Making Sense of Treatment for Needle Phobia: From Exposure and Control, to Acceptance and Letting Go
Making Sense of Treatment for Needle Phobia: From Exposure and Control, to Acceptance and Letting Go
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Issue Date
2024-04
Authors
Knight, Lisa
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Volume Title
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Abstract
When children and youth with needle fears require urgent medical care, their parents face a dilemma: abstain from medical care or physically restrain their child to obtain it. This restraint can cause medical trauma and further exacerbate medical avoidance. This capstone aims to develop a trauma-informed psychological care framework to deliver specialized urgent care to this population. Symptom reduction is not an adequate goal of this treatment. If a client needs a needle procedure, they must tolerate their fear to avoid restraint. Using logic, or trying to change the way patients think about needles, fails to address the fight or flight reaction that is so pivotal to the phobic response. Chapter one explores the etiology and prevalence of needle phobia. Chapter two reviews the evolution of treatments for needle phobia and the factors that are present in the pediatric population, specifically analyzing the role of control versus acceptance in promoting treatment efficacy. Habituation to anxiety was once thought necessary for successful exposure therapy but has since been found not to reflect treatment success. Rather, expectancy violation and thought acceptance have been linked to better treatment outcomes. However, since 76% of needle phobia is the result of medical trauma, attention must focus on helping the patient feel safe before they can proceed with cognitive work. Chapter three guides counsellors to address needle fears with a treatment plan focused on trauma-informed, somatic-based exposure therapy. Included in the appendix is a resource that parents can bring with their children to their medical appointments to help support their child's ability to cope with needle fears while undergoing urgent medical treatments.
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Keywords
needle phobia , needle fears , exposure therapy , medical trauma
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States , openAccess