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Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism

Alcoholism can be understood as a self-treatment for existential pain. A 5-day treatment was designed to relieve this psychological pain and existential anxiety, and thereby diminish the need for self-treatment with alcohol. The basic principle behind the treatment was holistic, restoring the qualit...

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Autores principales: Ventegodt, Soren, Merrick, Joav, Andersen, Niels Jorgen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: TheScientificWorldJOURNAL 2003
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5974897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14532424
http://dx.doi.org/10.1100/tsw.2003.67
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author Ventegodt, Soren
Merrick, Joav
Andersen, Niels Jorgen
author_facet Ventegodt, Soren
Merrick, Joav
Andersen, Niels Jorgen
author_sort Ventegodt, Soren
collection PubMed
description Alcoholism can be understood as a self-treatment for existential pain. A 5-day treatment was designed to relieve this psychological pain and existential anxiety, and thereby diminish the need for self-treatment with alcohol. The basic principle behind the treatment was holistic, restoring the quality of life (QOL) and relationship with self, which according to the life mission theory happens when life-denying views are corrected and inner emotional conflicts are solved. The method in this treatment was a course with teachings in philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy. The synergy attained was considerable and the outcome demonstrates that in the course of 1 week, people have time to revise essential life-denying views and to integrate important, unfinished life events involving negative feelings. This was demonstrated by an improved QOL and a decrease in their dependency and need for alcohol abuse. In the week before, after the 5-day course, and again after 1 and 3 months, the 16 participants completed the SEQOL questionnaire on QOL and health. This was a pilot study based on a pre-experimental design, without a control group and without clinical control. Common for the group were a low QOL, numerous health problems, and alcohol dependency in spite of treatment with Antabus® (disulfiram). The study showed an increase in QOL from 57.6% before the course to 69.4% 3 months after the course, or an improvement in QOL of 11.8%. There was a 24.0% improvement in self-perceived mental health, and satisfaction with health in general was improved by 11.1%. The total sum of health symptoms in the group was reduced from 59% of maximum to 33%. It is concluded that for this small and motivated group with alcohol problems, it was possible to improve QOL and health in only 5 days with a holistic treatment that combined philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy, but the results are not final. Further research is needed.
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spelling pubmed-59748972018-06-10 Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism Ventegodt, Soren Merrick, Joav Andersen, Niels Jorgen ScientificWorldJournal Research Article Alcoholism can be understood as a self-treatment for existential pain. A 5-day treatment was designed to relieve this psychological pain and existential anxiety, and thereby diminish the need for self-treatment with alcohol. The basic principle behind the treatment was holistic, restoring the quality of life (QOL) and relationship with self, which according to the life mission theory happens when life-denying views are corrected and inner emotional conflicts are solved. The method in this treatment was a course with teachings in philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy. The synergy attained was considerable and the outcome demonstrates that in the course of 1 week, people have time to revise essential life-denying views and to integrate important, unfinished life events involving negative feelings. This was demonstrated by an improved QOL and a decrease in their dependency and need for alcohol abuse. In the week before, after the 5-day course, and again after 1 and 3 months, the 16 participants completed the SEQOL questionnaire on QOL and health. This was a pilot study based on a pre-experimental design, without a control group and without clinical control. Common for the group were a low QOL, numerous health problems, and alcohol dependency in spite of treatment with Antabus® (disulfiram). The study showed an increase in QOL from 57.6% before the course to 69.4% 3 months after the course, or an improvement in QOL of 11.8%. There was a 24.0% improvement in self-perceived mental health, and satisfaction with health in general was improved by 11.1%. The total sum of health symptoms in the group was reduced from 59% of maximum to 33%. It is concluded that for this small and motivated group with alcohol problems, it was possible to improve QOL and health in only 5 days with a holistic treatment that combined philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy, but the results are not final. Further research is needed. TheScientificWorldJOURNAL 2003-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC5974897/ /pubmed/14532424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1100/tsw.2003.67 Text en Copyright © 2003 Soren Ventegodt et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ventegodt, Soren
Merrick, Joav
Andersen, Niels Jorgen
Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title_full Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title_fullStr Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title_full_unstemmed Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title_short Quality of Life as Medicine. II. A Pilot Study of a Five-Day “Quality of Life and Health” Cure for Patients with Alcoholism
title_sort quality of life as medicine. ii. a pilot study of a five-day “quality of life and health” cure for patients with alcoholism
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5974897/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14532424
http://dx.doi.org/10.1100/tsw.2003.67
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