Racism, anxiety, and discomfort

This was a difficult subject to tackle; I’ve started and restarted it a few times. It certainly isn’t a deep dive into race relations or cultural competence in therapy. It’s just one experience that I keep turning over in my mind. What follows is the best I can do and I’m afraid it’s still not a perfect evaluation. Still, it is with me and I just have to keep talking about it.

The other day, a doctor gave me a referral for a patient suffering from anxiety and depression. She has a long psych history and mostly needed to be reconnected to care. Simple enough. But when we met and started talking about her increasingly anxious feelings, a lot more came pouring out than I was prepared for.

I want to be respectful of my client’s right to privacy so I’m not going to write the details of what she told me about. The basics are these: she is a young black woman with sons and she struggles with anxiety about how they will be treated in the world. She faces racism daily, in big ways and small. She knows that her sons will face it too, especially as black men. She is afraid to send them on the bus; she is afraid to call the police if she’s been the victim of a crime; she is afraid.

Lots of my clients suffer from anxiety. They tell me about fears they have that keep them up at night, about the pervasive nervousness that is with them all the time. Generally, we focus on utilizing some CBT and a little bit of mindfulness practice. I teach them strategies to examine their thoughts and worries and use their more rational brain. I teach them deep breathing and some basics of mindfulness, telling them that stress can be controlled. But in this case…what can I do when my client’s fears are not irrational? And also, am I the right person to help her?

I’m white. I was raised in an upper-middle class household and I live firmly in the middle class now, with a lot of privilege. There is no way I could totally understand my client’s experiences as a black woman and as a black mother. I validated her feelings, of course; I explored with her how watching the news increases her anxiety, how some people are unaware of or do not believe in the micro aggressions she and her sons experience on a daily basis. But I cannot truly understand those experiences, not at the cellular level that she does. And honestly, I can’t help her examine her fears for irrationality because racism exists.

I referred her to another therapist, because her mental health history demanded a more intensive therapy than I can provide in my current role. But I keep thinking about her. I keep thinking about what it must be like to fear for your children, in a very different way than I fear for mine, because the dangers they face are different than the ones my kids will face. I keep wondering if I could be an effective therapist for her, were my role to provide that kind of long-term therapy. It’s a question I vaguely remember from graduate school about cultural competence and how we work with clients who have cultural differences that we may or may not understand. This woman and I live in the same town; we are both mothers; we are around the same age. And yet, her lived experience is radically different than my own. In short, I can help her but I wonder if the help would lack something essential.

As usual, I end with few answers and more questions. The good news is, I’ll get to see her the next time she visits her primary doctor, so at least I’ll know how she’s doing. I hope she finds the right therapist. And I hope (corny though it may sound) that things keep getting better so her fears become unfounded ones.

Every conversation is clinical

My first experience with providing clinical supervision was about a year and a half ago, supervising an advanced-standing graduate student during her internship. The student's MSW program provided 6 sessions of training for new clinical supervisors (free CEUs!). One theme we kept returning to was the complaint from the student that their placement wasn't "clinical enough." I empathized with this; I recall expressing the exact same complaint as a grad student. I hated my first placement deeply, partly because I felt like it wasn't "clinical." (There were other reasons of course but that's a drama for another day). I was inclined then, at this training, to side with the students on this point. Some placements just don't seem to be given to enhancing clinical skills. But my trainors reminded me of a simple and true fact about being a social worker: every conversation you have with a client is a clinical conversation. Every. Single. One.

That was by no means the first time I ever heard someone make that point. But prior to that training, I didn't really believe it. When I was doing case management, for instance, it was easy to forget the clinical piece because so much of my job was about providing concrete resources to people in crisis. I often got caught up in the (sometimes very complicated) surface issues: pending evictions, drug or alcohol relapses, medication compliance. I sometimes forgot that I could utilize my clinical skills during these conversations because I was focused on what I could do right that minute.

I burned out of that job pretty quickly because I felt like all I did was put Band-Aids on broken legs. Now, several more years into my career, with different experiences and more education, I think about that job differently. Knowing what I know now, I think I could have been better at it. This feels especially true as I learn new skills, like motivational interviewing. When I was case managing, stuck in the weeds of constant crisis, I often forgot to use my clinical skills to tease out the underlying issues. Why, for instance, would someone relapse after a year of successful sobriety? Why did this one client, who seemed to have a reasonable income, constantly end up on the brink of eviction? Maybe I asked the client that, but not in a skillful way that elicited a thoughtful conversation. I focused on the resources I could provide and forgot, sometimes, the clinical skills I learned as a student.

It's easy to do that, when we are pressed for time and have limited tangible help we can offer our clients. But we have tools at our disposal that are unique to this profession: we know how to look deeper at what is said and not said in a client meeting. As soon as we start a conversation with a client, we are doing clinical work: assessing body language, physical presentation, affect, what they're saying and what they may actually mean. Don't be fooled by the weeds you sometimes get into: every conversation is clinical because this work is complicated. And your skills are growing every time you interact with someone. 

Happy Social Work Month! Do good work and be proud of it.

The case for cutting someone off

It will possibly surprise people who know me in real life, but when I'm working with a client, I am very good at being silent. It's not that I'm not an innately good listener; it's a skill I've honed over time as a clinician. I've written before about using silence in my work. Sometimes it's the only way to get the client to open up. Most people don't like to sit awkwardly not speaking for a long period of time so they'll start talking just to fill the void. It's a very useful clinical tool. But this blog post is about the opposite and sometimes necessary approach of making people STOP talking.

I generally work with older patients. Forgive me for generalizing, but sometimes they kind of... ramble. They're often socially isolated and their trip to the doctor is part of their socialization. I'm happy to fill that role a little bit; isolation leads to depression and anxiety, which I'm often helping the patient learn to manage. But sometimes (twice this past Thursday, actually), allowing the patient to just go on and on (and ON) about random topics is a detriment to the therapeutic process. 

There's such a focus on active listening in this profession that I think we sometimes forget that we don't have to let patients go on about nothing for an hour. We don't have to listen politely to some long story about the broken washing machine someone's mother refused to replace five years ago (not kidding, this particular anecdote was like ten minutes long). Especially in my role, where the focus is meant to be 20-30 minute sessions that address strategies for how to cope with a specific issue, it's not a good use of the patient's time. 

But asking clients to stop talking is a tricky proposition. This past Thursday, faced with two different patients who couldn't seem to get to the point, I must admit that I hesitated to cut them off. I often write about the importance of building rapport. How can I build rapport if I cut someone off and say, "Ok but why are you here?" And yet, I need to know! What is the problem? Not the long list of grievances you have against every single member of your family (that took up nearly an entire hour) but the problem you are facing right this minute. Is it insomnia? Depression? Anxiety? We have limited time; let's use it to DO something. 

I think a lot of social work roles are like this. Our time is limited; case loads are high. We are tasked with building trust immediately so we can dive into the main issue and look for solutions. Unless you're doing long-term psychotherapy, there usually isn't time to begin from the beginning.

But how do we do it without putting the patient on the defensive? I vote for being compassionate but also goal-focused. "Wow, it seems like you have a lot going on. What specifically brought you in today?" This typically works. Of course, there are always patients who just aren't redirectable: their anxiety is overwhelming or they're just bad communicators. On Thursday, with one patient who really wandered from topic to topic with barely a breath in between, I finally interrupted her and said, "You seem really scattered today. Let's try focusing on what you want to work on right this minute." She wasn't particularly pleased with my assessment but she did focus: she had a goal in mind and she wanted to start figuring out how to accomplish it. Yes! That's why we're here! 

We should err on the side of active listening and compassionate presence. But we should also not let patients steamroll us with rambling thoughts that lead nowhere. Part of our role is to clarify what people are saying and help them start the steps that lead to meaningful change. Sometimes that means a gentle interruption: let's talk about what we can do today.

Replacing "I'm sorry" with "Thank you"

Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash

I went to a Motivational Interviewing training the other day (highly recommend; it was super helpful and engaging). Lots of pieces of the training struck me but the one I keep thinking about is the power of saying “thank you” instead of “I’m sorry.” Let me explain: a big tenet of motivational interviewing is reflecting what a patient has said to you, the practitioner. Sometimes we misunderstand our clients, since we’re only human, and our reflection is off base. When this happens to me, I typically apologize. This trainer explained that when she misunderstands a client and they correct her, she likes to say “thank you” instead. That really stayed with me.

It reminded me of something I read on Facebook a while ago. (I usually ignore those positive meme/message things but this one caught my eye). It said, to paraphrase, “Instead of saying I’m sorry to friends, I’ve started saying thank you. If I’m late for instance, I’ll say, thank you for waiting for me.” I find that idea so powerful. It takes away the blame factor and invites the person on the other side to feel appreciated for being gracious rather than annoyed. And that’s important both in our professional and our personal lives. So much of this work is about relationship building. Won’t it build a stronger relationship if we foster graciousness rather than blame and apology?

There is a time, I believe, to apologize in therapy. Sometimes we unintentionally offend our clients. I, for one, am sometimes guilty of making a joke that doesn’t land very well that I have to walk back. In those moments, apologizing seems like the right thing to do. But if we reflect something back to a client and we just misunderstood, saying “thank you for clarifying that” seems like a more helpful response. We’re inviting our clients to continue to be honest with us. We’re encouraging them by thanking them for their vulnerability. Saying sorry can make things awkward; saying thank you is like opening the door a little wider.

Ultimately that’s what we want to do, whether we meet with a client one time only or once a week for a year: open the door. Invite honesty. And being grateful rather than apologetic may be one good way of doing that.

Supervision after the MSW: Now what?

I love meeting other social workers in the wild. There’s a real benefit to belonging to a kind of community. I’m not sure how it is in other professions but when I meet another social worker outside of work there’s an instant camaraderie. We get each other. We may come from different agencies or work with different populations, but we will immediately have a strong bond because we have almost certainly had some shared experiences. I’m lucky to know a lot of other social workers and to count many of them as my real life friends as well.

Photo by Zoran Nayagam on Unsplash

Today’s blog post was inspired by one of those social worker/IRL friends. She’s been considering the lack of formal supervision in our profession after the Master’s program is over. As graduate students we are supervised intensely, with individual and group supervision, process recordings, class discussions etc.  We are constantly writing about and reviewing our clinical work as we learn how to do it. Then we go into the professional world and it just… stops. My friend made the excellent point that we’re required to have 30 hours of continuing education to renew our social work licenses but we’re not required to have any supervision hours once we obtain an LCSW. We don’t stop requiring supervision when we become LCSWs; and yet, for many of us, supervision stops being a priority after we reach that professional milestone.

This is not to say that there is no supervision in the real professional world for social workers. For instance, in my last job we had group supervision once every month or two, which was tremendously helpful. But that was pretty much it and it was definitely not enough. In fact, part of the reason I left that job was because there wasn’t a lot of support. I was mostly alone in my car, going from house to house, from sick person to sick person. The only contact from the office came in the form of emails throughout the day asking for consents to be signed or fires to be put out. Certainly my supervisor was available for questions and dire situations. But that didn’t replace an ongoing supervisory relationship. And ultimately I wasn't able to continue at that job.

So why don’t all agencies require clinical supervision? Why doesn’t our licensing body? I’ve been considering these questions and I’d venture a few guesses based on my own experience. One is that it costs both money and time; this is not a field that has a lot of extra of either. On the long list of things we’re required to do, supervision can seem like a lowly priority. Then there's a question of what kind of supervision is available in our agencies. Agency supervisors have their own agenda as representatives of the agency. They can’t be truly impartial because they have a stake in the game. So supervision may exist but it fulfills a different goal: namely that the agency’s standards are being met and not necessarily that the clinician is growing professionally.

I think professional growth is actually another reason we tend to view supervision as less important post-Master’s: as we get more clinical experience, we tend to think we don’t need formal supervision anymore. I spent five years at my last job; I felt like an expert most of the time. Sure, things came up, but not the way they did when I was a new social worker. So although I felt unsupported at times, I didn’t seek out additional supervision because I felt like I had it pretty much under control. By the time I realized that I was burnt out, I was ready to move on. Maybe formal supervision could have helped me recognize the signs of burnout before it became overwhelming.

As social workers, we are advocates. But how often do we advocate for ourselves? Are we getting the supervision we need to keep us working in the field and working effectively? My fellow social worker/mom/friend brought up a good point when she gave me the topic for this post. The question I’m left with is, what should we be doing to change things?

Practicing within my scope

I can tell you a lot about physical illness. I can tell you about how particular cancers metastasize; I can tell you how the body begins to fail at the end of life. In nursing homes and as a medical case manager and in hospice, I became well versed in the way that physical health impacts mental health. I consider myself an expert in that field. Switching to a therapist role has been challenging of course, but I went to grad school; I was sure I would be able to transfer the majority of my skills into this new role.

And I have! Mostly. But last week I was caught off guard during a session with a patient and I can’t stop thinking about it. In the course of what was already a fairly intense conversation, one of my patients disclosed a history of childhood sexual abuse. The breath nearly went out of me. Anxiety rose in my chest. My first thought was: I don’t know how to handle this.

Not exactly helpful for my patient.

My second thought was how I could help her. Perhaps the best thing for her is to see another therapist. One of the ethical obligations we have as social workers is to practice within our scope of knowledge and experience. If this were a question on the LCSW exam, the answer would be to refer out. In fact, I’m quite sure this was a question on my LCSW exam. I’m not a trauma expert; I’m just not equipped to treat her. I’m going to have to refer her to someone else.

But I hesitate to do so at our very next meeting. This patient has been in therapy off and on for many years and I’m the first therapist she’s told. She’s entrusted me with a major confession and I’m not sure it’s appropriate to immediately terminate with her and send her to someone else. This needs to be handled with care. 

So, what are my next steps? First of all, I can honor what she told me. I can thank her for being vulnerable and open and for trusting me to hold her grief and pain and not run from it. I can acknowledge how incredibly difficult it must have been to say the words out loud. (I did that in the moment but I believe it bears repeating). Secondly, despite everything I've been saying about referring her to someone else, I can continue to treat her for a few sessions. She was referred to me for help developing strategies to deal with stress and pain; I can still help her with that. Lastly, I can start to lay the groundwork for referral. I can’t one day say, “Ok, it’s been great, I’m going to send you to someone else now.” Instead, we have to have an ongoing conversation about my role and her needs and where the two may not intersect.

I’m also taking this to supervision. Like, it may be the only thing I talk about for the entire hour.

This is a theme I keep returning to: we cannot work alone. We have to have not just the support of a more seasoned clinician, but also the objectivity of one. All the self-introspection in the world cannot replace the objectivity of someone else. Additionally, I think it’s also necessary to have a confidante in a supervisor. Despite knowing that the best thing is to refer this patient to someone who is qualified to help her, a part of me feels guilty that I can't provide the help she needs. I trust my supervisor to validate that feeling and help me examine it critically. I also trust him to help me find the right words to say to her the next time I see her.

My biggest hope is that I do this right. With supervision support, I think I can.

Photo by Sébastien Marchand on Unsplash

Crispy around the edges: Avoiding and recognizing the dreaded burnout

I have started this post about burnout about five different times. I'm having a hard time figuring out where to begin, partly because I've been considering burnout since before I even became a social worker. In fact, I sort of decided to become a social worker because I read an article about burnout when I was fifteen years old. Seriously.

The internet was such a new thing when I was in high school that an offered elective was something called "Electronic Fiction." For real. The basic point of the class was to look things up online and write about them. (This seems hilarious now but it was the late 90s!) One of our assignments was to pick a future career (a daunting task for a 15 year old, by the way) and do some research about it. I took this task way too seriously. In fact, I distinctly remember a classmate telling me it was just an assignment; I didn't have to make a lifetime decision in that moment. But apparently that was lost on me; I had to decide right that second what I wanted to be when I grew up. I put a lot of consideration into what kind of work would appeal to me. As I mentioned last week, doctoring was not for me; too much science. Professional acting seemed good but, you know, really hard. My teacher asked me what I thought I liked doing and I said, earnestly and honestly, "I like to help people." She told me to look up social worker.

It is very telling that the first article I came across after I searched (I swear this class was even pre-Google, I think I used Lycos) was an article about burnout. I was immediately drawn to this concept. It hadn't occurred to me that doing something good could make you feel bad. I was enthralled by this article. I printed it out and highlighted it. It stayed in my mind for years. And so, I started my social work career thinking I had all the tools to combat burnout. I read an article when I was 15! I'm ready!

There are many ways to combat burnout. Blind optimism is not enough, it turns out.

Part of the reason burnout creeps in, despite the walls we build as professionals to keep it out, is that it's systemic. As social workers, we work within systems that are lacking: lacking in funding, in staff, in resources. We spend a lot of time, no matter if we work in a big health system or for a small non-profit, struggling against a system that mostly says no. That is exhausting.

Add on to that the stresses of bearing the weight of other people's struggles. It is virtually impossible to spend all of your working day listening to people explore loss and pain and sadness without starting to feel like you have heard enough. I can always tell that I'm getting crispy around the edges when other people's emotional pain starts to seem... irritating. Like, I get it, you're sad. I am always startled when I have that thought but when I do, it's an eye opener: I am tired. I need a break.

Breaks are good! They are a vital part of preventing burnout and recovering from the stress of this very difficult work. But if you don't have any precious vacation time right this second, there are other options. You can Google (we've come a long way from Lycos, guys) tons of lists and articles about how to avoid burnout. What follows are some of my favorite tips.

One is to have a real life. I've been asked many times over the years how I do this job and one answer is that I have created a beautiful life outside of work for myself. I learned how to cook (do not listen to my old roommates about my culinary abilities, please. I've gotten much better!); I have lovely friends who live all over the place and are happy to have weekend visitors; I like to read and still go to the library to borrow books. There are lots of ways I spend my time that have nothing to do with social work. 

Burnout needs to be combatted at work as well. To that end, another invaluable way of keeping yourself sane is having a work best friend. It is imperative that you have someone at work you can call or someone whose office door you can close and say, "holy shit, this day." Having a partner you can share your frustrations and successes with is key. When I worked in hospice, I did a lot of joint visits with nurses and developed some great friendships. They helped me feel less isolated when I was driving all over creation. I also appointed myself as the social chair of the social workers and demanded monthly happy hours. Amazingly, this worked, and a good sized group of us got together monthly over drinks. We even managed to talk about stuff besides work a lot of the time! Thus I managed to combine having a life with having work friends. 

Finally, another very important tool to combat burnout (and also the whole point of this blog): supervision. Sometimes we don't have the answers, especially when it comes to ourselves. We can't see what's holding us back with a particular client or why we're so frustrated with our work. It takes the objectivity of a supervisor combined with a good working relationship to help us clarify not just cases but our own feelings and struggles at work. Something I've always valued in supervision is having someone say to me, "Yes. These are valid feelings. You are entitled to them. Now what can we do with them?"

There are so many articles like this blog post, that give you advice on how to avoid, recognize, and address the symptoms of burnout. I added to them because I believe it's important to keep talking about it. But the fact of the matter is, you have to find the tools that work for you. And you have to do that work so that you can survive doing this work. Take care; it's the best thing you can do for yourself and for your clients.

Relearning the work

I keep a postcard at my desk at work that I got at a conference when I was in graduate school. I've had it for years but I haven't had an office in so long, it's most recently been hanging out in our guest room (to inspire my guests, I suppose). It says: "I cannot learn other people's lessons for them. They must do the work themselves, and they will do it when they are ready." I have read it a million times but I don't always retain it. Do you know what I mean? It's similar to that social work joke (yeah, I'm telling it): how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one but the lightbulb has to want to change. Groan away but the point stands. And whether it's a bad joke or my little postcard, I know this lesson to be true. I know it from personal and professional experience. So why do I sometimes forget it?

Here's a good example. When I was a medical case manager I had a lot of clients who were constantly in crisis, usually financially. Every month we would talk about where their money went and how to budget and I would help them fill out forms to get services. Every month I would say, "you should have enough money if you do x, y, and z." And they would agree. Then we would do it all again the following month.

The thing is, I was doing it wrong. I didn't allow my clients to come up with their own goals; I told them what the goal should be. I'm reading about motivational interviewing right now, which is a strategy that can be really useful in changing behavior. One of the tenets about MI that really speaks to me was that no one wants to fail. No one wants to set an unachievable goal but often that's what we're asking patients to do: we've decided what their goal should be so we've also come up with the solution to acheiving it. It's a theme I sometimes saw in hospice too: for months or years, patients had been told to "fight" their disease. Then suddenly, we told them to accept their death. We didn't give them a choice to change their goal so much as tell them the goal had changed while they were doing something different.

I think most helping professionals like to consider themselves good listeners; I know I pride myself on it. But I'm not sure we always hear what our clients are saying. We walk in with a goal already in mind and that leads our visit. Motivational interviewing encourages the practitioner to help the client name their own goal. It's difficult to want to achieve something you have no stake in. Helping clients name their own goals and helping them see what changes they can make to accomplish those goals makes them stake-holders, not just people who get lectured and then feel guilty when their problems don't go away. 

Now, in this new role, I keep looking at my postcard. Not only can I not do someone else's work for them, I can't tell them what the work should be. I became a social worker because I wanted to help people. It's been a long journey of reminding myself that I can only help people who want to be helped. And even then, I can only do so much. 

Who I am/What I do/Is there a difference?

My dad is a doctor. So is his brother and so were both of their parents. It's probably part of the reason I'm drawn to medical social work. I never wanted to be a doctor; I don't have the interest or the aptitude in science. But I did want to somehow be a part of the medical field. I was always drawn to my family's stories about illness and disease. It's just that I was more focused on the story part: what was the family doing? How were they behaving? Had I known then about genograms, I probably would have convinced him to draw me one for the more interesting cases (sans names and identifying details, of course). The point is, I was fascinated by the people part of his work. That's a big part of how I got into this part of the field.

Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash

Growing up, my dad's profession was so much a part of our lives: his call schedule, stories about his patients, pens and notepads from the drug reps. He loved being a physician (he's retired now, though he volunteers so he's still doctoring) but I don't think he ever felt that it defined him. If you asked him about himself, I don't think "doctor'' would be the first word that came to his mind. Whereas I feel that so much of my profession is a part of my identity; I can't turn it off.

Still, we're actually not unlike each other in that respect. He may have wanted to turn it off at times but I have a lot of memories of his various in-laws and friends starting a sentence with, "I have this pain" or "can you look at this?" He would always oblige (because he's a kind human) and I don't know if it ever bothered him. For him, I suspect it was just that he had all this knowledge and he was happy to share it if someone asked. 

For me, it's a little more complicated. I find myself unable (unwilling? Something to explore in supervision!) to turn off the social work part of me. It's like having antennae that pop up when someone starts telling me about their complicated family dynamic or their aging parent. I have to stop myself from giving unsolicited advice at times, or even accidentally blurring the line between friend and therapist. My girlfriend calls me a friendapist. It's a very cute nickname but it gives me pause; should I be more careful about turning off the social worker when I'm with the people I love?

Photo by Will Oey on Unsplash

This is partly in the forefront of my mind because I just finished an ethics CEU. As you can imagine, there was a lot of talk about boundaries. In my practice, they're easy to set: I'll meet with a client for 30 minutes, tops, talk about short term goals to help them, and then send them on their way. There won't be time enough to blur the lines between the professional and the personal. But with my friends and family, do I sometimes blur the lines between personal and professional? And if I do, so what? 

I am a social worker; it's not just something I do for a living. I can leave my actual work at work; it's imperative, in fact, that I do so I don't get burnt out. But I can't detach myself from the part of me that is empathetic and sensitive, that wants to both validate feelings and find solutions to problems. And I think that's all to the good. I'll keep examining my boundaries and my sense of self because that's what my profession asks me to do. But I will also find joy in the fact that who I am and what I do intersect so well. I hope you're that lucky too.

Can crying be part of practice?

I'm reading a lovely book about narrative therapy called "Retelling the Stories of Our Lives," by David Denborough. So much of it is surprisingly moving to me: not just the case studies but also how he describes the practice of retelling our stories in order to regain some control over our lives. One particular passage just struck me as I was reading. Dr. Denborough recounted a situation where the client began to sob during a phone call; this display of emotion brought Dr. Denborough to tears. That's all he says about it: his client was overcome with emotion and he was as well. I was both charmed and startled by this anecdote. Charmed because it is the great joy of our work to be deeply moved by our patients; and startled because this is something I think about a lot. Specifically, I often wonder about how much we should share with our clients and when and how we can do it effectively.

Crying with my patients is particularly interesting to me, not least because I just spent the last five years doing hospice work. A supervisor I had in my graduate school internship once told me that it's ok to cry in front of your patients, as long as you aren't crying more than they are. To that end, I'm usually able to maintain a certain amount of distance in emotionally charged visits while also remaining compassionate and open. But once in awhile, someone's story moves me unexpectedly and I feel those little pinpricks behind my eyes that signal the start of tears. Is it ok then if my eyes well up during a visit? Is there a way to be (slightly) tearful and have it be therapeutic for the client? Is there an appropriate amount of tears? Are any tears acceptable?

This is a tricky question for me. I think that part of what draws people to social work and other helping professions is a certain amount of sensitivity to others. In fact, we need to be sensitive and vulnerable with our patients in order to allow them to be vulnerable with us. However, we also have to protect our clients and ourselves. We cannot cry at every sad story; if that's happening, it's a bright red flag of compassion fatigue. At the same time, we are only human. There will be moments when we feel overwhelmed with emotions. My question is, what do we do at those times?

As with most things, there are lots of variables. Regarding Dr. Denborough's example, there are two indicators that crying was appropriate in this case. First, this was a client he had a fairly long relationship with; therefore he would have been able to judge how his own feelings would impact his client. In this case, I suspect the client felt validated and touched by his therapist's tears. Second, this took place during a phone call. Not being in the same physical place is a good thing here, so that the therapist could be discreet about his reaction if the client was startled or upset by it.

I'm always interested to hear about how other people handle this. When I worked in hospice, my own rule of thumb was to take a deep breath when I felt those pinpricks and examine my reaction later. I suspect the same rule will apply in my new role. But I reserve no judgment for practitioners that allow a little tear here and there. Tell me, is crying ever a part of your practice?

The importance of language

The college I attended was tiny, smaller than my high school, so I didn't graduate with a BSW; there was a social work concentration but no major. Instead, I majored in sociology, which was a little broader of a topic. Still, even as a sociology major, I gravitated toward the micro: family systems, symbolic interactionism, and subcultures. Symbolic interactionism, especially, felt right to me. For those who didn't major in sociology or who have forgotten their intro to soci college course, a quick definition: the theory refers to how we understand and interact with each other within larger systems. It proposes that human beings have agreed upon meanings to words, gestures, and other symbols over time so that we can communicate with one another. Fairly straight forward: we agree on certain symbols as a culture, as a family, as a romantic couple and this is how we are able to exist together. It can also cause miscommunication at times; we sometimes may disagree with each other about the severity of a swear word, for a simple example. One person's damn is another person's... You get my drift.

This is all to say that I've been considering language more lately as I begin my work as a therapist and add more supervision clients. Namely, I've been considering how important words are in the therapeutic context, whether we're talking directly to clients or talking to colleagues about our cases.

I can admit that I've sometimes used disrespectful language when talking with my peers about patients or families. In private with my colleagues, I've used words to describe patients or their family members like "crazy" or "insane," when really I meant that I felt frustrated; that it was me feeling crazy and out of control because of the interactions I was having with a particular client. Using those kinds of words can feel like a balm sometimes, a way of distancing myself from the issue at hand, which is really that I don't feel confident that I can help the patient or family.

Language is powerful. Even if I would never use those words in front of the person I was thinking of, it's powerful to use them in any context, even just to myself. If I assign the label crazy to someone, I'm dehumanizing them a little. I'm making it easier on myself if I feel like I can't reach them therapeutically; it's not my fault, they are irrevocably broken. I've erased any failure on my part; they're just crazy.

This was actually pointed out to me by a supervisor a few years ago. She noted that when I felt frustrated or defensive about a situation, I immediately started saying things like, "they're just nuts." It was not a pleasant thing to hear about myself, as you can imagine. Since then I've tried to be really conscious of how I think and talk about my patients, as well as what words I use when I'm talking with them. If I find myself going back to those old standbys (crazy, ridiculous, nuts), I start to question myself. What am I struggling with here? The same practice can be used in the supervision relationship. One of the tasks of the supervisor is to listen closely to the phrases that keep coming up and helping the supervisee examine them in context: what does it mean that you describe your patient this way? How do you think of yourself in these interactions?

It bears repeating: words matter. I'm working on choosing mine carefully. 

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

On to the next

Today is my last day as a hospice social worker. I have done this work for more than five years. In those five years I have gotten married, bought a house, struggled with infertility, lost my mom, had a baby, and suffered a miscarriage.  Throughout experiencing all those joys and losses, I have had a team at work that has supported me like a member of their family. They threw me a baby shower; they came to my mom’s funeral; they arrived with food when I had a newborn and barely knew what time it was. They have listened (and listened and listened) as I have talked (and talked and talked) through my joy and my grief, all the while helping me to see how I could continue to do this work.

This heavy and rewarding work. What is there to say about it that will capture the complexity of the last five years? It’s hard, of course, but also more full of joy than I imagined when I started. I have been so blessed by this experience, by the opportunity to meet people facing the unknown and help to bring them a little peace. I have also been frustrated, tearful, anxious, troubled, and stressed out. I have been lucky that those feelings have been balanced by gratitude; by the kindness I have been privileged to witness; by the team I have worked alongside; and by the families I have been privileged to follow. When the balance between gratitude and stress started to tip too far in the wrong direction, I knew it was time to move forward.

I’ll continue writing and reflecting on my experiences in my new role as a behavioral health consultant. I hope you’ll continue reading. This blog has become part of my self-care routine in a way I did not expect and your comments and kindness keep me moving. Thank you, dear reader, for joining me. On to the next!

Photo by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

Termination

One of my first social work classes was an undergraduate course. It was a basic overview of the field really, some practice theories, a brief history, etc. I recall that my professor started the course by talking about termination. He told us that termination should start at your very first meeting with a client. It was not the last time I heard this point, of course. Termination is the goal for social workers; the therapeutic relationship has an end date. Sometimes it's because of the barriers of the agency; sometimes it's because the treatment goal has been met; and sometimes, as for me right now, it's because the social worker is changing jobs.

I'm not great at terminating. I also haven't typically had to do it for five years. In hospice, our patients die and bereavement takes over to help the families through their first year after a loss. I make condolence calls but it's understood from my first visit with a patient and family that I won't be there forever.

Now I'm leaving hospice to start a job as a therapist in a doctor's office, where termination will be a much more regular experience. I'm excited to change jobs and nervous and anxious and all the rest. But I'm also really struggling with terminating my current patient relationships.

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

There are two issues for me here. One, quite frankly, is that some of my patients are near death. It doesn't seem right to tell them I'm leaving after next week if they probably are too. However, I have no crystal ball (see previous blog posts) and I could be wrong in my assessment. Then I've done them a disservice by suddenly saying, "Ok, this is our last visit, see ya!" Proper termination allows for some time. That's why the golden rule is to talk about it at your first visit, as well as throughout the therapeutic relationship. I'm not sure how to handle this thorny time issue; I'm kind of just going with my gut.

The other issue at hand is my own discomfort at letting people down. I've worked hard to build relationships with these patients and their families. And now I'm going to unceremoniously end these relationships just because I want a new job. I'm struggling with the idea that I'm being selfish, even though I know that's a silly thought. Still, it's a thought I'm having. I'm going to meet myself where I am about it.

So what do I do? I've been telling patients in person, when I can, straight forwardly and with kindness, I think. I've accepted congratulations and shouldered comments like, "I'm heartbroken!" I've assured them that they will have a social worker, it just won't be me. Honestly, most of them aren't that worried about it. As with most things, my anxiety about their reaction far outweighs their actual reaction. Still, I have to keep saying the words over and over again and it's really weighing on me. That's my last point about termination: it's hard on the social worker too. We are, as I am constantly reminding myself, only human. I feel attached to some of my patients. It's hard for me to say goodbye.

But here I am. I hope my next blog post about termination is about how I figured out the secret formula to doing it right. I suspect I have a ways to go before that one. For now, I'm going to do it the best way I can.

Meet them where they are?

I don’t remember if it’s the very first thing you hear in an MSW program, but I do remember hearing it frequently: “meet the client where they are.” I think of it as a chant, said in unison, ad nauseum, because it was said so often. But that’s because it is one of the most important foundations of our work. We cannot force our patients or clients to do what we think they should do; rather, we have to join them where they are, in their addiction, their illness, their family struggle, and help them find a way forward.

The thing is, that can be hard to do sometimes.

The other day I went to a house to do hospice consents. This is a big part of my job: I explain what hospice can provide at home and discuss with the patient and family what their goals of care are and if we can help them meet those goals with hospice. Not everyone I talk to is ready for hospice; some people can’t get over the word itself or there’s one more treatment they want to try. On the flip side, every so often, I enter a home where the patient is already beginning to die. Hospice can help, but it’s a little late in the game. It also adds a layer of complexity to the admission conversation; if I don’t already have a relationship with the family, how can I begin to tell them that their loved one is going to die?

This particular consent signing was one of those late admissions. This patient had been receiving palliative home care and the family was reluctant to start hospice. There were a lot of emails from management about treading lightly, especially because the patient wanted to continue some treatments that were not benefitting her anymore. I walked into the house already a little anxious, feeling the pressure from above to get the paperwork signed by a hesitant family. Then I met the patient and could see very quickly she was nearing the end of her life.

“Meet them where they are” is a fine sentiment. I agree with it whole heartedly. But standing in front of that patient and her husband, talking about hospice at home and continuing medications that were probably not going to help her anymore, I was torn. Someone would have to tell them that she was dying. Not to be cruel or pushy, but because part of our job as hospice workers is to help people prepare for death. And this woman did not have a lot of time left.

But could I be the one to tell them? I had never met this woman before; I’m not a nurse or a doctor. I’ve been doing this for five years and I’m quite confident that I know what dying looks like. But those emails stuck in my mind; this family wasn’t there yet.

And so, I tread lightly. I spoke with the husband about keeping her at home, in a hospital bed, rather than calling 911 when her heart stopped. He agreed to that. I called the nurse and asked her to visit as soon as possible. I made delicate statements like, “it seems like things are changing.” He agreed. When the patient’s son asked me how much time I thought was left, I gently told him I didn’t think it would be long. The look on his face devastated me.

Photo by Nevin Ruttanaboonta on Unsplash

She died a couple of days later, peacefully and at home, after the nurse and another social worker visited to offer the family some support and help them prepare. I think the family was ready, or as ready as anyone ever is. But I keep thinking about them. Should I have been more aggressive? Is there a place in between “meet them where they are” and “tell the hard truth?”

I’m confident that I did my job: I started the conversation that my team members eventually finished. That is, after all, why we work together in a team; these are not one and done conversations. I was still and present; I used silence and held the space so that the family could ask difficult questions. Should I have pushed harder? Said more? When we meet the client where they are, does that mean we shouldn’t push to move them forward?

I suspect the answers to these questions depend on the situation. Still, this is a case that will be on my mind for a while yet. Examining our practice is an important part of our work. I’ll keep turning it over in my mind from time to time, adding it to the other cases I wonder about. What are some of yours?