Look I'd like to make a point on a related topic that was raised on the News Research page. This post will come across as negative so I'm sorry about that.
We all recognise that this condition has a pschyological component and therefore a stress reduction should be a necessary part of the strategy. But the throwing of people to the pscyhologists can be just another way of putting people in the too hard basket to sit and stew. I was NOT diagnosed as suffering chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome (or prostatitis as it is generally known in Oz), despite describing the symptoms in great detail and going to several GP's and the Sexual Health Clinic, nor was I sent to a Urologist. It was not until I developed an actual measurable infection that I was referred to a Urologist who then immediatly diagnosed CPPS/Prostatitis. Up to that point I'd been continually, faithfully, visiting shrinks, with obviously no result in the form of meaningful pain reduction or understanding of what was going on, which only resulted in a growing sense of upset and frustration. Shrinks didn't help because they didn't know what the underlying problem actually was and were more interested in talking about social factors, irelevancies, personal life style decisions and other factors which were none of their buisness nor related to the problem. What's that? Everything is part of their business or else you've got something to hide? Bulls**t! That gives them far more much power than they actually deserve and screwing around with everything in someones live, particularily when they're on the back foot, only leaves the patient feeling more demoralised.The other irony is that the old school urologist who would refer "prostatodynia" patients on to a psychiatrist was probably doing the right thing after all!
Ah but here's the rub, even after I was correctly diagnosed the shrinks I went to, who were several, were still all uncomfortable talking about medical/sexual issues and so the time wasting continued. Ok so maybe I should have gone to a shrink who specialised wsith people with pyhsical problems, or my urologist or the GP's should have singled one out for me. That didn't occur because the general view was that one shrink was as good as any other. They "specialities" are all vauge anyway, personality this, consciousness that. You mention straightaway to the shrink the topic in hand and they all say they can help and they're fine with that, then it turns out its clearly not their speciality and you've just wasted your time. And because shrinks take forever THAT CAN BE YEARS AND YEARS of time!
I would probably never advise someone to go to a shrink who had a medical problem because it would just confirm the "its all in your head view ie so its nothing" which is worse than an insult, its criminally slack neglect. "There's nothing actually wrong with you" I heard that a lot from shrinks even after the diagnosis. They would use the uncertainty of the meidcal understanding as an excuse to dismiss its reality. How do they get away with it? Well because nobody questions the competence of shrinks, Oprah likes them and society thinks they're the bee's knees because "they care", so that's good enough. If you as the patient don't like your shrink that's because you have an antisocial disorder or are crazy in some other way. You can't argue as a patient because they the masters of dominating the interaction, ("who little me?") and waiting for the next one to be avaliable can take months and months will little hope they'll be much better.
SHRINKS ARE WORSE THAN CRAP because behind the well meaning fascade they are complety unaccountable, therefore any help they give is an optional extra and if they don't help, well so what. As for supply and demmand forget it, send everyone to a shrink and combine it with the fact that they drag things out forever and the waiting lists will always be huge. Oh and I understand shrinks often get depressed because they don't feel they do a very good job so they need lots and lots of vacation time to get over it, poor babies.
It was not until I received an actual diagnosis, I began to get real information about this disorder (largely from this website) and the hostile attitude from those around me began to recede that I began to actually move and improve on the stress and anxiety reduction front. I was not helped by years with shrinks. The improvement was initiated through real medical understanding which provided a foundation from which to understand the acute issues, ie pain, what caused it, why was it transitory, why did it respond to states of mind, why did it make everything so demoralising, why did it hurt just thinking about it or trying to address it. No pscyh will ever be able to help if the basics issues are incorrect or are generalised into meaninglessness.
Ok so shrinks should still work as an aid to the medical movement? In practise people will all too often be dumped there to rot because being sent to a shrink is a catch all for every problem and the patient is treated with hardly any respect or urgency. Any assistance must be provided by Dr/shrink not shrink/rubbish manager.
Do you guys even realise shrinks have potentially huge downsides? They "cure" you right up to the moment you commit suicide.
Damien
[I really don't care if I get kicked of the page for being disruptive those fu**ers have cost me years of grief]
