Therapist are Humans Too – Page 3 – Licensed Mental Health Counselor

Abuse Reports And Pregnancy Scares: My Week In Review

7 Dec 20127 Dec 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

This week went by really fast, although it was tiresome and very busy, picking up where last week left off.

Last Friday I had to have a suicidal student Baker Acted (Florida’s statute for involuntary examination/hospitalization), with five minutes of school left, which meant I had to deal with law enforcement and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) for two hours afterwards.

Not the best way to start my weekend.

This week wasn’t as dramatic, but I still had to call DCF on three cases for suspected physical abuse, suspected medical neglect and suspected sexual abuse.

I don’t know why, but I am still at times amazed at the amount of damage done to our kids at the hands of those who are supposed to love, support and watch over them.

Making DCF reports or Baker Acting a client is never the easiest thing to do. Often times clients are initially angry, or scared, but many times they are relieved to finally be getting help, and more often than not, after it’s all over with, they are grateful someone cared enough to get them help.

I even had a mother come in to try to assure me that her daughter is not being abused by her husband, but I tend to believe what her daughter is telling me and will support the daughter psychologically while DCF does their own investigation.

I also had three of my female clients this week tell me that they thought they were pregnant.

I always hate hearing this because I know the affect having a child can have on these inner-city young girls who have enough to overcome already.

Most of the times these young girls think that they can get pregnant and nothing in their lives will change. I remind them that every girl that was in my program last year that got pregnant have dropped out of school.

I was saddened also that these three young girls, all good and intelligent students, weren’t using protection and are potentially pregnant by guys that aren’t even their boyfriends.

It’s one thing to be pregnant by a boy who is supposed to be committed to them, but it’s another thing for a young girl to be pregnant by a boy who has no commitment to them at all.

“Hooking up” seems to be the thing with this generation, in which teens are more likely to have no-strings-attached, physical relationships that could include anything from kissing to intercourse.

Friends with benefits definitely seems to be more popular than actual dating, at least on the campus I work at.

These girls I am referring to, of course really like these boys and want to be with them in a monogamous relationship, but are willing to accept the friends with benefit role, which gives these boys no real reason to commit and give the girl what she truly wants, a relationship with a guy that cares for only her.

These young girls, as much as they would hate to admit it, aren’t emotionally prepared for no-strings attached sex as well as they think, which is one reason many of them are so angry, depressed, emotional and unhappy.

They are clueless about the connection between the body, the heart and the mind.

Luckily, so far one out of the three girls I mentioned has found out she is not pregnant, while the other two are too afraid to take pregnancy tests or go to their family doctor, so they are practicing the wait, see, and pray method.

Two of the girls asked me if I was mad at them (I’ve counseled them numerous times about self-esteem, self-respect, abstinence and using protection if they are going to be sexually active).

I told them that I wasn’t mad and that I never get mad at them, because it’s true. I did admit to them that I was a bit disappointed in them, because that too is true.

I still care for them and support them unconditionally, even when I don’t like the decisions they’ve made..

Hopefully in the next few days, the other two girls will find out if they are pregnant or not so I can either help them learn to prevent this from happening again anytime soon, or help them prepare to be the best teenage mothers they can be.

The Importance Of A Good Support System

27 Nov 201227 Nov 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

It’s National Novel Writing Month and I am still plugging away towards the finish line at 11:59pm, November 30th and 50,000 words.

So far I have about 43,000 words so I am on track, but that wasn’t so just a few days ago.

Just a few days ago I was behind by about 7,000 words and had almost thrown in the towel. With the Holiday, friends and family, and just the normal stressors of life, my motivation was starting to wane and giving up would have been a lot easier than plowing through my train wreck of a story.

Thank goodness for something called nanowrimosprints (https://twitter.com/NaNoWordSprints) on twitter. It’s a twitter feed that challenges you with prompts, but most importantly, time specific writing frenzies to really pump you up and get you to writing.

It breaks up the monotony of feeling like I am working alone when I am being challenged along with thousands of other participants.

Write-Ins do the same thing, where writers meet up and write together, challenging each other to increase their word count and stay motivated and focused.

Writing can be such a lonely hobby and knowing that I am not alone in this journey really helps, and that’s what pulled me away from throwing in the towel and helped me to get back on track.

That got me to thinking about the importance of having a good support system.

Working in the psychiatric hospital, it was easy to see that clients who had good support systems usually had a better prognosis than clients who didn’t.

Clients who’s family and friends were involved in their care usually had less relapses (and less severe relapses) and shorter hospital stays.

Working in the school setting, it’s not very much different. Students who have good familial support, good friends and supporting teachers/adults, usually cope better with whatever issues they are facing, compared to students who do not.

It’s important that we all have a good “team” around us. When we don’t have anyone to be accountable to or to lean on for support, it’s easy to give up.

A lot of times we think we have to do things on our own, and no doubt, often we can and have to because no one can do the work for us, but it is very important and beneficial to have a supporting team who can help keep us accountable, honest, motivated and on track. And we can do the same for others.

Think about who is on your team right now, who would you like to be on your team in the future? Family members, friends or professionals are all viable candidates. Sometimes we don’t think about these things until we are in the middle of an issue or crisis.

Think about when things were really great. Who did you have around you that supported you?

Maybe right now everything is good and you don’t really think you need a support system and that’s great, but it’s always a good idea to know who you can turn to when you need help.

Your support system can help remind you to stick to your diet, exercise, take your medicine, stay away from bad people/ situations, save money, etc.

It’s ultimately up to you to accomplish your goals and live the life you want to live, but having a good support system goes a long way in making those things achievable.

Therapist are Humans Too

November Is National Novel Writing Month!

1 Nov 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

November is National Novel Writing Month, or as many of us writers affectionately like to say, nanowrimo.

The goal of National Novel Writing month is to write a 50,000 word novel (more like a novella) between November 1st and November 30th.

That equals 1,667 words a day. Doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it is a tough challenge, especially when coupled with trying to fit writing into your everyday life, but that is part of the fun.

I enjoy challenging myself and I think it’s good for all of us to challenge ourselves in some way shape or form from time to time.

If I get to 50,000 words by midnight November 30th I will ecstatic, if I don’t, I’ll be okay. This is my 8th year and I’ve only gotten to 50,000 words 3 out of those 8 years, but the fun is in trying.

Get out and challenge yourself to something.

Maybe you don’t like to write, but challenge yourself to taking a picture a day for 30 days, fasting from something for 30 days or keeping a gratitude journal for 30 days. Whatever it is, give it a try.

So, for the month of November, instead of taking a break from my blog as I was originally thinking of doing, I will continue to post, but my posts in November may be shorter and may be more from experience and opinion than from facts and research, as often even when I am writing from my experiences and opinion, I take the time to look up the facts to keep my posts as authentic and truthful as possible.

I definitely look forward to both the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days while working full time and trying to maintain this blog, but this will be fun and I have at least 300,000 other nanowrimo writers around the world attempting this with me.

I already hit my goal of 2,000 words today, which is good because I have to do a lecture at a local college at 6:30pm and was really concerned that would put me off schedule, but as of now, I am ahead of schedule and who knows, maybe I’ll write more tonight.

Find something to challenge yourself with, it helps with goal setting, something I’ll be talking about in my next post.

Facts versus Opinions

26 Oct 201226 Oct 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

I’m an introvert and a very introspective person. That’s no secret to those who really know me.

Most of the time when I go out with people I find myself sitting back, watching and listening. It may seem like I am not engaged in the conversation, when in actuality, I’m probably more engaged than the people talking.

It’s fascinating. I enjoy doing it. I can do this for hours and not say a word, yet am totally absorbed in the entire conversation, not just what is being said, but how it is said and the true meaning behind it.

I’m listening, analyzing, watching mannerisms, expressions, analyzing those. Listening to speech patterns and tones while all the while analyzing the entire conversation.

I learn a lot about people this way, and about myself. That’s why one of my favorite quotes, I forgot where I got it from, is “I hear what is not being said.”

This brings me to tonight.

Tonight I was telling a story and got rudely interrupted in the beginning of the story by two of my friends who felt the need to voice their opinions as if they were facts, before even hearing the entire story.

I sat back, listened to them, analyzing everything, and waiting to see if they would be courteous enough to ask me to continue my story, but they never did. They were so high up on their self-righteous, egotistical horses, that they never came back to my story.

Some people would have found this rude, I found it a bit irritating, but mostly, I found it intriguing because I was learning so much about these people and how they think, even how they think and see me. I was learning more than I think they knew they were teaching me about themselves, which is the beauty of extrospection.

As I sat and listened, I realized that my two friends were making a mistake a lot of us make from time to time, especially in this political environment. They were mistaking their opinions for facts.

Naturally, we are drawn to information that supports our beliefs. Sadly we tend to stick with those beliefs even in the face of evidence that proves them wrong, and may even believe in them more, as a form of protest or as a defense mechanism.

In many cases, factual evidence seems to matter very little.

As I watch the political coverage, this is played out daily, but one doesn’t have to watch CNN or MSNBC to see this. We encounter this all the time, perhaps even within ourselves as I encountered with my friends tonight.

At one point when they were closing the restaurant we were at and we were the only customers left, they were still engaged in idle conversation, sipping their drinks as the staff was waiting for us to leave.

I told my friends that we should probably pick up the pace, but they told me I should just relax. I replied that I like for people to be respectful of my time and I like to respect other peoples time.

They quickly retorted that we were patrons, paying money and that they would gladly wait for us because we were given them business. They then went on a rampage that included something about the economy and the customer is always right, to which as always, I just listened and analyzed and then replied that I was sharing my opinion, not stating a fact.

They then backed off, but I realized that they were stating their opinions as blatant facts, that as long as a drink was on the table, the business should wait patiently for them to leave.

I didn’t try to elaborate on this with them, because like I stated earlier, even if I could present facts on why we should be respectful of the staffs time and leave so that they could clear the last table, I would have been met with more opinionated hostility, but why?

We all know what it feels like to be proven wrong and what that means to our sense of self and even our sense of credibility. It often gets us to question not just that one thing, but a host of our other beliefs and one thing many people are afraid of doing, and will sometimes fight to death before they do it, is to take a real examination of their self.

Many relationships fail or stall because one or both partners have different opinions and neither one is willing to reconsider, change or even tweak theirs. Instead they fight over and over about the same things, pointing the finger at each other.

These are of course largely unconscious thoughts, which make them that much more powerful. Still, stating opinions doesn’t make them right or facts.

People who are more self-confident tend to be more willing to re-examine their opinions and it’s important that fro time to time we all do this to become well-rounded, well-adjusted people who are able to have healthy relationships with not only other people, but with ourselves.

Therapist are Humans Too

One Kid at a Time

27 Aug 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

I’ve probably mentioned about a dozen times that the high school I work at is in an inner-city area. It’s not the worst area in the world or perhaps even in the city, but it is a place where poverty, drugs and violence are considered normal.

Just four days into the school year after our school became the first high school in the county to require school colored uniforms to cut down on the large amount of gang activity at school, we’ve already had our first student shot.

A young man got into a fight right across the street from the school and was shot, luckily for him it was only in the leg. According to the news he is being uncooperative with the police as far as giving details about his shooter, which leads me to believe that this is likely gang related.

This happened on the same day that Tyrone Mosby (19) was arrested for killing

Danielle Sampson (15) when a bullet from a drive by shooting found it’s way to the back of her head as she road home from church with her family.

There are a lot of good kids that grow up in that community and that go to the high school, but many of them from the time they were born were dealt a cruel hand that had them almost destined to stay in poverty, be involved in the criminal justice system or headed towards an early grave.

The culture that keeps them at a disadvantage is so intrinsic that it’s often hard for them to see a better life for themselves. Many of them can’t imagine living life any different than from what they know. They grow up in poverty, their parents grew up in poverty and their grandparents likely also grew up in poverty. Everyone around them is either involved in criminal behavior, uneducated, unemployed and or/abuses drugs. They are exposed to all these things and more at a very early age and so psychologically they start to believe that they will be no better (and often don’t want to be much different) than anyone else in their community and thus act in ways that nearly guarantee that they won’t.

Young boys join gangs, start stealing, robbing and even killing. Young girls do much of the same with the addition of getting pregnant and giving birth to more young people who may be cursed from birth to repeat the cycle.

My program focuses on reaching the kids many thought were unreachable. The angry kids, the kids who are using drugs or have given up on school and sometimes life. Often times I lose kids to dropping out or the juvenile justice system and when crimes like the ones I’ve mentioned aren’t rare or even shocking, but “normal”, it’s easy to start wondering how effective not only am I, but also the school and other services in the community are being.

Then I have to realize that I can’t save every kid I come in contact with as much as I would like to. They all have their own lives, their own minds and will ultimately do what ever it is they want to do. I only have them for a very small amount of time during the week and often that doesn’t compare to the impact their family and community, where they spent most of their time, has on them.

I have to remind myself that it’s not about saving everyone, but about trying to save one kid at a time.

Therapist are Humans Too

My New Intern…

22 Aug 201219 Aug 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC1 Comment

After years of dodging the bullet, my luck has finally run out. I am getting an intern.

I never wanted an intern. I like to work alone (most counselors/therapist do). I enjoy coming to work and not being responsible for anyone except myself, yet this week that’s all changing.

I’ve heard from fellow counselors that interns can be great assets if they are good, and major burdens if they aren’t. We are largely responsible for them and it can be like babysitting, so how on Earth did I get stuck with an intern?

Every few months as students approach their last semesters of graduate school, they have to complete approximately 1,000 hours of internship work. Usually when my company starts assigning us interns from the various masters programs, I just pretend to be busy and that has worked in my favor, up until last Monday.

As we sat in a meeting and met the interns I quickly scanned the room. There were six counselors including me, and four interns. I breathed a sigh of relief. Surely I would escape the curse of being assigned an intern once again.

As usual I sat quietly, doodling in my notebook in an attempt to look preoccupied and listened closely as the interns were being assigned.

I tried to rationalize why my superiors would not give me an intern.

I was the only male there and all the interns were female. Surely they wouldn’t assign me a female intern.
My office is quite small, there isn’t enough room for two people to work out of comfortably.
My school is in the inner-city and has a reputation for being rough, most of the other counselors worked out of much nicer schools in much nicer areas.

My chances seemed pretty good and they were.

We were down to one last intern, another counselor and myself. I just knew they would give the intern to the other counselor, after all she has been with the company for over 17 years. If anyone could mentor, teach and guide a new, soon to be counselor it would be her.

And they did! They did give the intern to her, but then she stated she was moving offices and didn’t think she would have room for an intern. I felt gravity pulling my face to the floor. Seriously?

And that’s how I got stuck with an intern.

After they gave me my intern, we had a short meet and greet. I was not excited and my disappointment probably showed in my face and tone as I asked her why did she want to be a therapist, did she know anything about the school she had just been assigned to, a school that has seen it’s fair share of stabbings, shootings and deaths.

Yes I know I was not being as nice as I usually am, but I was annoyed and irritated.

There’s enough things to worry about working with teenagers and the last thing I wanted to be worried about was some naive intern, whose total sum of understanding human behavior and psychology mostly comes from $200 textbooks.

Don’t get me wrong, I love text books, but from experience kids in grad school tend to think they know everything because they got an “A” in a class when in all actually, they have just begun to scratch the surface of understanding human behavior with all it’s complexities.

To my surprise she stated she prefered to work in the inner-city with kids who came from violent and impoverished backgrounds.

Okay, she gets a point for that. Most interns I’ve met come from pretty prestigious programs and believe that all their clients will be upper middle class, college educated, well adjusted individuals with simple neurotic problems that can be cured at the rate of $140 an hour.

To be fair, she seems nice enough. She’s graduating from Virginia Tech so I know she should be smart enough. Only time will tell if she is capable enough to actually work with kids who live in neighborhoods that often resemble war zones.

I definitely want to change my attitude and try not to look at her as a burden. I want to teach, guide and mentor her as someone did me when I was in her shoes five years ago. So, in a way, I look forward to seeing how this plays out. I will keep you posted.

Taking Control of Your LIfe, Therapist are Humans Too, Uncategorized

Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas and A.N.T.S.

4 Aug 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

Recently I watched as Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas won two gold metals in the Olympics and made history by becoming not only the first African-American woman, but also the first woman of color to win the individual-all around in gymnastics. Remarkable feats for anyone, let alone a 16 year old. Being an African-American I was so proud of her, so you can imagine my shock when I was told that much of the talk about Gabby within the African-American community online wasn’t about her gold metals or her history making accomplishment, but about her hair. Her hair? Are you kidding me?

I took some time reading different blogs and websites and was shocked to see that a lot of people were more concerned about the texture, style and condition of her hair than about what this 4’11” exceptional athlete was doing in London. The more I read, the more I found myself enraged at the ignorance of those who expressed that Gabby was representing all African-American women “and her hair should look good” while she was doing it. This is so ridiculous. She is representing African-American women, showing that if you are dedicated, focused, work hard, refuse to take no for an answer and never give up on yourself, you can accomplish all of your dreams. Instead, many people are worried about the superficial and that got me to thinking.

There are so many places I could go with this. I could talk about the psychology of racism, self-hate, the European standard of beauty, stereotypes, the psychodynamic value (or devaluation) of African-American hair, post traumatic slave syndrome, images in the media that make many African-American’s consciously or sub-consciously reject their own images as attractive, self esteem, and the list could go on and on. However, I decided to try to stay as true to this blog as possible, and discuss something I think everyone could benefit from and that is understanding automatic negative thoughts, or ANTS.

You see, we all have automatic thoughts which are thoughts that just pop into our head without us giving much thought about them. We will discuss this more in detail next week. We all at times even have ANTS (automatic negative thoughts), but some people seem to be infested with ANTS and when reading those disparaging remarks about Gabby, I realized that those people were infested. Instead of looking at a beautiful, successful, incredible young woman, they quickly pointed out the negative and decided to focus on that for whatever reason (in the African-American community, the word “crabbing” is often used to describe when other African-American’s complain about more successful African-Americans, often in attempts to make the other person feel bad while also making the person complaining feel better about themselves). Those ANTS keep them from being able to truly see or recognize the beauty right in front of them.

People with ANTS, if you take them to a beautiful beach will complain that it’s too hot, the waves are too loud, it smells too salty or that the sand is getting between their toes. If you take them on a beautiful midnight stroll they will complain that the moon is too bright or that their feet hurt. Or, if you show them a beautiful teenager making Olympic history, will complain that her hair isn’t done nicely. They will never be happy unless they are complaining about something. They are so used to being miserable that they are only happy when complaining. These people usually don’t even know that they have a problem because they have lived with the ANTS for so long that they are part of them.

Are there people in your life who have ANTS? People who always seem to rain on your parade, point out the negative in every situation or seem to only be somewhat content when they are complaining about how miserable they are or pointing out flaws and imperfections in other people? If so, recognizing that they are infested with ANTS helps keep you from making their issue, your issue, and allows you to detach from them either physically or emotionally. Maybe you recognize that you have an infestation of ANTS. Start paying attention to your automatic thoughts, especially those ANTS and next week we’ll start working on getting rid of them.

Emotional Detachment

27 Jun 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

I was speaking with a friend of mine today who is also a fellow counselor when we got on the subject of emotional detachment. It wasn’t until then that I had a sort of “aha moment” and realized that even just the word detachment gives me an ill feeling and saying it feels like I am saying a four letter word.

See, I have an issue with detachment, it’s one of my flaws. I often hold onto people (and things) far too long out of fear of letting go, even when letting go and detaching is exactly what’s needed to free myself and the other person.

I know from my clinical work that many other people also suffer from detaching from bad relationships, bad friends, bad family members and bad situations for many of the same reasons I do. Some people I’ve counseled are so attached to toxic relationships that they can never truly realize their potential if they don’t learn to detach. What ends up happening for me and countless others who stay in situations/relationships that they should have let go is a build up of resentment, anger, and often times decreased self-esteem and self-efficacy.

Detaching can be hard and confusing because there isn’t always a right or wrong time to do it. If we detach from a person too soon we may feel like we didn’t try hard enough to make it work or that we gave up too easily. There is often unclear lines between not trying enough and trying too hard. And sometimes there are control issues at play. We don’t detach from a person or situation because we are trying to control that person or situation. For example, a woman may have a hard time detaching from an abusive husband because she really loves him, thinks that if he just calmed down and quit drinking he’d be an awesome person, so she stays in that volatile situation trying to change/control him although detaching from him would serve her better. A man may stay with a cheating wife who disrespects him over and over because he thinks he can “make her” love him and only him.

And then there are people who detach too easily, never allowing themselves or others the opportunity to nurture relationships and situations. You have to be listen to your heart and know when it’s time to let go, even if letting go is the last thing you want to do.

Detachment to me often times feels wrong even when it’s right and that is something I have to work on. It makes me stay in bad relationships and friendships far too long thinking that detachment is betrayal and telling someone “I don’t care about you any more”. In reality, detachment is a form of self-care and we all need to know how to care of ourselves and be responsible for ourselves and let other people be responsible for themselves. Detachment is also a form of setting healthy boundaries and not allowing others to take advantage or hurt us and vice-versa.

Detachment is not a bad word or a bad thing to do when it becomes apparent that it is what’s needed. Detachment doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the other person, but that you do care enough about yourself that you won’t allow yourself to keep getting hurt, used or neglected, and that you care enough about the other person to let them go. Sometimes we have to detach ourselves from people we like or even love. Setting yourself and setting someone else free is sometimes the best gift you can give to yourself and that person.

Detachment is easier from some than for others. If you want more information on detachment and letting go, check out The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie. It is one of my favorite books.

Therapist are Humans Too

Compassion Fatique

20 Jun 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHC2 Comments

As a therapist there have been several times in my career when I have felt the classic symptoms of what is known as compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatic stress disorder.

Compassion fatigue is the gradual decrease in compassion one feels for others over time. It is common not only in people who have been affected by trauma, but also in those who work directly with people who have been affected by trauma including those working in helping professions such as doctors, nurses, counselors, and welfare workers. Compassion fatigue is also common amongst lawyers and there is growing concern that the general population is often subjected to compassion fatigue due to the media’s constant coverage of disasters, violence and suffering.

Compassion fatigue can also been seen in charitable given. Such as if there is a major earth quake today the number of people giving charity may decrease as people grow frustrated with the way donations are handled or with the sheer size of the tragedy.

Signs and symptoms

People suffering from compassion fatigue often feel hopeless, anhedonia (have a decrease in experiencing pleasure), negative attitude, and ongoing stress and anxiety. In some cases compassion fatigue can be so bad that it’s effects can be similar to post traumatic stress disorder, which is why it’s often called secondary traumatic stress disorder: the person experiencing secondary traumatic stress disorder may experience fear, anxiety, nightmares and avoidant behaviors after hearing about a traumatic event from a client/patient as if he or she had experienced the event themselves.

The person experiencing compassion fatigue can show decrease in productivity, self-esteem, feelings of incompetence, self-doubt, difficulty focusing and other signs that often resemble depression. These can effect both the persons personal and professional life.

Personal Experience

Usually I feel compassion fatigue after many months of intense, often frustrating therapeutic work, no vacation, and little to no outlet to express my feelings and thoughts about my work or even about my personal life. What happens is that I find myself becoming easily irritated, frustrated and aggravated. I tend to have less energy and patience overall, especially when it comes to dealing with difficult clients. All of this makes it hard to really be present during sessions and when I get home I find myself wanting to be left alone with my pessimistic thoughts about myself, my work and the world at large.

A good therapist recognizes these signs and symptoms and knows when to take a break before compassion fatigue starts to impact them, their clients and those around them negatively. It is important for all of us to recognize when we are suffering from compassion fatigue so that we can start taking care of our self. Taking a break, a vacation, talking to someone or just disconnecting from the world for a while may be needed (i.e. if someone is suffering secondary traumatic stress disorder after watching hours and hours of footage of a terrorist tragedy on CNN).

We must all learn when we need to take a break and how to practice self-care, a discussion for another post. As for me, I’m taking on a lighter case load which is typical for me during the summer, and I am also taking a vacation in July as well as trying to get back to some of the things that make me feel at peace with myself such as reading, writing and drawing. I know that once I have taken care of myself, I will be better capable of helping others learn to also take care of themselves.

Therapist are Humans Too

Psychiatric Hospital: A Quick Glimpse Inside the Madness of an Institution

18 May 201218 May 2012by Torey C. Richards, LMHCLeave a Comment

I normally try not to post on Friday through Sunday, so today will be a light post and a short break from our discussion on the Pervasive Developmental Disorders and will continue on Monday with Rett’s Disorder. Today however I’d like to share some of my past work experiences.

For three years I worked overnight in a mental hospital. It was three years I’ll never forget. After spending years in undergrad and grad school learning about all the diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), it was great to actually get a chance to experience some of those disorders first hand.

Working overnight in a mental health hospital definitely gave me a lot of insight into mental illness and people who are often oppressed by the system that is set up to help them. It is also where I honed my assessment and diagnostic skills as a clinician, being able to work along side other seasoned clinicians, psychiatric nurses and psychiatrists.

The mental health hospital can be a life saver for some (if you have the right insurance/money) or just a revolving door of endless misery and disheartening for those less fortunate, which are usually the ones who need the services the most. With the right resources you get all the help (counseling, medication, case management, etc.) you need, otherwise you just get stabilized and sent back out the door (usually to return again and again without the proper treatment).

Still, for what it is worth, there is nothing like working in a mental health hospital, especially overnight when the clients are usually the most eccentric and usually outnumber the staff 3 to 1. You can go from consoling a woman suffering from post-partum depression one moment, to restraining a highly psychotic person the next, over and over again.

One night in particular I saw a young doctoral candidate who was contemplating suicide due to depression, social anxiety and paranoid thoughts that his peers thought he wasn’t good enough for them. Then I saw a woman who caught her husband in bed with her brother, went out drinking and then decided to try to slash her own throat.

All I could do at 3am in the confines of the mental health hospital was offer those troubled individuals some hope and guidance so that maybe they’d see light at the end of what they perceived to be a dark, endless tunnel of anxiety, depression and despair. So for them, and the other clients, at least for that night, the mental health hospital was a safe place for them to let down their guards, share their fears and lose their minds without judgment or recrimination.