Alimentación salud y cultura - SANHISO C. International health and ...

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Diversos autores
The care of the self and the family moral obligations
Besides familiarizing diabetics with a set of values which can give
support to their caring practices in their social environments, the
educational activities of the association evokes some of the modern
life values.
The association’s psychotherapy groups compose the set of strategies
by which diabetics learn how to deal with diabetes. The objective
of these groups is to constitute spaces for the expression of
the most personal and intimate dimensions of their members. The
psychotherapy groups’ practices are directed to the treatment of the
«emotional» field, which is considered one of the factors that affect
the diabetic’s health condition.
The perspective that legitimates the professionals’ acting in the
association is based on certain representations concerning the relation
between emotional and physiologic manifestations in the body.
These representations are proposed to the diabetic members through
advice about forms of taking care of themselves, which guide the attention
towards a set of issues that – although not organic, corporal or
physical in its nature but psychological, emotional or mental – should
compose the range of concerns about the care with the diabetes.
I selected some themes developed by the psychologist in her interaction
with the members during the discussions about their personal
experiences that were shared in the group’s sessions. The idea
is to exploit some suggestions by which the diabetics are advised
in order to deal with their way of being, and then to cope with the
problems that they complain about. So, it is possible to improve the
understanding about the association’s proposal for how the diabetics
should take care of themselves.
«Learning to be alone with the others». That was the idea I came
across when I was trying to understand the ethic that characterizes
the good diabetic’s profile. Some excerpts of the groups’ discussions
led me to that: «Nobody asks for somebody to die with»; «You are born
alone and die alone»; «Nobody takes care of anybody, the only one that
takes care of you is yourself». These assertions were part of a discussion
about solitude. Once during a group psychotherapy session the
ideas of «taking care of the self» and «making decisions» were pointed