Neuropsychotherapy
Neuropsychotherapy is the use of psychotherapy in order to help people with brain injury or other neurological diseases. The principal goal is reduce emotional pain and restore the person’s sense of life. Neuropsychotherapy promote acceptance in the new situation and boost a committed and attitude to life.
Suffering brain injury is a drastic life change for the person and his or her family. At this time, the task of facing a process of grief or loss begins. This implies the redefinition of the self-concept to align it with the new reality. A self-concept that will be influenced by motor, cognitive, behavioral and/or emotional deficits that they have developed due to the injury. This reality can break person previous life project and affect considerably their self-esteem. Several authors state that this grieving process is like the one that we can suffer by the loss of a loved one, since it would go through the same processing stages: denial, anger, negotiation, depression, and acceptance.
Early stage
Often, in the early severe stages after a brain injury, the person is not aware of the difficulties and their real capabilities. This is because the injured brain wrongly processes this information (it should not be confused with a denial response, where the person is aware but does not accept it). Therefore, a first stage of Neuropsychotherapy will be to improve the deficits awareness, otherwise there will be difficulties to rebuild a life project according to the new reality.
Second stage
The second stage is about accepting and facing their condition after brain injury. At the Neurorehabilitation Clinic, we use techniques from evidence-based cognitive-behavioral and third-generation therapies. There are focused on helping the person to perceive brain injury as a part of their life and not as a whole.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is one of the approaches we use in Neuropsychotherapy. This one, among other things, helps the person to act in the direction of his or her personal values creating a meaningful life project. The person is invited to think about what kind of person he wants to be from now on his vital areas (family, intimate relationships, parenthood, work, education, leisure, health, …). This involves the acceptance of that pain is inherent in life, but despite this pain, we can continue building a life that is valuable to us.
do una vida valiosa para nosotros.
