Lecturer in Applied Psychology Dr Liza Morton has co-written a compelling new book entitled Healing Hearts and Minds: A holistic approach to coping well with congenital heart disease about her own experiences living with a lifelong heart condition.
Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect in the UK, accounting for a third of all congenital conditions. Survival into adulthood for the one in every 125 babies who are born with CHD has improved by 70% since the 1940s.
In her book, Dr Morton, a Chartered Counselling Psychologist who joined Glasgow Caledonian University as a lecturer and researcher earlier this year, tells how she coped with the emotional and physical trauma associated with being born with CHD.
She explained: “CHD can impact every area of life. Besides any physical limitations, medical monitoring and interventions, being born with a heart condition can also impact on childhood experience, relationships, education, finances and social inclusion.
“Lifetime prevalence of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder is as high as 50% fifty for this population, much higher than the general population. Yet, psychological awareness and support remains poorly recognised or met.
“This is a gap I have felt since childhood. Born with complete heart block and a hole in my heart, I was fitted with my first cardiac pacemaker at 11-days-old in 1978, a world first at the time.
“I’ve depended on pioneering medical treatment since facing countless cardiac surgeries, treatments, and hospitalisations. By the age of just seven, I had been fitted with five pacemakers by thoracotomy.
“Early devices were set at a fixed rate limiting me physically and I was unable to take part in PE lessons, active play or keep up with my peers. I had open heart surgery to repair a hole in my heart when I was 13-years-old. Fitted with my 11th pacemaker a few years ago, I spent a month in hospital leading up to this surgery waiting on a surgical slot with a complex pacing team.
“I have lived as full a life as possible, but my health condition has impacted on every facet of it. Growing up, my family and I were not offered psychological support. My career as a Psychologist and researcher is motivated by a desire to make sense of my unusual life experiences and promote better understanding about the psychological impact of living with serious medical condition from childhood.”
It has also motivated her to write her new book Healing Hearts and Minds: A holistic approach to coping well with congenital heart disease’ published by Oxford University Press in New York with Tracy Livecchi, who was also born with CHD complications.
Dr Morton met Tracy, a licenced Clinical Social Worker working in private practice in Connecticut in the US, online.
She said: “Despite the ocean between us, and still having never met in person, we have spent the last few years writing the book that we have both been looking for and could not find.
“In our book, we explore our collective story as a medically new population and the potential psychological and emotional impact of living with a lifelong heart condition.
“We aim to promote hope, connection and to normalise an understandable response to the often cumulative, hidden daily barriers and life challenges we can face from infancy.”
The paperback will now be released on January 13, 2023 and costs £14.99. It is currently available for pre-order online from all major booksellers and Oxford University Press – https://global.oup.com/academic/product/healing-hearts-and-minds-9780197657287?cc=gb&lang=en&
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