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Friday 5 January 2018

Counseling and Psychotherapy Treatment of HIV AIDS

Counseling and Psychotherapy Treatment of HIV AIDS

While HIV is no longer necessarily a life-threatening diagnosis, it is still a life-long condition that will impact your life considerably. Understandably then, you’re bound to feel some psychological impacts.

If you already struggle with some aspects of your mental health, for example if you have suffered depression, anxiety or low self-esteem, getting a diagnosis can make these symptoms worse. If your mental health has been good, you may still find it difficult to adjust to your diagnosis.

Worrying about your future, your health and telling people is all very common. You may find you start to isolate yourself. Sadly, there can still be stigma surrounding HIV as well as a lack of understanding. This can all affect how you feel about yourself.

Getting support

If you find yourself struggling after your diagnosis, isolating yourself, feeling low or bad about yourself, you could benefit from seeking support. You may find it helpful speaking to other people who have HIV. You could join a support group (online or in-person) or you could try group therapy.
You may prefer to speak to a counsellor one-on-one about how you’re feeling. Speaking to someone who has experience treating clients with HIV is beneficial as they will have a greater understanding of what you’re going through and the psychological impacts. You should also speak to your medical team to find out what support they can offer you.

When you are diagnosed with HIV, it’s important to tell your current sexual partner and any partner’s you’ve had since becoming infected. Doing this can be a tough experience; you may feel upset, embarrassed or even angry. Talk this through with your medical team as they can advise who you need to tell and the best way to get in touch - they may even be able to contact them for you.

You may also be wondering whether or not you need to tell your employer. There is no legal obligation to do this unless you are in the armed forces (in a frontline job) or work in a healthcare job where you provide invasive procedures. You may decide to tell your employer what’s happening so they can make any necessary adjustments to your workload or arrange any time off you need for medical appointments. This decision is completely up to you.

Educating people about HIV and what your diagnosis means will hopefully help to ease any fears or concerns they may have. You could even send them the link to this page so they can read more about what HIV is and how it affects people.

Just remember, you are not alone. There are people ready to support you at every step.



Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy Treatment of HIV AIDS

For a person to be afflicted with HIV infection is a grave shock and traumatic experience, since there is little treatment for it available and what is available is in a crucial stage,and a lot of people do not have access to it, it becomes complicated to bear with this chronic illness. Most patient apart from the physical changes also experience behavioral and cognitive changes due to the virus which has significant implications for their psychology and emotional well being. The infection comes with its challenges medical, financial, psychological, social, and spiritual issues in the patients, thus apart from regular medication to treat the illness these also need to be taken into consideration.

Also one of the grave reasons for the impact of HIV/AIDS on patients’ mindset is that the society has a lot of taboos and myths related to HIV,and there is a lack of awareness so when people are diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, they are ostracised at a time in life when they need the most emotional and mental support.  The most common myth is that HIV spreads through casual touch which is proven to be untrue.

Patients often suffer from anxiety, hopelessness,and depression once they are detected with the HIV.  Their immune system is at its weakest, and their mental condition also becomes prone to attacks. They mostly experience, increase in heart rate, night sweats, headaches, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting,etc. All these manifest into anxiety and depression. Reduced concentration and general ability also leave the patients at a loss, apart from, this the significant implication of the HIV infection is the stigma and discrimination related to unruly sexual behavior and drug abuse which are the main reasons for contracting the virus. The patients are looked down upon by the society as the ‘others’ who participate in all these illegal activities because of which they believe the patients contracted the disease.

Therefore,counseling is significant while coping with HIV/AIDS; it has to be made mandatory along with regular medical treatment. Firstly, the patients need to have all the essential fundamental information related to the disease, of how they contracted it and how they are at risk of spreading it further. If they aren’t made aware of this, this could become an epidemic. Apart from that counseling also helps them understand their behavioral changes and their reaction to being detected with this virus. If some people have an inkling that they could be affected with an HIV infection, they can smoothly go to a counselor and seek his/her guidance about the testing and treatment procedure in case they don’t want to share it with another known individual. Therapy can do wonders to people who have HIV/AIDS by taking people through the problem-solving process that is, to find solutions, assist in decision making, accept specific inevitable consequences and effects, finding a practical solution and provide the necessary psychotherapy for HIV/AIDS.

The counseling to provided comes in two variants pre-counseling and post counseling. Pre-counselling is for patients who have an already established trust with the therapist he/she can guide them through the symptoms to the test procedure. The post counseling comes into play once the patients are tested positive for the HIV in their system. In this stage, they need full help, assistance,and guidance for them to understand the implications of the infection on their life. Here the counselor helps the patient explore ways to improve their quality of life and deal with the illness to the best of their ability and also reduce the risk of spreading it to other people.In both the stages, it is essential to involve the close support group of the patient for them to also understand the full effects of the infection so that they can help the patient talk freely and also cope with it appropriately.

The need to maintain confidentiality is of prime focus for counselor dealing with HIV patients because of the stigma attached to it in the society. The patients should be able to discuss all details of how they contacted the disease, to the symptoms and the treatment to principal their dignity and protect them against discrimination. Once they share all these details only then, they would be able to understand the infection and get out of it properly.

Hypnotherapy means, using hypnosis as a therapeutic technique. It is stated to be very useful in countering anxiety and depression and is considered one of the most effective treatments for that. It helps in reducing the levels of stress and depression by working on the subconscious levels of the brain.

According to research hypnosis is a great way to improve the quality of life for AIDS patients, who are dealing with this chronic illness. It helps in reducing the stress, depression, emotional turmoil and help them deal with the regular distress of the disease with the changes in their mental landscape. The hypnosis helps remove unwanted troublesome behavior,  it also has positive effects on the immune system, helping the body to cope with the disease.

In conclusion, the impact of every disease can be felt on the mind of the patient apart from the body. Therefore the brain needs as much support, care as the body. Therefore, these techniques like psychotherapy and hypnosis can do wonders to help deal with the disease and also recover by giving mental and emotional strength and also its effects can be seen on the body.

The emotional impact of the infection can be seen very quickly. HIV is related to a lot of stressors on the patients; these include physical illness, shock, depression, medical dilemma, denial,etc. It becomes essential to address the coping skills by the caregivers and providing psychological and hypnosis interventions to HIV/AIDS patients along with medical interventions to understand their mental agony, for better recovery and improving quality of life of these patients and also their family.



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Patient's Feedback

For Safe Natural Holistic Treatment, contact or visit:

Ethos Healthcare
T 12, Green Park Extension,
New Delhi, India.
Email : contactethos@gmail.com
Phone: +91-11-26164016, 46026700
Mobile / Whatsapp: +91-9810155920
Website:
www.ethosaidshivclinic.com
and
www.ethoshealthcare.com

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