Lesson 1516: Multidisciplinary Team Collaboration Approaches
Duration:75 minutes
Topic Introduction:
This course focuses on a crucial yet often confusing aspect of rehabilitation for conversion disorder/functional neurological disorder (FND): the multidisciplinary team collaboration pathway. Many people are referred back and forth between different departments during their medical journey: neurology to screen for structural lesions, psychiatry or psychosomatic medicine to assess emotions and trauma, rehabilitation to arrange physical/occupational therapy, speech therapy to support communication and swallowing, psychologists to assist with emotional and cognitive adjustment, and social workers and schools/workplaces to handle support and adaptation. This often feels like being "stuck in a rut, with no one truly understanding me." This course will not replace any medical decision-making, but rather help you understand: what each specialty is generally responsible for, their potential roles in the conversion disorder pathway, and how to weave seemingly disparate suggestions into a collaborative path that you can understand and steer yourself. We will discuss: which specialties might be involved in the initial assessment phase, the functional rehabilitation phase, and the long-term follow-up and relapse management phase; how to write your own "team map" and communication points while respecting real-world resource limitations, so you are no longer just passively drifting through the system, but gradually becoming an important member of the collaboration.
▲ AI Interaction: Create Your "Multidisciplinary Collaboration Map v1.0"“
Many people, during their treatment journey, are burdened with numerous test reports and outpatient cards, yet have never had the opportunity to organize these professional roles into a "map I can understand." This course invites you to work with AI to create your own "Multidisciplinary Collaboration Map v1.0." Please follow the steps below to write it:
① List the professional roles you have encountered or are currently encountering: such as neurologist, psychiatrist/psychosomatic physician, family physician/internal medicine physician, rehabilitation physician, physical/occupational therapist, speech therapist, clinical or counseling psychologist, social worker, school counselor, workplace HR/manager, etc. You can also include traditional/complementary medicine, as long as they actually exist.
② After each character, write 2-3 sentences: What do you currently understand as their "primary task" in your therapy? What are the things you most often say/are afraid to say in front of them? Have you received even the slightest bit of help from them in the past?
③ Try to roughly divide your rehabilitation path into three stages: initial assessment and exclusion of severe acute conditions, functional rehabilitation and stabilization of daily life, and long-term follow-up and relapse management. For each stage, write down: Which professionals do you feel are currently in place? Which roles, although you know are important, you haven't had the opportunity to engage with yet?
④ Choose 1-2 professions with whom you would like to strengthen collaboration (e.g., your most frequently seen attending physician, rehabilitation therapist, or psychologist), and write down 3 key issues you would like to discuss in the next meeting: these could be about understanding the diagnosis, how to align your goals, the possibility of referrals and information sharing, etc.
⑤ Finally, please write down your three concerns and three expectations regarding "multidisciplinary collaboration": Are you worried about conflicting information, afraid of being treated as a "troublesome case", or afraid that others will think you are asking for too much? What specific support do you hope to receive from the team?
After submission, AI will assist you in: ① clarifying these roles and stages; ② condensing a concise "collaboration map" for you; ③ generating a few explanatory sentences that can be used directly in clinics or meetings, allowing you to express your needs with more confidence.
○ Musical Guidance: Find your own main melody amidst multiple sounds.
When you're dealing with multiple specialties simultaneously, it's easy to be caught in a whirlwind of conflicting opinions, advice, and jargon: one doctor emphasizes neuroplasticity, another highlights emotions and trauma processing, yet another stresses rehabilitation frequency, and still others tell you to manage your sleep schedule, workload, and interpersonal boundaries. Over time, your brain feels like it's crammed with instruments without a conductor; every note is loud, but the overall direction is unclear. This lesson's musical exercises aim to provide you with a small window of time during this period of "multidisciplinary, multi-voiced" learning to ask just one question: "Amidst all these voices, what is the first small step I truly care about and am willing to take?"“
Practice Method: Choose an instrumental piece approximately 10–12 minutes long, with a clear and layered melody, but not overly rousing. Before playing, list 3–5 pieces of advice or suggestions that have recently been causing you confusion (e.g., "How many steps should I walk each day?", "Take positive action with your emotions", "Go back to class/work", "Rest and don't push yourself too hard", "Cooperate with medication and rehabilitation", etc.). During the first half of the music, simply close your eyes and let these "voices" appear in your mind in turn, acknowledging that they all stem from some attempt to care for you, rather than immediately judging "who is right and who is wrong".
As the music continues, ask yourself three questions: ① Of these suggestions, which is the small action I'm most capable of and willing to try first? ② Which is important, but lacks the resources to implement, requiring renegotiation with your professional or family members? ③ Which puts me under immense pressure or shame, and needs a gentler interpretation? As the music plays, jot down your answers in a few words on paper—not necessarily complete, just honest.
When you repeatedly practice distinguishing between "external multiple voices" and "internal actionable steps" in familiar melodies, you will gradually experience that you are not a passive object being pushed along by the team, but the main melody in this collaboration, while the voices of various professions can be regarded as different accompaniments.
○ Eastern Healing Tea: Brew a cup of Qingming tea for "Meeting and Communication Day"
In multidisciplinary collaborations, you sometimes face "meeting days"—perhaps meetings with your attending physician and family, communication meetings between the school and medical team, discussions about career adjustments, or having to repeatedly tell your story to different professionals in a short period. These days are incredibly demanding: you crave understanding yet fear being doubted or oversimplified. This course, respecting your physical condition and medical advice, draws inspiration from 24 types of Eastern healing teas, inviting you to prepare a cup of "Qingming Tea" for yourself before and after "communication and collaboration days."
You can choose a tea that makes you feel refreshed and not overly excited: such as a light green tea, white tea, or a blend of herbs that suits you (e.g., a touch of mint with chrysanthemum, or a fragrant oolong with a hint of floral notes). The principle is to help you maintain awareness and gentle clarity. Before a meeting or important communication, try to set aside 10 minutes to brew this tea, sit down, and take three small sips. With each sip, do only one thing: First sip, ask yourself, "What are the three things I most want the other person to know today?" Second sip, ask yourself, "What am I most afraid they will misunderstand or overlook?" Third sip, ask yourself, "If they cannot fully understand today, what bottom line am I still willing to hold back?"“
After the meeting ends, regardless of the outcome, you can brew or warm this cup of tea again and reflect on it: What moments today made me speak up for myself? What moments touched me but allowed me to persevere? What aspects need to be carefully considered later with AI or a therapist? This cup of tea is not about "performing perfectly" in the meeting, but rather a reminder that in complex multidisciplinary collaborations, you have the right to reserve a clear corner for your own inner stance.
○ Chinese Food Therapy: Use a bowl of soothing porridge to buffer the effects of "Collaboration Day"
Multidisciplinary collaboration often involves a great deal of information exchange and emotional fluctuations: you might see several specialists on the same day, or constantly travel between different institutions over a period of time. Many people say that the most tiring part isn't queuing or examinations, but rather each time they recount their medical history, are questioned about details, and face different interpretations and suggestions; by the time they get home, they're completely drained, and what to eat and how to eat becomes a burden. If their diet becomes chaotic again during these days, it's easy for both their physical and emotional health to plummet. This course, without replacing nutritional and medical advice, invites you to prepare a "soothing porridge" for yourself during "intensive collaborative periods," as a buffer zone after physical and mental exhaustion.
You can discuss suitable porridge combinations with your healthcare team: for example, a light millet and pumpkin porridge, a mild yam and lily porridge, a thin porridge with a small amount of lean meat or fish, or a delicate oatmeal and vegetable porridge. The key is not luxury, but "soft, easy to eat, and not overly stimulating," allowing your nervous system time to reconnect with your digestive system after being bombarded with a lot of information. It is recommended to prepare or pre-order this bowl of porridge before or after you know that "tomorrow is a multidisciplinary appointment day" or "today is an important meeting": eat a little before leaving home to prevent your blood sugar from dropping too low; and then have a proper dinner afterward to let your body know that "there is still someone to take care of you after the storm."
You can mark these days of intensive multidisciplinary collaboration in your calendar or journal, and write a note for yourself in the "Porridge of the Day" column: for example, "I'm very tired today, but I finished this bowl of porridge properly," or "Although I only ate half, I tried to eat each bite slowly." When you reserve this gentle space for your body on top of the team's schedule, you are telling yourself through concrete actions: I am not just a medical record or a case number, but a person who needs to be fed and settled.
Replenish energy
Settling down
Healing Recipes
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○ Theme Mandala: View the overall image of "multiple paths converging into the same center" (view, not draw).
Please choose a mandala that converges from multiple directions towards the center, forming a radial or petal-like structure. Observe it, do not draw it. You can think of the center of the mandala as "you as a complete person," while each line or petal extending from the outside in symbolizes various professions, family members, schools, workplaces, and self-help resources—all pointing towards the same center, but approaching from different angles.
While watching, first focus your gaze on one of the lines or a petal, and imagine it as a professional role that currently impresses you most strongly: perhaps it's the doctor whose diagnosis shocked you, the therapist who accompanies you during practice, or a family member or teacher with a complex attitude. Allow the associated emotions to briefly surface, and then gently say to yourself, "You are one path, but not the whole."“
Next, slowly move your gaze along the pattern toward the center. Once you reach the center, don't linger too long. Instead, deliberately move your gaze from the center to another, completely different pattern—symbolizing another profession, another kind of support, a gentler voice. You can repeat this process several times: walk from one line to the center, and then walk from the center to another line, experiencing "the same me is being approached by many different paths," rather than "I am being cut into many versions."
If you have deep anger or disappointment with the healthcare system or certain professions, you can stop at a certain circle of patterns, silently say these words to that circle, and then let your gaze continue to expand outward, reminding yourself: beyond these imperfect, even hurtful experiences, there are still people and methods that are trying to get closer to you.
Mandala is not about drawing something, but about observing: observing how you gradually see a larger picture from just staring at a hurtful point; observing how you put "my complete self" back at the center among multiple paths.
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○ Chinese Calligraphy - Clerical Script Practice: "All roads lead to one heart, just to take care of me"
The practice sentences for the clerical script in this lesson are:
“"Everyone is of one mind, just to take care of me."”
When facing multidisciplinary collaboration, you may often feel dissected: in neurology, it's a set of test results; in psychiatry, it's a history of emotions and trauma; in rehabilitation, it's a particular gait or movement pattern; in psychology, it's a story; and at school or work, it's a "special need" or "performance issue." This course uses the clerical script as a medium, allowing you to write a new self-positioning with each stroke: ideally, all these paths should point to the same goal—caring for "this complete self."
When writing the four characters “众路同心” (meaning “all roads lead to one heart”), you can recall all the professional and support systems you have ever encountered, regardless of whether the experience was good or bad. Allow them to briefly line up in your mind, and then gently converge them in the same direction with each horizontal stroke and wave. When writing the six characters “只为照顾这个我” (meaning “only to take care of this me”), please deliberately slow down the three characters “这个我” (meaning “this me”), making the characters slightly more open, as if you are making room for yourself on the paper: this “me” is not a diagnostic label, not a functional score, not a “case” in other people’s words, but a person who needs to be respected and heard.
Once completed, you can paste this sentence in clerical script on the first page of your medical folder, rehabilitation record book, or psychology course notes. Whenever you are torn between different opinions and don't know who to listen to, take a look at this sentence and let it remind you: above all the professional language and systematic processes, you have the right to ask the most important question—"Has all of this truly taken better care of me?"“
○ Guided Art Therapy: A Diagram of My "Collaborative Roundtable"
Draw a large circle on a piece of paper and think of it as a "collaborative round table." Write "I (including body, emotions, and life)" at the center. Then draw 6–10 small ovals or seats around the circumference, and write the current or future role for each seat: for example, neurologist, psychiatrist/psychopathologist, rehabilitation team, psychologist, social worker, family representative, school counselor or mentor, workplace representative, peer support, etc.
Next, write a sentence next to each seat describing your ideal role at the table, such as: "Neurologist—to confirm my safety and explain how the brain works," "Psychologist—to help me understand my emotions and beliefs," "Rehabilitation therapist—to design a path for my body to relearn," "Family member—to learn how to accompany rather than pressure," etc. If the current reality is far from your ideal, you can honestly write: "The relationship is currently strained," "Resources are currently limited," "I don't know how to cooperate yet."
Then, use lines of different colors or thicknesses to connect from the center to each seat: the thicker the line, the more stable the connection feels; the thinner or dashed the line, the weaker the connection or the still-forming one. You can also write on the edge of the diagram: Which two lines do I most want to strengthen first? Who would I like to sit further away for a while to give me some breathing room? Which important empty space do I feel is missing (e.g., "my own voice")?
This "collaborative roundtable" isn't about changing the entire system immediately, but about showing you that even in imperfect reality, you can still arrange your own seating on paper and practice reserving a chair for yourself in your mind—that table should always have a place for "yourself," not just for how others define you.
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Lesson 1516 - Log Guidance
① Write down the professional and supportive roles you have encountered in your current therapeutic journey (including medical, rehabilitation, psychological, school/work, family, etc.), and briefly describe your feelings towards each of them: trust, anxiety, ambiguity, complexity, etc.
② Try to describe in 5–8 sentences: “If you imagine all these people sitting at the same table, what are they talking about? Is anyone particularly loud? Is anyone rarely heard?”
③ Write down the two roles you most want to prioritize in terms of collaboration, and draft three sentences for each of them that you would like to say at the next meeting: these could be questions, expectations, boundaries, or requests for help.
④ Honestly write down three things that make you sad or angry about the medical and collaborative system, and one or two resources or moments that you still see worth preserving in these experiences (such as an understanding expression or a conversation where you are listened to attentively).
⑤ Finally, write 3-5 sentences to your future self who is lost among multiple opinions again: What do you want to remind them of? What specific little thing are you willing to promise them (e.g., write down your confusion and take it to the clinic, calm yourself with tea and music before a meeting, stop just nodding in silence)?
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When you're willing to see more than just isolated clinic visits and solutions, but instead create your own collaborative map through writing and AI, distinguish between multiple external voices and feasible internal steps in music, buffer the weariness of a collaborative day with Eastern healing tea and a bowl of soothing porridge, observe how multiple paths converge into the same center in a mandala, write "All roads lead to one heart, all for the sake of caring for me" in clerical script, and arrange a "collaborative roundtable" for all professions and yourself in a painting, you're no longer just a medical record passed around in the system, but gradually become a co-decision-maker on this multidisciplinary path, fighting for more space to be understood and seen amidst the ups and downs of transition barriers.
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