Psychological help for adult strabismic VT patients is needed
Developmental optometrists and vision therapists, please incorporate psychological assistance into your practice for adult strabismics doing VT. The non-visual side effects (nausea, extreme fatigue, motion sickness/vertigo, sensitivity to noise, inability to concentrate, etc, etc) are enough to drive a sane person crazy, not to mention the visual changes of intermittent double vision, moving objects, seeing people with two noses and four eyes, and the changes in depth perception.
I know you are not trained in psychology, but perhaps you could recommend therapists to your patients who are struggling with the changes to their brains and vision. As we rewire our brains, everything is effected in our lives from our vision, interpersonal relationships and way of life. I barely cook anything semi-time consuming anymore because I can't concentrate or I am too tired.
Another thing we all are often at pains to deal with is our history of surgeries, patches, being made fun of, looking like a pirate, being sent to remedial classes or to a retarded pre-school (as in my case), the medical establishment not even telling us about VT for most of our lives etc, etc. The psychological pain and embarrassment runs deep.
I went to a psychologist and even to a hypnotist for help and I spent most of the time just explaining what it means to do VT and go from flatland to whatever 3D is (not like I can really explain it). It was sort of a waste of time because I wanted help, not be the teacher. I am lucky to have three friends who have done VT but the one amblyope who did progress to 3D vision did the therapy 20 years and barely remembers what he went through. The other two has other issues so they can't always relate. Ironically, the best support I get are from two friends who are former alcoholics and who understand what it is to change one's neural pathways and be and do things differently.
If you know of counselors who are familiar with adults doing VT, please provide their contact info on Sovoto and recommend them to your patients. I am a strong person. I've lived in a former war zone with landmines (Bosnia) and traveled to over 50 countries, but this internal journey to rewire my brain is deeply mined and by far the most difficult journey I've ever been on. My guess is that adults who voluntarily do VT do develop stereovision and not because of an actual need to stabilize their gaze (as was Susan Barry's initial reason to do VT), are self-starters and highly motivated individuals willing to go on an adventure or else they wouldn't pay out of their own pockets for the therapy. Despite our willpower and drive, we have years of psychological pain and emotional scars that get unraveled as we wake up dormant binocular brain cells and tower over your other patients who are under 3 feet (one meter) tall.
Thanks for reading and considering my request.
Views: 16
Tags: adult, adults, for, needs, of, psychological, strabismics, therapy, vision
Comment
-
Comment by Susanna Z on May 20, 2011 at 4:52pm -
Dr. Kaplan,
I will take a closer look at your site. I have seen some of your videos. Since you yourself did VT before you became a practitioner of it, would you mind sharing how you felt when you saw your world changing around you, while everyone else went along their daily business? I find that my road to 3D is one of the most alienating experiences I've ever been on because while other people are living, I'm staring at carpets, trees, almost anything with texture. Add on the fatigue and inability to concentrate and the road to 3D is like the highway to my own hermit kingdom (but unlike North Korea, I do have food, books and movies in my hermitage).
Since you lecture in German and have worked internationally, have you noticed any of your patients having language confusion when doing VT? Russian is my first language. I came to the US at the age of three. English is my 2nd language, but it's my strongest tongue and the only language I speak perfectly. However, since commencing with VT 16 months ago, I've been having trouble sometimes even to form correct sentences in English as I sometimes remember the Russian word first and try to find a phonetic (but not semantic) equivalent to it in English, making my sentence make no sense. Sometimes I can tell that I am forming my English sentences with the grammatical structure of a Latin language like Spanish. I even went to a neurologist because it was driving me crazy and he thought that the VT was just making my brain be overwhelmed with a lot of info. My developmental optometrist thinks the same thing. But what is a multilingual person to do to speak straight while trying to see straight?
Thanks in advance!
SUSANNA
-
Comment by Roberto Kaplan O.D., M.Ed. FCOVD on May 20, 2011 at 10:37am
-
Comment by Sue Barry on May 19, 2011 at 8:08pm -
I don't know of any psychologists who have counseled adult patients with strabismus so I'm not sure where one can turn. I think it interesting, Susanna, that you found that the two friends who understood you best were former alcoholics who had gone through major changes. Among my friends, the one who understood at a deeper level what I was experiencing was an audiologist who had worked with partially deaf patients and who had a deaf family member.
-
Comment by Susanna Z on May 19, 2011 at 3:32pm
-
Excellent! I will send you something to your private email address. I was crafting the letter in my head yesterday in bullet point format. Susanna
-
Comment by Dr. Leonard J. Press on May 18, 2011 at 9:53am -
You're welcome, Susanna. You're on. Draft something for me from your perspective, even if it's in outline form. Either post it here, or if you'd prefer send it to my email (pressvision@aol.com). I'll blend in my perspective, and also borrow from the wealth of info that's occurring through the blogs and this discussion forum. I'll get it published as a concept paper, which will help propel the subject as a potential course topic, and am optimistic that this will help colleagues utilize trans-disciplinary resources the same way we excel in doing this with children and with patients having experienced acquired brain injury.
Don't know of a psychologist off the top of my head who has specifically counseled adult patients with strabismus on dealing with "side-effects" of VT, but perhaps Sue Barry - because she has had so much contact from adults with strabismus all over the world - can lend further information.
-
Comment by Susanna Z on May 18, 2011 at 1:12am
-
Dr. Press,
Thanks for responding from the other side of the table. If you need someone to write an article or do a presentation for COVD explaining how it is for an adult to undergo VT, I'd be happy to share my experiences.
Finding a psychologist or other therapist who understands the issues may not be easy, but is needed. I don't know how many times I've had the same questions: "If you can't see in 3D, how can you drive? How can you cross the street?" etc. etc. Just having someone to whom we wouldn't have to explain the mechanics of our vision would be a start.
I hope more of your colleagues share your interest in examining the psychological needs of adult patients. In the end, it's better for business. Doctors don't want frustrated patients unable to cope with the myriad of surprising side effects of VT complaining and driving away potential new patients.
-
Comment by Dr. Leonard J. Press on May 17, 2011 at 9:56am
-
Thanks for sharing your perspective from a patient's point of view, Susanna. We realize this is a very delicate issue. About 10 years ago I chaired a Symposium at an annual COVD meeting on treating the adult patient in VT. We made the point that adults are not merely big children who are paying their own VT bills, but come with unique sets of needs including many of the issues you pointed out. At one point we had a sign at our front desk, which I believe was first suggested by a colleague, Dr. Don Getz, that read as follows: "We give our adult patients the same care and attention as we do to our pediatric patients." And as you can imagine, many of the children we care for come to us with a complex dynamic of family members, caretakers, other professionals, and a tangled web of communication channels. But adult patients are decidedly different.
I'll let Sue Barry speak for herself, but in her book she notes that prior to her finally discovering VT circuitously (through a primary care optometrist with whom she consulted after a lifetime of ophthalmologic visits) - the last ophthalmologist she saw as a patient told her that she needed to see a psychiatrist to move beyond her vision obsession, since "everything was fine". Your suggestion to have us post the names of psychologists who have counseled adults who have undergone VT is an excellent one. As professionals, we (and our staff members) like to think we have critical empathy for our patients, and recently I co-authored a paper with a colleague, Dr. Carole Hong, on Visual Factors in Childhood Behavioral Disorders. It's time for us to turn our attention more formally to adults, and I thank you again for your prompt.
© 2013 Created by Rebecca Sherry.
You need to be a member of Sovoto to add comments!
Join Sovoto