Interesting Times

Having just written another of the most boring blog posts in the history of me writing boring blog posts, I realize that I need to do something (something other than unpublish it... which I am about to do). I am not satisfied with my blogging. Truthfully, it makes me mad when I read over my post and feel like a boring, old, twit, not writing from my heart, but from my brain. That's just the first thing that makes me mad. Many other things have been making me mad lately and now I'm going to tell you what they are:

I am really mad at social workers pretending to use a "strengths perspective". Looking through clients' charts, all I see are problems. Listening during meetings, all I hear are problems. Where is the strengths perspective in writing biopsychosocials? Where is it in analyzing a client's situation during a treatment team meeting? I haven't been seeing it. I don't hear it in class and I don't see it at placement. Makes me MAD!

I am really mad at social work agencies pretending to be client centered. When discussing treatment planning, I've been told it's acceptable to come up with goals and objectives for the client and that they don't need to agree to it. What person is going to achieve goals they don't agree to? What ever happened from starting where the client is? What ever happened to working with the client? Why am I even writing a treatment plan to begin with? It's not my plan, it's the client's plan, maybe they should write it. Not working with the client really makes me MAD!

I am really mad at progress notes. I hate progress notes. I am supposed to sit back and explain someone else's progress, when I don't have the least idea of what their experience is really like. Why don't the clients write the progress notes? They can tell their own progress better than I can. Progress notes make me MAD!

Hierarchy really makes me mad. The DSM-IV-TR makes me mad. Learning mean, median and mode in a graduate research class really makes me mad. The rising cost of grains, hops and yeast makes me mad. Particulates in my water makes me mad. Forgetting my lunch at home makes me mad. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq really make me mad. Burning my tongue really makes me mad (and I never learn!).

I feel better now.

Growing up in Vermont I developed a deep mistrust for big business. Campaigns like "Buy Vermont First" were engrained in my head, teaching me to discriminate between locally made products and huge mass market corporate trash. Supporting local businesses made sense to me because it meant supporting my community and keeping the distribution of monetary resources in the hands of those that I trusted, my neighbors. This small understanding in economic sustainability eventually developed into my passion for distributive justice.

Hansen Beverage Company, the massive corporate machine that makes Monster energy drinks, has started the process of bringing a lawsuit against Rock Art Brewery, a small Vermont brewery. Apparently, Hansen is scared that Rock Art's beer "Vermonster" will confuse customers looking to buy Monster energy drink. Hansen must have very little faith in their consumers to think they can't tell the difference between a bottled beer and a canned energy drink. More info can be found here: http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11291060

Rock Art would no doubt win the lawsuit, but they don't have the money to actually fight Hansen. There is a growing grass roots effort to boycott Hansen by beverage stores throughout Vermont, and a Facebook group has sprouted up to show support for Rock Art and to educate people on how to pressure Hansen into dropping the legal action. Here's a link to the group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=171894902802&ref=share

Although I've chosen to attend NYU because of its specialization in micro level practice, I believe that it is integral to being a social worker that we take action for mezzo and macro level change. Fighting for small business spans all of these levels and is necessary for true distributive justice to occur. When large corporations are allowed to oppress small business, they develop more power to exploit the lower and middle classes; limiting our choice of products, terrorizing family businesses.

This issue should be of concern to everyone, but very much to New Yorkers. Brooklyn Brewery, a business that has long been devoted to bringing respect to the borough of Brooklyn, also has a beer with a name that might bother Hansen. What beer might this be? Brooklyn Monster Ale. If Hansen is willing to sue Rock Art, might they be willing to sue Brooklyn Brewery as well? I mean, when does it stop? It's an affront to culture and an attack on community.

For the past week and a half all I've been able to talk about is Monster Energy Drink vs. Rock Art. It appears to have become resolved, with Rock Art winning, thanks to a great community organizing effort that spanned facebook, many many blogs, and some national news sources. Eventually Bernie Sanders even got involved and sent a letter. It's great to see community organizing work, and it's even greater to see it work quickly for justice!

Although my focus in social work has long been working with the seriously mentally ill, I think I may be getting interested in other parts of social work enough to contemplate a change. This isn't anything new; every day I spend at least a little while fantasizing about doing something else with my life... no matter what I'm currently doing with my life.

Usually I sit around and daydream about opening my own brewery. Sometimes I think about opening a used bookstore. Other times I think about having a duck farm. Many times in the past year I have contemplated just going for a PhD and leaving the world of practice behind to focus on research.

Today, however, I spent time thinking about community organizing. It's been in my head since the RISE conference that I should take the c.o. elective next semester. Now after watching a community unfold in support of Rock Art, I'm further considering taking the course.

The more I think about it, the more I believe community organizing is a vital compliment to the clinical work we participate in with consumers. The mental health system is in disrepair, and it's not going to change if nobody is organizing for change. The people stuck in the system can't recover if the system is broken and oppressive, so as far as I can see it, it's our ethical responsibility to work on fixing the system. Without a fixed system, there's not really justice, and without justice there isn't really equality, and without equality some people are getting screwed. I'm really sick of seeing consumers that I work with get screwed and being left seemingly powerless, so I guess I'll take this elective and I hope you do to.

It's incredible the ways in which countertransference can rear its head. At placement the other day, one of the consumers looked at my sweater and said, "That's a girl's sweater. What are you doing wearing a girl's sweater?"

Immediately I was sucked back to seventh grade math class. I had worn my usual hooded sweatshirt to school, kept it on through health class and science class, and took it off for the start of math. Underneath I was wearing a white shirt with purple dolphins. I liked this shirt a lot because I liked dolphins a lot. I enjoyed watching Flipper, and I had visited the New England Aquarium recently. But I also really liked purple, and I still do. Second best color in the world as far as I'm concerned. So this purple dolphin shirt really was a fantastic shirt and I finally got the chance to wear it for the first time.

When my mother bought me the shirt, I was with her, in JC Penny's I think. I asked her, "Is that a girl's shirt?" not because I was concerned about wearing a girl's shirt, but because I was concerned about the attention others might give it. She assured me it was unisex and explained what that meant.

In class, as I took off my sweatshirt, my friend Ashley looked at me and said, "Dan, that's a girl's shirt." This irritated me because 1) my name isn't Dan and 2) the shirt is unisex. So I replied, "no it's not, it's unisex". I'm not sure how many people in the class knew the meaning of the word unisex, but it didn't seem to matter as everyone broke into laughter exclaiming, "HE SAID SEX!" and "HE'S WEARING A GIRL'S SHIRT!". I was mortified. Trying to explain to a room full of seventh graders what unisex means while wearing a shirt with purple dolphins on it did not go well. Fortunately I learned the following from the situation: what I wear isn't the problem, gender typing is the problem.

This was a pretty negative experience, and I actually still get upset talking about. So when it came back at me full force at placement, it didn't put me into a very good emotional space. I responded to the consumer by shrugging my shoulders and saying, "I'm not sure if it matters if this is a girl's sweater", trying to mask the pain brought up by the memory, and then I walked into the internship office and had a good, long think.

Without anyone to go to for supervision, and without the computer available to write up a process recording, I was left to find a different way of dealing with my experience. After displacing my anger about the situation I was able to sublimate: reaffirming with myself that when I go for a PhD, I'll study gender and work to end gender typing and gender role oppression. Thinking on this positive note, I went out and lead a mighty fine psychodrama group.

Ah sublimation, how would I handle negative reactions to countertransference without you? Ideally, I would have written up a process recording and been able to meet with my supervisor around this issue. More ideally, I would have been able to talk to the consumer about this in an open and safe space, exploring with him his thoughts about staff wearing clothes that don't necessarily fit with his view of their gender roles. This however, could only have happened if I immediately understood my reaction as countertransference. With more supervision and more process recordings, I hope to be able to do that.