The Focus Clinic

          The Focus Clinic has recently acquired a new website that offers blog facilities and new blog entries will therefore be available on our new website soon. We therefore invite you to consult The Focus Clinic’s new professional blog on its main website:

www.thefocusclinic.co.uk

Thank you to all of you, francophones and anglophones, who have been amongst our faithful readers for the last couple of months. We hope to see you on our new professional blog really soon.

Kind regards.

Stephanie - info@thefocusclinic.co.uk

            The Today Programme, the flagship BBC radio current affairs show, has for the second day in succession, featured items on the subject of depression.

Yesterday, (09/10/2006), it featured a discussion of depression with Professor Lewis Wolpert and Dr Howard Stoate MP. Professor Wolpert is the Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology of University College,
London, but is also author of “Malignant Sadness. The Anatomy of Depression”, which charts his own battle with suicidal depression, and subsequent treatment, with the benefit of techniques such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, (CBT).

The Today Programme featured another news item today, (10/10/2006), which included an interview with Dr Paul Lichfield, the Chief Medical Officer of British Telecom. BT is launching a new initiative to tackle anxiety, depression and stress amongst its employees. The telecoms giant has104,000 employees, and estimates that 500 are off sick every day, with stress-related mental illnesses.

Dr Lichfield highlighted the effect that employee absences due to such illnesses have on the ‘bottom-line’ of businesses like BT, and how caring for employees’ mental health now merely represents good business practice.Both Professor Wolpert and Dr Lichfield confirmed that one of major exacerbating factors with relation to depression in the workplace is the perceived effect that the sufferer feels disclosure may have on their career. This illustrates the continuing stigma surrounding mental health.

Initiatives such as the BT programme will greatly assist in changing perceptions of depression, as will the disclosures by leading public figures of having suffered from the condition. We have recently witnessed both Rt. Hon. David Blunkett MP, and Alastair Campbell, admitting that they had suffered with depression during their respective falls from power.

This flurry of media exposure of the topic of depression comes hot on the heals of Stephen Fry’s two-part documentary on his own on-going battle with depression, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, aired on BBC Television recently. In the programmes, Fry analyzed his own condition with the help of medical practitioners, and interviewed other celebrities who had suffered similar difficulties with depression, such as the singer, Robbie Williams.

At least one person in five will suffer from a depressive illness at some point in their life. It appears to be more common in women than men because women are more likely to seek help than men. It occurs at any age, even in children and young people. Bipolar affective disorder is less common affecting one person in 100 and affects both men and women.

If you believe that you might be suffering from depression, don’t wait any longer. Seek professional help.  There are a number of ways of treating depression. Medication with antidepressants can help relieve the symptoms and prevent future episodes.Talking therapies such as relationship based psychotherapy can be useful; also problem-solving therapies and cognitive therapy in which the therapist helps a person learn to identify and challenge faulty, negative patterns of thinking. Support from family and friends is vital. Other activities, such as regular exercise, can help lift the depression.

Article written by N.H.T

Stephanie - info@thefocusclinic.co.uk

        The recent case of Natasha Kampusch, the 18 year-old Austrian woman who was abducted when she was 10 and who escaped her captor only two weeks ago, has touched the world, and continues to fascinate.

In March 1998, Natasha Kampusch was on her way to school when she had the misfortune to meet Wolfgang Priklopil, who abducted her, dragging her into a white van. Priklopil held her captive in a tiny cellar beneath his house for eight years. When she escaped, she was referred to by a police investigator as “white-pale, looking as if she had been out of the light of day for a long time. But she articulated well and could read and write” (Source: the Austria Press Agency). Her captor died after throwing himself in front of a train.

Further information about the Natasha Kampusch’s case can be found on the BBC website (text and video): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5322438.stm

On September 6, the woman gave her first TV interview and appeared calm and very straight forward, which many viewers perceived as totally unexpected behaviour from someone having been through such a traumatic experience. However, Natasha developed strong survival behaviour during her eight years of captivity. She learnt how to control her behaviour towards her abductor in order to make her captivity less painful. Should she experience any sort of anxiety or stress during the interview, Natasha knew how to control her behaviour – by simply repeating the same pattern of survival behaviour.

The team of psychiatrists who work with her mentioned that she suffered from the Stockholm syndrome, which occurs under the unusual conditions of extreme stress in captivity and a high degree of uncertainty about forthcomimg events. The captive’s mind creates this defence mechanism in order to enable him/her to cope with the emotional disturbance, as stress hormones suddenly cannot perform their role anymore. In a situation of captivity, activating the ‘flight or fight’ response is irrelevant, as the prisoner is powerless. He can therefore only internalise the extreme stress and freeze, (not good as it may create lesions in the digestive system in the long run), or develop the ‘Stockholm syndrome’ as a coping strategy.

When captives suffer from the Stockholm syndrome, they may appear to become involved to some degree with their captor, and even consent to abuse and captivity. They may express feelings of affection in a way that surprises outsiders, and makes them wonder at just how captive and abused the person really is. They are trying to arrange their otherwise unsafe and difficult world for maximum comfort and safety.

Another effect of sudden captivity, and being housed in a dark and small cellar, as was the case for Natasha Kampusch, is that it diminishes the victim’s will to escape. Disturbed daylight patterns, physical abuse, loss of control over necessary bodily functions, and the lack of communication, often break down hostages’ will to escape.

Natasha Kampusch is the living proof that all human beings are different, as she managed to be strong enough to keep her thoughts of escape intact during all these years in captivity. Her values, her identity, and her whole way of looking at the world have not ENTIRELY been changed. This will probably help her to rebuild her life more easily.

It is not going to be easy for her, though. Eight years spent in traumatic captivity, and very little communication with the outside world, cannot leave even the strongest human being without some negative effects. She has probably suffered from various degrees of emotional disturbance and will need to work on them with her team of psychiatrists and psychotherapists. She also refused to discuss any possible sexual abuse committed by her captor, which may indicate suppressed thoughts and emotions on the matter. Monitoring her psychological state by discussing her thoughts, emotions, action tendencies, and also any flashbacks and dreams will be necessary, in order to assess any possible emotional disturbance.

She will also have to learn how to adapt to her new life and interact with the world, as a young adult. The ‘normality’ that she lived whilst in captivity has been her normal life for the last 8 years, and changing habits can be quite daunting. Psychological help will be required in order for her to accept her new life.

Natasha Kampusch has just closed a traumatic chapter of her life, and we can only wish her the best in the future. She is a brave young woman, who managed to escape her captor, by making that pact with her ‘older self’ that she would escape one day. Her freedom proves that motivation plays an important role in whatever you want to achieve: if you believe in your goal, you WILL reach it.

Stephanie – info@thefocusclinic.co.uk

       According to todays Guardian newspaper, Prime Minister Tony Blair ‘urged the public to take more responsibility for their own health as he warned the NHS was under “increasing strain” from the results of excessive drinking, eating and smoking’.

The full article is available on the Guardian website: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,1830606,00.html

Further to this new initiative, I would like to emphasize that making changes in one’s life is far from easy, particularly with respect to habits. A habit is a repeated pattern of behaviour that becomes an automatic response coming from the sub-conscious. Habit changes are therefore quite difficult to achieve, and may take some time. Cognitive Behavioural Therapies and Clinical Hypnotherapy can assist in achieving this goal.

Whether one’s goal is to stop smoking, eating or drinking alcohol, do not lose faith. From the moment you acknowledge the fact that a change is required in your life, you have probably taken the most important step towards your target. So, keep the faith, and get the professional help which will ease this process.

Stephanie - info@thefocusclinic.co.uk