Filling you in :)

Ok so for the duration on the psychosocial prac, each student is meant to be working with two clients simultaneously. From my previous blog entry I had introduced to you one of my clients. And on the second week our supervisor had assigned us one more client, meaning I have been engaging in treatment sessions with my 2 clients for the past week.

My second client was a 68 years old white female who has been living at the lodge for more than 20 years. I say was because she recently hasn’t been feeling well and so was admitted to hospital and has been undergoing tests because the doctors suspect that she has cancer of the throat L. She had previously mentioned to me that her throat had been giving her problems, but I hadn’t suspected much because she had been recovering from the flu, only to find out a week later that the discomfort she had been feeling could possibly be cancer of the throat/esophagusL. So unfortunately I’ve had to be allocated a new client prematurely.

In the mean time I have been working with my higher functioning 33 year old client and have figured out her difficulties and why it would have be a tad bit difficult to try and get her into the community. Not just getting her into the community but getting her in the community and expecting her to function within reasonable expectations even with her diagnosis. My long term aim with her was to get her into the open labour market at the PnP Hyper that’s really close to the lodge. Now to me this didn’t seem farfetched because she presented to be very competent in her duties at the lodge (these entailed kitchen duties of sweeping and mopping the floor. Preparing the dining room tables, washing dishes after meals and helping out with tea). I constantly would ask myself what could be the possible hindrance for this client if she were to work into the open labour market. She seems competent enough in the work she is already assigned too and has good social skills. Light bulb moment was only when we did a money management game. It became so clear to me that she would crumble under the pressure of the outside world.  She presented with no concept or worth of money and a simple addition proved to be too abstract for her. So imagine if she got hired and would have to deal with managing a sum of money each month when she can barely cope with a R100 note. I wanted to burry myself for having missed that. I realized I would have been so selfish by doing so because I would have been ignoring all signs and reasons of why she hasn’t possibly been able to do that before. I would have just focused on my own pursuits and focused on testing my capabilities as a student. Because you have to admit, doing this would have been a huge accomplishment for me and I would have felt worthy and would have developed a trust in my abilities. But how would this have helped my client? Really, How? Instead, I would have perpetuated and exacerbated all insecurities and in capabilities she has known about herself.  And left her in so world daunting and overwhelming to cope with. I would have been setting my client up for failure because I would have been expecting too much from her.  So even though she is high functioning I have to remember that it’s within the context she finds herself in and it doesn’t necessarily reflect her capabilities in the outside world. With that said I have slightly shifted my train of thought and am hoping to expand her capabilities within the facility. Why not make her great at what she’s good at?

 Today I got two new clients.  One is female and presents to have mild intellectual impairment and has been residing at the lodge for 11 years. And I have a clear picture of what my focus will be with her, because she takes her work very seriously and values her duties at the lodge, my plan with her will be to expand and explore possible leisure pursuits that can add meaning to the life she is currently living because she too is one of the higher functioning individuals. And the other is interestingly a high functioning male (who had to drop out medical school due to his diagnosis) and is presenting to be in the residual phase of treatment. I just had a brief introductory session with him and he seemed just a bit hesitant to want and work with me but promised to try. Out of all the cases presented to me thus far, it would be interesting to work with him and find out how he defines himself amongst others within the facility because as others may be high functioning most of them are there to be presenting with intellectual disabilities. Whereas him on the other hand, it’s more of a chemical imbalance of the brain which he himself could possible explain to me about. I hope I am able to maintain my role as a student therapist with this client and not find myself too intimidated that it becomes a problem during therapy sessions.

All in all im loving my stay at the lodge, i'm loving the grils im with (My class mates). They provide me with support (we support and help eachother when one needs help). I just need to remember not to lose track of my clients needs because ultimately they are the ones i'm offering my service too, and i could never go wrong if my sessions are client specific.