What can you do if your loved one says “If I go to doctors, they find problems.” In the setting of worrisome symptoms, a healing response depends on what’s behind the refusal.
Gently and lovingly, you can try exploring what’s going on. Maybe your loved one wants to avoid the inconveniences, expenses, or discomforts (physical and emotional) of doctor visits.
Most likely, a major factor is the desire to avoid bad news. That desire may be fed by a mix of fear, a sense it would be too much to handle, or hope to protect you from unwanted news and/or burdens of caregiving.
Rarely, the comment reflects magical thinking: the belief that unrelated events are causally related despite the absence of any causal link between them. I once had a patient who believed he never would have had cancer if he had never reported his symptom.
Here’s an approach to magical thinking:
Validate challenges
Going to doctors IS hard, whether or not they find a problem.
State facts
You have these symptoms now, before doctor visits—which means visits uncover problems, not cause them.
Highlight benefits
Doctor visits give you more control over what happens next. If you go now, any treatable problems may be easier to treat and may have a better outcome.
Doctor visits tell you what you DON’T have. You—and I—can stop thinking about those possibilities.
You help me by going to the doctor.
[Next: If it’s something other than magical thinking driving the refusal.]
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