point on, I would slide my fee scale and that if someone truly wanted help and I could honestly help them, I would. Period. No forms. No hidden agendas. God gave me the tools. I give them to you.
This is not easy in a world where standards of care are generated by committees composed of people from pharmaceutical conglomerates and insurance companies. Or where doctors get sued for malpractice when diabetics won't stop drinking alcohol. The tort laws in NM have scared most medical practitioners to Texas.
When I was being interviewed and had a site visit conducted by NM medicaid, in order to become a provider I had to post exit signs over what were clearly doors AND have a map of my house drawn according to scale and post it where patients could see it. It had to have a "YOU ARE HERE" mark and show them the way out.
Mind you, my private office is in my home and the office has a separate entrance. There's no mistaking it.
At one point in the interview, the insurance rep was so adamant about it I had to ask, "If there's a fire, do you think I'm going to run out and leave my patient here?" He, by the way, was sitting right next to the door!
He just shrugged, "Those are the rules."
I shrugged, too, and decided after two months that I wanted the exit signs off my walls and that I would not leave my patients to burn.
So, now to a more pointed story of modern medicine under the thumb of big business:
Someone I know who was injured on the job was sent by the Worker’s Compensation insurance underwriter to one of their approved rehabilitation physicians.
The patient was examined and at first it revealed nothing, so they said it was a muscle injury and pushed pain killers, particularly vicodin, which is a known hazard (tendency for addiction, narcotic bowel syndrome, irritability and mood disturbance, motor function disturbance and so on and so forth). The patient refused all of their suggestions but took a bottle of ibuprofen.
Finally, after much complaining and only after the 90 days for a lawsuit had passed, the insurance company begrudgingly ordered an MRI which found several bulging discs including an impinged S1. They also found moderate to severe neuropathy along one leg, hip and buttock.
Nothing worked to help except one thing: physical therapy. So what did the modern doctors do?
They discontinued treatment, declared the patient MMI (at “maximum medical improvement”) and told him he really should "reconsider the vicodin because it was never going to get better." He was told he was permanently disabled.
The patient couldn't believe what he'd heard. They were taking away the only treatment that had helped? “But that was the only thing that worked. How can you do this?”
“Yeah,” the doctor said, “but you had your 8 weeks.”
“But you’re a DOCTOR!” the patient leaned forward, raising his voice.
“I know. But that’s the system."
The patient was furious. He pointed his finger, “No. YOU’RE the system.”
The doctor went on to earn a lot of money and live very comfortably. So far he has not been beheaded.
For the rest of this article on the choices involved in becoming a healer, on the amazing healers I have known, and what insurance companies have done to the practice of medicine, please take just a short click to: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Modern-Medicine-Healing-o-by-Judith-Acosta-100715-534.html. It's worth the trip. We have some serious thinking to do about medicine and what we expect from our physicians. And, practitioners: we have some serious, serious work ahead of us if we're going to get back to the real business of healing.
In one of my talks on Verbal First Aid™, I make a point of bringing up the stethoscope as one of the inventions that truly changed medicine and the art of healing. Because where once the physician had to lay his or her ear on the patient’s chest to hear the heart beating, now there was over a foot of distance between them. We need to rethink this.
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new article on the power of our words to set us on life-long paths and the capacity of homeopathy to correct it…
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What Corporations Can Do to Protect Themselves and Their Employees
Within the last several years, particularly since 9/11 and the inception of a broad-reaching emphasis on national security, the American workplace has changed. Where at one time there was free and open intercourse, there are now multiple gateways prior to access–technological, social, and physical. Getting into a secured building requires the emptying of pockets and purses, the removal of shoes, and a sometimes more personal inspection. With that security–which is by its nature is based in the experience of fear–comes an increase in general anxiety. People are generally more hypervigilant–readier to perceive danger, more high strung, and more sensitive.
After 9/11, National Employee Assistance Programs had been virtually inundated with calls for debriefings, information sessions on trauma, and support services for employees. In the ten years since then the situation has not radically altered.
"It's more acceptable now to have emotions in the workplace," noted Kristen Nagle of Longview Associates in New York. "Corporations have been more sensitive to the psychological and emotional needs of employees virtually across the board. They know the importance of their support, particularly since 9/11. It's not only about productivity anymore. It's been about doing the right thing."
Corporate support has taken many forms–conferences, counseling services, trainings–on issues ranging from post-traumatic stress to Internet security.
Businesses have begun not only to react, but to respond proactively–giving their employees the tools they need to handle emotional and physical crises.
Verbal First Aid may be the most important–and least expensive–tool they can put in their repertoire.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-New-Tool-for-Risk-Manage-by-Judith-Acosta-100626-973.html
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TV Producers Badly in Need of Verbal First Aid
A young relative of mine is involved in a relationship that has been making her feel like a dramatic vehicle in a bad TV series. Every talk we've had about it has involved a long series of "he-said, she-said" revelations and rarely, if ever, have her conversations involved direct, open communication with the significant other.
She was deeply unhappy and felt powerless to do anything about the chaos, the secrets, the whisperings, or the plot twists and nefarious friends. She talked about her life as if it were a script being written by a committee of ravenous producers.
As a psychotherapist and a teacher of Verbal First Aid, it got me to thinking:
What has TV done to relationships? What have we learned by surrounding ourselves with shows such as "Raymond," "Two and a Half Men," "CSI," "Survivor," and "Trauma?" If it is true that art reflects life, it must be equally as true that life reflects art. We are what we surround ourselves with and perhaps it surrounds us in the way it does because it is in fact a projection of our truest selves.
If so, what surrounds us? What is the nature of relationships in mass media? What are we listening to as the TV runs on and on in the background and we're preparing dinner or doing housework or making the beds? How differently are relationships portrayed now compared to, say, 40 years ago?
For the full piece, please go to:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Life-As-A-Reality-Show-by-Judith-Acosta-100629-971.html
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Verbal First Aid and Childhood Survival
Babies come into the world crying, cooing and clinging. They need–food, warmth, love, and safety. They do not come to us with the ability to give much beyond their own need for us. They don't come into the world with the capacity to calm themselves down or self-soothe. They don't come complete with the ability to self-regulate or work out problems.
They are born with the innate capacity to feel fully, scream for us, and hold onto us.
They are born with the potential to develop and think.
But they are not born with the ability to feel and think at the same time.
What are parents to do? How do they teach their children this most essential skill?
For more information, please go to:
www.opednews.com/articles/Verbal-First-Aid-and-Attac-by-Judith-Acosta-100629-216.html
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Teaching Children Safety With Verbal First Aid
According to a growing number of experts, a human's need–and search–for safety starts at conception. Studies have shown that mothers who do not want or are overwhelmed by their pregnancies induce the production of stress hormones in their newly forming babies.
Gary Sibcy, Ph.D.,co-author with Tim Clinton, of Attachments: Why You Love, Feel, and Act the Way You Do, states unequivocally that relationships–how we speak, relate, and respond to our children–are crucial to brain development. Furthermore, he emphasizes, the earlier we engage children properly in life, the more likely they are to be healthy, adaptable, and happy.
In the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology, it is becoming axiomatic that the brain is a social organ and that the relationships we experience at an early age change not only the way the brain functions but its very structure and its future function. The brain changes and forms with experience and our interpretation of those experiences based on what we see, hear, and feel around us. This particular and important feature of childhood is what experts callplasticity.
A child is not born with a fixed set of resources, not even genetically. The only thing that comes in ready to go is the brain stem, which allows us to breathe and sleep and blink without thinking. The rest of the synaptic and neural nets are wired, rewired, and wired again throughout our early lives. Eventually, those networks can become hard-wired, which is why knowing how to speak to our children is so vitally important.
For the full article, please go to:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Kid-Whispering–Keeping-by-Judith-Acosta-100706-621.html
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For a full article on ways to help your children through grief and loss, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-acosta-lisw-cht/death-and-dying-talking-t_b_621011.html
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