家庭照顧者運用新巴赫花精療法之經驗探究

隨著長期照護政策的發展，近年來有越來越多人開始關注到家庭照顧者，然而他們往往因長久的照顧活動，形成身心上的負荷，隨著另類療法逐漸盛行，新巴赫花精療法正是可以改善情緒以及平穩身心狀況的一種療癒方式，而過往較少有研究聚焦在將新巴赫花精療法使用在家庭照顧者上，因此本研究依循敘事探究派典之精神，藉由立意抽樣與滾雪球抽樣的方式，招募到三位在照顧家庭成員期間曾運用新巴赫花精療法一個月以上的研究參與者，探究家庭照顧者在照顧過程的經歷以及瞭解他們使用新巴赫花精療法對於照顧上的幫助與經驗為何。在研究中發現家庭照顧者的照顧經歷與過往文獻大致相同，但在照顧負荷上則看見越常使用情緒焦點因應策略並不一定會增加負擔，另外本研究亦增加了新的面向，如新冠疫情的挑戰與衝擊以及家庭照顧者在不同場域照顧所得到的優勢之處。在家庭照顧者使用新巴赫花精療法的經驗上，則看見當他們在照顧的投入程度越多以及被照顧者的病況加重時，常常會使他們感到疲憊感與擔心家人，而在使用花精時便會偏向選擇橄欖、橡樹以及紅栗花花精以緩解上述情況，反之當照顧負荷較輕時，則會傾向使用處理自身長期的情緒或人格議題的花精配方。除此之外，本研究也發現到當自身的情緒較為龐大嚴重時，在使用花精之外搭配花精乳霜塗抹在相對應的皮膚反應區，能夠加成減緩情緒上所帶來的困擾與阻礙。最後根據本研究之結果，給予家庭照顧者、助人工作者以及未來的研究者一些方向與建議作參考。

關鍵字

新巴赫花精療法；家庭照顧者；新巴赫花精皮膚反應區

並列摘要

With the development of long-term care policies, more and more people have begun to pay attention to family caregivers in recent years. However, family caregivers’ long-term care activities often lead to a physical and psychological load. With alternative therapies gradually being widely used, New Bach Flower Remedies is precisely a healing method to improve mood and stabilize the physical and mental conditions. In the past, few studies have applied the New Bach Flower Remedies to family caregivers. Therefore, this study is based on the paradigm of narrative inquiry. Methods of snowball sampling and purposive sampling were adopted, and three participants who had used New Bach Flower Remedies for more than one month were recruited. This study aims to explore the experience of family caregivers in the care process and understand their use of New Bach Flower Remedies during their caring period. In the study, it is found that the caregiving experience of family caregivers is roughly the same as in the previous literature, but in terms of care-load, it is seen that the use of emotion-focused coping strategies does not increase the burden. In addition, this study also adds new aspects such as challenges and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the advantages of family caregivers in different fields of care. It can be seen that when family caregivers were more engaged in care and faced the situation that care receiver's condition got worse, they tended to feel tired and worry about the state of their family members. Therefore, when they used flower essences, they preferred to choose olive, oak and red chestnut flower essences to alleviate the situation mentioning above. Moreover, when the care-load was light, they tended to use flower essences to cope with their stress and anxiety. In addition, this study also found that when an individual addressed significant psychological distress, using flower essence and applying flower essence cream to the corresponding New Bach Flower Skin Zones could add to alleviate the emotional distress and hindrance. Based on the results of this study, some directions and suggestions are given to family caregivers, professional helpers and future researchers.