My evidence-based practice class provided a pretty neat exercise for working with folks with auditory hallucinations.
To do this exercise you will need: - 2 cardboard pieces of toilet paper rolls
- 4 people
Choose one person to be "the clinician" and the other to be "the client" with auditory hallucinations, sitting across from each other.
Meanwhile, the other two people sit facing opposing sides of "the client" and provide the auditory hallucinations by speaking to the client through the cardboard rolls - so that "the clinician" can't hear.
Ultimately, as the social worker tries to do an assessment, the two voices can ultimately say whatever they want, relevant or not.
Rotate rolls and repeat.
I'll take any opportunity to showcase my talents in MS Paint.
This exercise proved really helpful in my being able to better empathize with people with auditory hallucinations and recognize how my own feelings as a clinician in these situations may mirror my client - that is, feeling overwhelmed, helpless and frustrated.
As my field placement this year is working on an in-patient psychiatric unit with severely mentally ill folks, I've been able to apply the lessons of this exercise already. Observing some of the psychiatric residents in group therapy, I've seen how it's hard to not get frustrated with particularly paranoid clients who isolate themselves and completely reject the idea that they need supportive relationships in their lives.
At the same time, and with some credit to this exercise, I've been able to see how that isolation may be beyond that client's control at times - where the client is really struggling to cope and process the information being told to them (against the volume of the "voices" they may hear).
I went to the gay rights march in D.C. on Sunday and, among other things, it got me thinking about the role of social workers as activists.
There is a clear role that social workers can play and historically have played. But it doesn't seem like there is much of a media presence by social workers and groups like the NASW. There were a bunch of groups there, and I did bump into quite a few social work friends, but no NASW banner.
There also isn't a clear sense of what things we will get active about on behalf of our clients. For example, the DSM-V is due to come out in 2012 and one question is whether it will continue to deem people who identify as transgender and who cross dress as mentally ill.
A lot of folks don't think the prospects are great given Dr. Kenneth Zucker is the head of the working group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders in the DSM-V. He believes in reparative therapy for transgender children. Under that methodology, when a clinician thinks a kid identifies as transgender, they assume the child is wrong and encourage the kid to act different...more of what traditional Western culture associated as distinctly male and female in the 1950s. You can read more about efforts to reform the GID diagnosis here. And if you'd like, I wrote a paper on working with transgender kids and their families here.
Readers, what do you think about the social workers role as activists?
Here's some interesting clips I recorded from the gay rights march.
"Hey Obama! Let Mama Marry Mama."
"Barney Frank. Fuck You. Back of the Bus? Hell No!" (Here's why folks said they were screaming that about the first openly gay person elected to congress)
"Hey Obama, We Won't Wait. Equal Rights for Gay and Straight."
"Get up. Get Down. There's a Gay Right's Movement in this Town."
"What do we want? Equal Rights. When do we want it? Now!"
UPDATE: I just got this from a fellow member of the NASW LGBT committee:
Kinky is NOT a Diagnosis
Help make history by signing the DSM Revision Petition now! The diagnoses in the DSM-IV-TR still subject people who practice BDSM, fetishes and cross-dressing to bias, discrimination and social sanctions without any scientific basis.
We need 3,000 signatures, but we only have 2,200 now. If you don't speak up and call on the American Psychiatric Association to adhere to empirical research when revising the diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), then the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group won't make a meaningful change.
You can make your signature anonymous on this secure petition site so it doesn't appear on the Internet or when the petition is delivered to the APA.
Petition:
"We, the undersigned, support the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) own goal of making its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) a scientific document, based on empirical research and devoid of cultural bias. A diagnosis of a mental disorder can have a severe adverse impact on employment opportunities, child custody determinations, an individual's well-being, and other areas of functioning. Therefore we urge the APA to remove all diagnoses that are not based upon peer-reviewed, empirical research, demonstrating distress or dysfunction, from the DSM. The APA specifically should not promote current social norms or values as a basis for clinical judgments."
To find out more about the DSM and the Paraphilias section, read the NCSF & ITCR: The Foundation for NCSF's "White Paper on the DSM Revision" at www.ncsfreedom.org
Question: Checking Out NYU's School of Social Work
Q: I am coming up to NYC for a couple days and wanted to scope out the campus/ Silver buildings. I also thought I might try to make an appointment with a professor as to get some one-on-one time exploring the program further. Do you have a suggestion for this? Who would be good to talk to on short notice?
Thanks for the question. I asked around and was told that you should contact the admissions office at the School of Social Work at (ssw.admissions@nyu.edu, 212 998 5910, or meet with an admissions counselor 11am-2pm on Tuesdays & Fridays ). They've apparently met requests like that before.
Depending on when you visit the school, you could go to one of the upcoming informational events (which includes faculty, current students and alum).
A prospective student wrote asking:
Question: I am slaving away at this Personal Statement of Purpose... got any suggestions on what to say.. or what NOT to say? Would love your input!
The briefest advice I could give I think applies to both writing and social work (can you tell I'm a social work student with a journalism background?)
Pick what seems to be the main issue going on and develop that as well as you can, as clearly as you can and as creatively as you can.
If there's no direction in your work with clients, no focus on any central issue(s), it may be interesting for you, but that seems to be an overwhelming task placed on the client. Similarly, when you write, pick a direction and stick with it. Often people name all their accomplishments when they write applications, building themselves up. They forget that they are sending their application to someone who has to sift through multiple applications and would love to read something interesting.
Great stories, and great storytellers, have a clear, thoughtful voice and develop complicated, interesting characters. I'd aim for sharing that - i.e. core experiences and issues that have driven you to the place of wanting to be a social worker - and how you hope to integrate it.
Some of the traits of desired MSW students according to the application are self-awareness, empathy, objectivity as well as a value for diversity and the biopsychosocial approach. If you can communicate that you value and practice these traits - through a story, not just saying that you value them, I'm sure that can't hurt.
Again, I'll emphasize this one point, make sure you keep it concise and interesting. You can write up to six pages. That doesn't mean you have to. If you're going to take someone through six pages of material, make sure you give them an incentive to by giving them a gripping story not the cookie cutter listing of everything about you.
Contacting the admissions office wouldn't be a bad idea either. If you want a sample of what I wrote (hey I got in, so it can't be so bad), you can download a draft of my MSW essay here.
