GET ON THE TRAIN!

Sanibonani bafw2! ;)

Bringing such to your awareness, I begin my psychosocial block at North Bay Lodge on the 13^th August 2013 which is the upcoming Tuesday. So in order to prepare us, we have been receiving lectures on issues such as Substance abuse, Personality disorders, Mood disorders and schizophrenia. Other lectures are still coming up and we will be receiving them during the days that we are not on prac. So to further prepare us we had a compulsory mock prac lecture that took place on Wednesday, which was aimed to help us gain confidence about the upcoming block.

“Never regard your study as a duty, but as the inevitable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of your community to which your later work belongs” Albert Einstein. This was the opening quote to the lecture, a quote chosen and uploaded by one of my classmates on her blog. We reflected about this quote and it quickly reminded us about what the focus of our practice should be as students. This quote leads us into understanding that even though we are students and are mostly focused on getting our grades and graduating.  We need not forget that we are hampering with the everyday lives of individuals in hope to make it more meaningful. Therefore every step of the way, we need to be mindful, exposed and ready to experience each step of the way so that we don’t find ourselves wondering where the past two years have gone.  And end up missing the little moments that make life worth it.

We went on to watch videos that were also focused on helping us view life with just a little bit of a minds edge. We watched a video about Mental Health Care in Africa, a video about what Motivates us and my favorite (view it if you may) Buddha on the Train - YouTube . If you can’t watch it, let me try and paint the picture for you. This video is about a man on a train; imagine a train filled with people filled to point that some people are even standing. Each one of them minding their own business; some are reading a book, newspaper; others are looking out the window and some falling off to sleep. There’s dead silence and all you hear is just the sound of the train as it moves along the railway track. Then all of a sudden one of the men standing begins to giggle, and he continues to giggle till he can’t hold it in and then begins to laugh. hysterically!!. Now initially everybody in the train is either annoyed, irritated or is at best trying to ignore this man. Even though no one positively responds to his laughing, he continues to laugh so hard that there’s no way of ignoring him. After all laughter is contagious, and from the one person who response to his laughter it becomes a ripple effect and he has every single one of them in that train laughing. And not just laughing, hysterically laughing. And before you know we as the students watching in class start laughing too. Lmao! It’s such a cool video.

 Now there is so much that could be learnt from watching this seriously hilarious simple video, but I think the most important to take which is most relevant to the me beginning my psychosocial block is that. In order to have a chance at bringing about change, one has to stand out. Be stupid! be loud, be persistent until there a response. Until you have influenced someone positively, because after all that is what we are aiming for in life right? to create the infinite cycle of positivity for the people we meet?. Initially this man was seen as an idiot for seemingly laughing non-stop in the middle of people he didnt even know him,what was he even laughing at you would ask. nobody knows but it was provocative, hahaha got the people going. He possibly could have made everyones day on that train.

During mock prac lectures also discussed case formulations, cultural formulations, and case presentations etc which are all the mandatory things that are important in helping our supervisors, lecturers and ourselves evaluate our understanding of psychosocial therapy as a means of treatment intervention for mentally ill individuals. I’m not as nervous about my psychosocial blog as I previously was, I’ve done some reading, I’m still reading and I’m feeling  a normal sense of anxiety now. Whereas in the begging I could have exploded. Quiet honestly I’m not yet ready, and I know the clock is ticking. But I’ll be ready in a minute. And I’m hoping it’s not a minute too late because I definitely want to part of that train ride.

Sharp!