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Jaelline Jaffe, PhD, LMFT
Jaelline Jaffe, PhD, received her doctorate from USC in 1985, and has been a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist since 1976. Her website, LemonAidCounseling.com, was developed to address the emotional aspects of medical conditions, including rare disorders. Her doctoral dissertation concerned the relationship between sexual language and sexual experience. Dr. Jaffe is a recognized expert in treating misophonia and other sound sensitivity disorders. She holds several California teaching and counseling credentials, and developed many innovative programs in the public school system for 40years. She has offered presentations to numerous organizations on a wide variety of topics, many concerning medical and emotional conditions.
Can a patient be referred to a therapist for a custody evaluation based on the legal system's belief that parent is abusive, when actually the child might have a genetic or other disorder? Such misdiagnoses can have dramatic effects on people's lives, such as a parent being incarcerated for child abuse when the child actually has a medical disorder that caused their physical symptoms. Clients are often misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder when they actually have a medical condition. Also, patients are often diagnosed with medical conditions without consideration of the psychological/emotional impact on their lives and relationships.
What about the painful emotional problems that can arise from medical issues that the client is embarrassed to discuss, especially those with sexual or bodily processes involved. We cannot assist them in dealing with the emotional side of these issues if we are unaware of or uncomfortable with raising these issues ourselves.
Our minds, brains, and bodies are connected. To approach treatment of one aspect without the others taken into account is limited thinking and may actually do more harm than good. This presentation will highlight a number of medical issues that may bring clients to a therapist's office -- sometimes sent by their physicians who erroneously believe their patient is experiencing a psychological issue, rather than a medical problem. We will also discuss several emotional aspects that need to be considered when addressing medical conditions. Many real-life shocking examples from recent news reports, as well as from the presenter's client files, will be used to illustrate these concepts.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
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