As a psychotherapist I have talked with many stressed or highly traumatised doctors, dentists and nurses including during the hard times of the junior doctor strike and now of course Covid. The DoH funded PHP has flourished during that time as well as the offerings of the RMBF charity and BMA through DocHealth. Tea and Empathy has also gathered grass roots pace. Within all of this I have witnessed the use of many stress communication metaphors for stress and resilience management. Few are systematically examined empirically as to their usage.
Dr Morgan’s piece now brings additional help at a crucial juncture. I think his choice of the metaphor of the red thread (borrowed from the classics) is likely to stay helpfully in the mind in a way which some other metaphors used within stress management may not feel quite right now. The oxygen mask (put yours on first before for you help another) and the flat battery top up and recharge (resilience/ adaptability) are oft cited and clearly still useful for many.
There is room for interesting debate as to which others could offer value. Our imagery and words matter much in a field which has to sometimes rely on nebulous concepts. We may also borrow from the usage within fields such as clinical hypnotherapy and the medical humanities too.
What is important is that in times of added difficulty or challenge we have a good method of delivering our own ready formed methods of self help and reaching out. This provides self efficacy. Thus the ‘red thread’ take is memorable, linked to what we can hold and what we have already developed for ourselves both in history and currently. It is so well crafted as a anew method of stress communication.
Competing interests:
I run a stress clinic for doctors dentists and vets and a creativity site ( non commercial) to help those in medicine called cRxeate.
26 April 2020
Joanna Talbot Bowen
Psychiatrist/psychotherapist
Exeter Stress Clinic, Devon
Exeter stress clinic , Fore Street Hill, Budleigh Salterton , EX96PE
Rapid Response:
Re: Matt Morgan: Hold onto your red thread
Dear Editor
As a psychotherapist I have talked with many stressed or highly traumatised doctors, dentists and nurses including during the hard times of the junior doctor strike and now of course Covid. The DoH funded PHP has flourished during that time as well as the offerings of the RMBF charity and BMA through DocHealth. Tea and Empathy has also gathered grass roots pace. Within all of this I have witnessed the use of many stress communication metaphors for stress and resilience management. Few are systematically examined empirically as to their usage.
Dr Morgan’s piece now brings additional help at a crucial juncture. I think his choice of the metaphor of the red thread (borrowed from the classics) is likely to stay helpfully in the mind in a way which some other metaphors used within stress management may not feel quite right now. The oxygen mask (put yours on first before for you help another) and the flat battery top up and recharge (resilience/ adaptability) are oft cited and clearly still useful for many.
There is room for interesting debate as to which others could offer value. Our imagery and words matter much in a field which has to sometimes rely on nebulous concepts. We may also borrow from the usage within fields such as clinical hypnotherapy and the medical humanities too.
What is important is that in times of added difficulty or challenge we have a good method of delivering our own ready formed methods of self help and reaching out. This provides self efficacy. Thus the ‘red thread’ take is memorable, linked to what we can hold and what we have already developed for ourselves both in history and currently. It is so well crafted as a anew method of stress communication.
Competing interests: I run a stress clinic for doctors dentists and vets and a creativity site ( non commercial) to help those in medicine called cRxeate.