Do you remember I mentioned Roberta?
Well the other day, Roberta was asked to make corrections to a very basic math problem. She has administered this test a million and a half times. Well because she only has 2 brain cells to begin with, on this particular day these 2 brain cells were clearly not communicating with one another.
On this particular test she needed to round the test result number to the hundredth place. Well she actually rounded it to the tenth place and when her error was called out, I shit you not, this was her explanation:
"Oh well I thought I was supposed to round to the hundredth place and I know I've done it many times before so I know what I'm doing so the hundredth place is the digit after the decimal point so I don't know what I did wrong"
No joke. I do not exaggerate. And yes, she spoke it that way fully equip without punctuation. And if you were present you would've witnessed her head bobbing side-to-side as she said this.
Clearly I must've missed something in the first grade because I thought the digit after the decimal point is the tenth place. Guess I was wrong....
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Insomnia
I think insomnia is quite common.
The strangest thoughts pop into your head when you lay there at 3am and can't get back to sleep. I for one ruminate about work, things I need to do, and random/bizarre and utterly disturbing thoughts. For example, if I were a serial killer, what kind would I be? Is that strange?
The strangest TV shows are also on at this time and it makes me think, who in the world is up at this hour watching this??? There is so much crap out there and it makes me think of how commercialism and consumerism has really warped our minds. Who really needs a Shamwa, or the outdoor window polisher, or another ab crunch? Then there is the SkyMall catalog.....so much more crap in there!!! Now, to be honest, I've purchased quite a few products from SkyMall and via TV infomercials....let's see, here are a few things:
Whomever came up with the idea of late night infomercials is genius though.....I wonder if they themselves came up with the idea during one of their bouts of insomnia.....
Oh, then there are the bizarre TV shows.....I watched one about rodents and bugs that end up in our food supply and how the FDA actually has guidelines with allowable amounts of rodent and/or bug parts/byproducts per volume of commercially produced food.....can you believe that???? What in the world???? If the FDA (our own government) allows these things to happen what else do they allow that we don't even know about????
Geesh....now I understand the push for eating fresh, raw goods right off the vine or even freshly squeezed milk, or basically fresh anything that hasn't touched a conveyor belt or is being mass produced!
The strangest thoughts pop into your head when you lay there at 3am and can't get back to sleep. I for one ruminate about work, things I need to do, and random/bizarre and utterly disturbing thoughts. For example, if I were a serial killer, what kind would I be? Is that strange?
The strangest TV shows are also on at this time and it makes me think, who in the world is up at this hour watching this??? There is so much crap out there and it makes me think of how commercialism and consumerism has really warped our minds. Who really needs a Shamwa, or the outdoor window polisher, or another ab crunch? Then there is the SkyMall catalog.....so much more crap in there!!! Now, to be honest, I've purchased quite a few products from SkyMall and via TV infomercials....let's see, here are a few things:
- A flat iron full of cool minerals pushed by Carmen Electra....can't tell you if I even see a difference
- a memory foam pillow top....loved this for many years
- a pet frontpack to carry my cat around......never used it even once
- a pet vac (supposedly quiet so it wouldn't scare pets)......didn't work...loud as anything
- bra clips so that I can wear tanks without my straps revealing
- cleavage covers so that my boobs don't hang out in the front when wearing low cut tops
Whomever came up with the idea of late night infomercials is genius though.....I wonder if they themselves came up with the idea during one of their bouts of insomnia.....
Oh, then there are the bizarre TV shows.....I watched one about rodents and bugs that end up in our food supply and how the FDA actually has guidelines with allowable amounts of rodent and/or bug parts/byproducts per volume of commercially produced food.....can you believe that???? What in the world???? If the FDA (our own government) allows these things to happen what else do they allow that we don't even know about????
Geesh....now I understand the push for eating fresh, raw goods right off the vine or even freshly squeezed milk, or basically fresh anything that hasn't touched a conveyor belt or is being mass produced!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Clueless
I think everyone has had this experience.
A fellow co-worker who is so clueless (not maliciously) to the world & even of their own selves. I work with I will call her Roberta. She has a graduate degree in psychology but she doesn't even know how to conduct a clinical interview. She doesn't know how to obtain a history of a person. Even if you tell her to proceed as if she were the patient's biographer and ask anything and everything to really get to know who the person is that is sitting in front of her, she still doesn't know what to do.
Last week she was told to work on a certain project and told her "this is priority". Now I assume that most people with even basic sense and knowledge, say with a high school education at least, would know what this means right?
Well I could not be more wrong. Apparently according to Roberta, "this is priority" means "let me do something completely different from what you asked me so I can be proactive on a completely irrelevant project so you can praise me". Then when she was asked about the status of the original project she was assigned to do, her reply was "well you didn't give me a deadline".
Roberta is clueless. Don't get me wrong, she isn't malicious in her mindlessness. Her mind is vacuous, she lacks common sense and she simply just doesn't get it.
She arrives to work late (probably because the 2 brain cells she has delays her ability to put on shoes). When asked why she did something utterly dumb at work, her replies usually entails something of this nature: "Oh, I don't know", "Oh I forgot", "Oh I didn't know that is what you meant", "Oh I didn't think it was a big deal".
Man, how nice it would be to walk around with a frame of mind like that. Must be nice.
A fellow co-worker who is so clueless (not maliciously) to the world & even of their own selves. I work with I will call her Roberta. She has a graduate degree in psychology but she doesn't even know how to conduct a clinical interview. She doesn't know how to obtain a history of a person. Even if you tell her to proceed as if she were the patient's biographer and ask anything and everything to really get to know who the person is that is sitting in front of her, she still doesn't know what to do.
Last week she was told to work on a certain project and told her "this is priority". Now I assume that most people with even basic sense and knowledge, say with a high school education at least, would know what this means right?
Well I could not be more wrong. Apparently according to Roberta, "this is priority" means "let me do something completely different from what you asked me so I can be proactive on a completely irrelevant project so you can praise me". Then when she was asked about the status of the original project she was assigned to do, her reply was "well you didn't give me a deadline".
Roberta is clueless. Don't get me wrong, she isn't malicious in her mindlessness. Her mind is vacuous, she lacks common sense and she simply just doesn't get it.
She arrives to work late (probably because the 2 brain cells she has delays her ability to put on shoes). When asked why she did something utterly dumb at work, her replies usually entails something of this nature: "Oh, I don't know", "Oh I forgot", "Oh I didn't know that is what you meant", "Oh I didn't think it was a big deal".
Man, how nice it would be to walk around with a frame of mind like that. Must be nice.
Monday, November 9, 2009
People with whom I have worked (Part 1)
I have completed several different internships at several different clinics and hospitals. Sometimes my supervisor was batty as a loon and sometimes my fellow interns were even more bizarre.
My most memorable internship was one I completed in my last year of graduate school....
The setting was an inpatient psychiatric hospital on the East coast. The hospital housed civil and forensic severely mentally ill patients with psychiatric diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, to those dually diagnosed with a substance abuse/dependence issue coupled with another psychiatric disorder. (I know, more technical jargon...blah, blah, blah)
So in my internship year there were 10 total interns, and 4 post-graduate fellows. 5 interns were in the forensic track and 5 civil, though 2 civil interns were lucky enough to receive a placement in the neuropsychology track and were able to see forensic patient's. (I happened to be 1 of those lucky ones).
During this intern year, we were required to attend weekly training meetings. These trainings ranged from assessment to group therapy to multi-cultural and diversity training. (This was my most favorite-ist.....note the sarcasm).
In this so-called multicultural and diversity training meetings, our facilitator (I will call him Dr M) was an African-American male who was the first in his family to earn a doctorate (though his parents both held Master's degree). He emphasized his "expertise" in knowing and understanding the hardships of his fellow African-Americans in the United States. Though I never could understand how he could personally identify with the experiences of other African-Americans (as he so often reminded us and stressed) given that he grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, never wanted for anything, and never had to worry where his next month's rent money would come from, let alone how he was going to put food on the table.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do not personally know what it is like to grow up as an African-American in the United States, but at the same time, I do not pretend to know what it's like, nor do I pretend to know what it's like to walk in the shoes of another person who comes from a similar background as mine. I just don't understand how a person can say they "know what it's like" to be a person from a certain racial/ethnic/cultural background when they actually haven't even lived a day like it. Perhaps they think they are talking about empathy, but in this case, I seriously doubt it.
Dr M had a chip on his shoulder. He felt he was robbed from certain experiences due to the color of skin (did I mention he was quite fair skinned). He felt he was discriminated against while walking in certain neighborhoods (the man lived in what was equivalent to Beverly Hills). He felt he would never hold top positions in corporate America (did I mention that he was Director of something or other and Assistant Dean at the local university...which was almost an Ivy League in that area).
Long story short, his preaching and prattling on and on about recognizing diversity and appreciating it would've been received better had he not attempted to reinforce that he was such an expert at knowing what it's like to be discriminated against when it seemed he was capitalizing on the very thing he said not to do.
Whatever happened to practice what you preach? Or is this a perfect example of those who can't do, teach?
My most memorable internship was one I completed in my last year of graduate school....
The setting was an inpatient psychiatric hospital on the East coast. The hospital housed civil and forensic severely mentally ill patients with psychiatric diagnoses ranging from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, to those dually diagnosed with a substance abuse/dependence issue coupled with another psychiatric disorder. (I know, more technical jargon...blah, blah, blah)
So in my internship year there were 10 total interns, and 4 post-graduate fellows. 5 interns were in the forensic track and 5 civil, though 2 civil interns were lucky enough to receive a placement in the neuropsychology track and were able to see forensic patient's. (I happened to be 1 of those lucky ones).
During this intern year, we were required to attend weekly training meetings. These trainings ranged from assessment to group therapy to multi-cultural and diversity training. (This was my most favorite-ist.....note the sarcasm).
In this so-called multicultural and diversity training meetings, our facilitator (I will call him Dr M) was an African-American male who was the first in his family to earn a doctorate (though his parents both held Master's degree). He emphasized his "expertise" in knowing and understanding the hardships of his fellow African-Americans in the United States. Though I never could understand how he could personally identify with the experiences of other African-Americans (as he so often reminded us and stressed) given that he grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, never wanted for anything, and never had to worry where his next month's rent money would come from, let alone how he was going to put food on the table.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do not personally know what it is like to grow up as an African-American in the United States, but at the same time, I do not pretend to know what it's like, nor do I pretend to know what it's like to walk in the shoes of another person who comes from a similar background as mine. I just don't understand how a person can say they "know what it's like" to be a person from a certain racial/ethnic/cultural background when they actually haven't even lived a day like it. Perhaps they think they are talking about empathy, but in this case, I seriously doubt it.
Dr M had a chip on his shoulder. He felt he was robbed from certain experiences due to the color of skin (did I mention he was quite fair skinned). He felt he was discriminated against while walking in certain neighborhoods (the man lived in what was equivalent to Beverly Hills). He felt he would never hold top positions in corporate America (did I mention that he was Director of something or other and Assistant Dean at the local university...which was almost an Ivy League in that area).
Long story short, his preaching and prattling on and on about recognizing diversity and appreciating it would've been received better had he not attempted to reinforce that he was such an expert at knowing what it's like to be discriminated against when it seemed he was capitalizing on the very thing he said not to do.
Whatever happened to practice what you preach? Or is this a perfect example of those who can't do, teach?
Background
Bare with me as this may get technical and even quite boring at times.....
In preparation for being a fully licensed mental health professional, grad students complete traineeships/practicums/internships....whatever they are called (depending on the graduate degree you are seeking) in order to "practice" the craft while supervised by an already licensed practitioner.
In these practice settings you are at the mercy of the theoretical orientation your supervisor practices themselves in their own clinical practices and this can range from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), narrative therapy, person-centered therapy, existential therapy, systems theory, and on and on and on.
I was trained in the theoretical orientation known as psychodynamic. This came forth out of psychoanalysis, in which Freud and his predecessors are the theorists taught and their techniques are followed, though the frequency of meetings is not as often as 5x/week. Psychodynamic theory focuses on the transference relationship between the therapist and patient with the expectation that the patient will "re-enact" early childhood dynamics they experienced with their primary caregivers in the therapy room in a repetition-compulsion type behavior in hopes of working through unresolved early conflicts. This is believed to happen throughout all relationships (both in and out of therapy) of the patient but in the therapy room, the dynamic can be processed and understood.
There are no accidents in the therapy room. Every action, every inaction, every slip of the tongue, every bat of an eyelash, every switching of sitting position, everything that is/isn't said, every yawn, every instance of "forgetting", EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN is grist for the meal and analyzed for the sake of understanding the underlying meaning for it did/didn't happen.
All of this leads to the discussion of familiar patterns in the patient's life where these very same behaviors are occurring, again, in order to "work through" the meaning behind them and what purpose they serve.
That in a nutshell is psychodynamic work. I could go on and on about this, but then again, I am not attempting to write a dissertation here.
In preparation for being a fully licensed mental health professional, grad students complete traineeships/practicums/internships....whatever they are called (depending on the graduate degree you are seeking) in order to "practice" the craft while supervised by an already licensed practitioner.
In these practice settings you are at the mercy of the theoretical orientation your supervisor practices themselves in their own clinical practices and this can range from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), narrative therapy, person-centered therapy, existential therapy, systems theory, and on and on and on.
I was trained in the theoretical orientation known as psychodynamic. This came forth out of psychoanalysis, in which Freud and his predecessors are the theorists taught and their techniques are followed, though the frequency of meetings is not as often as 5x/week. Psychodynamic theory focuses on the transference relationship between the therapist and patient with the expectation that the patient will "re-enact" early childhood dynamics they experienced with their primary caregivers in the therapy room in a repetition-compulsion type behavior in hopes of working through unresolved early conflicts. This is believed to happen throughout all relationships (both in and out of therapy) of the patient but in the therapy room, the dynamic can be processed and understood.
There are no accidents in the therapy room. Every action, every inaction, every slip of the tongue, every bat of an eyelash, every switching of sitting position, everything that is/isn't said, every yawn, every instance of "forgetting", EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN is grist for the meal and analyzed for the sake of understanding the underlying meaning for it did/didn't happen.
All of this leads to the discussion of familiar patterns in the patient's life where these very same behaviors are occurring, again, in order to "work through" the meaning behind them and what purpose they serve.
That in a nutshell is psychodynamic work. I could go on and on about this, but then again, I am not attempting to write a dissertation here.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Introduction
My name is Fiona and I work in the field of mental health. Many people think it must be an easy job to "just sit and listen all day". But unless you're knee deep in the field, people really don't know the unfolding daily dramas, the various people we encounter in any given day, and how often times the people behind the desk & the doctor's coat is not far off from the very patient they work with.
I'm here to share a glimmering into a day in a life of a mental health worker.
I'm here to share a glimmering into a day in a life of a mental health worker.
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