They felt Sense had provided an essential lifeline at times of need, both practically and emotionally, and also acted as an information provider, filling a gap left by professionals. Counselling Christine Sherlock was fortunate in having access to counselling at this time. This was not the case, however, with most of her respondents. If you don t get the right help at the crisis point of diagnosis you can get frozen in a painful, dreadful place. People in the study also said they would have liked home visits from a counsellor.
Counselling allows people to work through and move on from the frozen, painful, feelings.
My sessions were extended and counselling changed my life. Sense is currently setting up a five-year Peer Mentoring Project to help fill this need. A hopeful sign is that doctors training now has modules on disclosure - physicians as well as patients suffer if they are not properly trained to deliver bad news. As for counselling, there s a clear indication it s desired, though not by everybody. There are many variations of Usher and everyone s situation is different.