059: Live Session (Marilyn) — 8-Week Tune-up

This podcast was recorded eight weeks after the initial session with Marilyn. As you may recall, Marilyn became severely depressed when she discovered that she had Stage 4 Lung cancer. In spite of that horrific and real trauma, she completely overcame her negative feelings in the first session, which was broken down into a series of three consecutive podcasts, with commentaries as the session unfolded.

Sadly, Marilyn experienced severe pain in her left rib cage from a metastasis from her lung cancer roughly two months later. This physical relapse triggered an understandable emotional relapse as well, with an understandable return of severe depression, anxiety and anger, so Marilyn agreed to record another podcast to illustrate how a tune-up works following the initial treatment.

I would like to point out that the Relapse Prevention Training was critically important, so that Marilyn would know that relapses are a certainty, and that they can be dealt with effectively using the same techniques that worked the first time. This message is important so that the patient does not feel broadsided when the negative feelings return. Some patients have the false expectation that they'll be happy forever after they've recovered.

But no one is entitled to be happy all the time! If the therapist and patient know how to deal with a relapse, and have practiced ahead of time, it will still be painful, but the patient and therapist will know what to do to make sure the patient can recover from the relapse quickly, instead of getting caught in another length episode of depression or anxiety.

The entire session has been included in this single podcast. That’s why we’ve offered this as a bonus session between our weekly podcasts. You will need nearly two hours to listen to it, but I think you will find it’s a great investment of your time.