| In recent years, the survival rate for hospitalized patients with severe burn injuries has steadily increased. Particularly among those patients most seriously injured, with burns over 83% of their body (Bianchi, 1997), the chance of survival has risen, due mostly to advancing medical knowledge and technology. This means that more patients with severe burn injuries are surviving with intensified disability, disfigurement and psychological consequences. In fact, most researchers in the field of burn injury agree that almost every significant burn injury will produce a psychological response. With an increasing number of patients surviving with severe burn injuries, there is an overwhelming need for psychiatric and psychological services for adult patients with sustained burn injuries.; This study presents a discussion on therapeutic interventions for adult burn patients in an attempt to provide general practicing psychologists with a thorough review and treatment guideline of current therapeutic techniques with burn patients. The proposed treatment guidelines are established by linking existing psychological techniques with the current growing needs of adult burn patients in the post-hospitalization phase of recovery. This has been achieved in three phases. First, this study reviews the current burn literature involving stages and processes of medical and psychological rehabilitation in the initial treatment phases of a burn patient. Second, this study presents a range of past and current psychological treatment strategies for the burn patient 1–2 year post-hospitalization. Third, this study provides treatment guidelines in the form of a discussion which creatively extrapolates from other theoretical models to synthesize new assessment and intervention techniques which may be of use to psychologists working with burn patients. The treatment guidelines are theoretically based in three well known psychological methodologies; Psychodynamic Theory, Cognitive Behavioral Theory, and Existential-Humanistic Theory.; The treatment guidelines are presented and then summarized in four tables entitled Summary of [Psychodynamic], [Cognitive Behavioral], [Existential-Humanistic], and [General] therapy interventions with burn patients. A final discussion section presents themes which were found to be of common importance across methodologies. Themes related to the physical body and the symbolic body, the promotion of activity and self care, and the assessment of countertransference are identified as common among the various interventions proposed. Lastly, there is evidence within all three methodological protocols that an overriding commonality of intervention includes an imminent shift in emphasis from the physical to everything which lies beyond the patient's skin. |
