Day Four
July 11, 2000

Give a man a fish

Give a man a fish...

There is a proverb.

If you give a man a fish, he will eat today,
if you teach a man to fish he will eat for life.

Cathy Chapman, Ph.D delivers her presentation on self esteem to medical staff, students, and residents.

This mission to Villahermosa includes 10 surgical cases a day, plus each day. some of the members of the medical team are giving lectures. The lectures, open to the hospital staff, medical students and residents, include topics on plastic surgery, anesthesiology, and psychology in the management of the cleft lip patient.

The educational programs are often overshadowed by the visual change that results from the surgeries. The local staff looks forward to hearing about new topics in addition to the opportunity to learn from the surgical cases.

Tuesday's presentation was by Cathy Chapman, Ph. D. on Self Esteem. The topic was chosen by the Hospital del Nino staff.

"I talked about the mind body connection and what we're learning from age regression in hypnotherapy. We trace a symptom back to the age it began. Often it's abandonment tracing back to birth in a hospital." Chapman explained.

Chapman went on to say that she offered the local medical teams some advice on working with patients who have illnesses or injuries.

"I talked about the importance of having the parents affirm their child," Chapman told the group. She also explained that parents often don't recognize their own feelings about the child's deformities. "It's important to recognize that the parents themselves may be repelled by how their child looks."

Chapman reminded the doctors and nurses of the importance of being aware of what they are saying. "We discover how things are imprinted. People can regress back to that time and remember certain things and feelings."

Chapman related an example of this by discussing a case she was familiar with. The patient had a death wish, so the treating psychologist used age regression to trace the roots of the feelings.

"When they did age regression it went back to two situations: when she was born, her mother almost died. She remembers the nurses saying the 'baby's killing the mother'. At age 12, she was in a serious accident and she remembers the medical personnel saying "she's not going to live'. When the therapist cleared that up, she started to be okay. That's how we learn about the mind body connection," Chapman explained.

Chapman also talked about the importance of parents not treating kids differently. She said to respect their conditions, but don't treat them in a way that kids can learn to manipulate.

During a discussion specific to cleft lip and palate children, one of the audience suggested that children be encouraged to look in mirrors or play with mirrors as a way of getting comfortable with their own looks. Self esteem is a step toward a quicker recovery and a healthier life.