The starting point of this article are the situations described by Walt Whiteman in the following words: “There was a child went forth every day,/And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,/And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,/Or for many years or stretching cycles of years/ (…)./His own parents, he that had father’d him and she that had conceiv’d him in her womb and birth’d him,/They gave this child more of themselves than that,/ They gave him afterward every day, they became part of him (…)./These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day”. The article provides examples of the presence of parents in an adult child who sometimes commemorate in it as a wound that does not heal, which sometimes becomes stigma, and with time healed, leaves behind scars of insensitivity, to protect from injury. These examples are, on the one hand, a testimony to the trauma of birth, which is not immune to the passage of time; on the other hand, they provide arguments that trauma – once again experienced in the presence of someone who does not reduce its traces to mental disorders and behavior, may become a return to the place from which life begins: “warm and nutritious”.
If psychological help could beart, then what differentiates it from other forms that could be called the technology of helping? The answer sought here begins with the question “what can I know about you without being yourself?”. The way to answer follows the length and breadth of therapeutic experience, to finally take the form of a question: must the art of helping the other, if not apparent, remain uncertain? Just as every art, it is not confident of what it already knows, possesses and is able to. It is not satisfied with what is already known. It knows that in every word “sleep you, my un-hearing”. Does it listen because it is given?
Ageing is a stage that many see as the moment of fulfillment, i.e. when it is possible to calmly enjoy the time that remains. It is also a period when losses accumulate (important people, professional activity, health), which can lead to a significant deterioration of psychosocial functioning, sometimes manifesting as depression. The aim of this study was to understand the experience of mental suffering experienced by elderly women who are facing both tasks relevant to their old age and clinical depression. The second objective was to understand the importance of social relations for the recovery process or, on the contrary, for the worsening of the illness. We conducted in-depth individual interviews with three senescent women; each of them had experienced many losses in the past and is now struggling with psychological disorders in the form of a depressive episode within bipolar disorder. The contents of the interviews were then subjected to the interpretative phenomenological analysis. On the basis of the analysis, we have distinguished three aspects of the researched subjects’ relations with the surrounding world. The first one includes the losses faced by the women – the death of close relatives, retirement, decreased acuity. Another aspect concerns the feeling of alienation within areas that are still available to them, which is additionally compounded by a lack of understanding from close relatives (denial of suffering, insistence on a rapid improvement). The third aspect refers to the supportive and hope-giving behaviors of the surrounding people (acknowledging suffering, giving time to heal, showing patience). Finally, we generally reflected on the determinants of the relatives’ behavior towards elderly people suffering from depression.
PL
Starzenie się jest etapem widzianym przez wielu jako moment dopełnienia, w którym możliwe jest spokojne cieszenie się pozostałym czasem. Jest to zarazem okres, w którym dochodzi do kulminacji utrat (ważnych osób, aktywności zawodowej, zdrowia) mogących doprowadzić do znacznego pogorszenia psychospołecznego funkcjonowania, manifestującego się niekiedy jako depresja. Celem badania było zrozumienie doświadczenia bólu psychicznego przeżywanego przez kobiety w wieku senioralnym, które mierzą się zarówno z zadaniami właściwymi dla okresu starości, jak i kliniczną depresją. Drugim celem było zrozumienie tego, jakie znaczenie dla procesu zdrowienia lub przeciwnie – pogłębiania się stanu choroby – mają relacje społeczne. Przeprowadziłyśmy pogłębione wywiady indywidualne z trzema kobietami w wieku senioralnym; każda z nich w przeszłości zaznała wielu utrat, a obecnie boryka się z psychicznymi zaburzeniami pod postacią depresji w przebiegu choroby afektywnej dwubiegunowej. Treść wywiadów poddałyśmy interpretacyjnej analizie fenomenologicznej. Na podstawie analizy wyodrębniłyśmy trzy aspekty relacji badanych z otaczającym światem. Pierwszy obejmuje utraty, wobec których stają kobiety – śmierć bliskich osób, zakończenie pracy zawodowej, spadek sprawności. Kolejny dotyczy poczucia wyobcowania w obszarach, które są nadal dostępne, potęgowanego przez brak zrozumienia ze strony bliskich osób (zaprzeczanie cierpieniu, naleganie na szybką poprawę). Trzeci aspekt odnosi się do wspierających i dających nadzieję zachowań otaczających osób (uznawanie cierpienia, dawanie czasu na zdrowienie, okazywanie cierpliwości). Na koniec podjęłyśmy refleksję nad uwarunkowaniami zachowań bliskich wobec starszych osób dotkniętych depresją.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.