Question:
Need your input on pre ans post op professional counseling for WLS

Jo Ann again. Doing more research for dissertation. Remember I have had surgery as you have. What is your opinion on the need for professional counseling (of any tupe) pre and post op WLS. I really need your opinions. Email me at [email protected] Thanks    — Jo Ann A. (posted on July 12, 1999)

July 12, 1999
I think a light pre-op session just to determine if a person has the basic stability is needed. It would also be good if the shrink understood post-op needs to prepare a person for what is coming.
   — Ken C.

July 13, 1999
Psychiatric/psychological counselling is totally dependent on the individual. Obesity has no relationship to mental difficulties. If a person has anxieties and wants counselling, those anxieties will be there surgery or not. If a person has clinical depression, weight has nothing to do with it. If a person has situational or reactive depression due to weight, then surgery will cure that. The census of opinion according to the latest Bariatric surgery conventions is that there is no difference, psychiatrically, between obese and non-obese patients. So the same proportion of people in the thin world needing counselling, can be found in the obese world... and the loss of weight will not affect that need for counselling. In other words, if you needed it before surgery, then you need it after surgery.
   — Deborah L.

September 24, 1999
Hi. I don't know what is usually done for post-ops (I'm still pre-op; pre-consult, in fact), but I know what I'd welcome: Grief/Forgiveness work for myself as my body changes. I think it's important, because I believe that in order for us to heal completely, we also need to grieve the loss of the "old" person, including the weight, which for some of us provided a safety net as well as major health hazards. With that in mind comes the forgiveness work. To forgive one's self for having an illness, for becoming and remaining fat for so long, for isolating one's self from life, etc., etc. I know that in the past, whenever I lost major amounts of weight, I felt like I also lost myself. I think the post-op therapeutic support would be at least as important as the pre-op support. Just my $0.05. (inflation, you know. :) )
   — kmcgarghan

September 24, 1999
By the way (think of it as a separate question) I'd love other people's opinions about what I said about grief, forgiveness, and 'losing yourself'. Thanks!
   — kmcgarghan