Gear... Week 2 of Brigits Flame
Autobiographical Entry with Names and Details changed to protect confidentiality
I’m supervising an intern for her Master’s program. This helps me because the one day a week that I can give to Po’okela Elementary out of all of my other job duties is not nearly enough-and it helps her because a good practicum site is hard to find.
My responsibility is to expose her to a variety of experiences that capture the basics of therapy in a school.
Our first client of the day is a kindergartener whose mother called the principal asking for counseling after he witnessed “a traumatic event.” The teacher has also turned in a referral form: “He can’t pay attention, he cries, and he won’t talk.”
I explain to my intern, “We need more information from the mother to find out what we’re dealing with, and at least a verbal consent. I’m going to call the parent and model a phone interview for you.”
My intern nods, making a note in the little square notebook she takes everywhere. She’s a rabbity-eyed, plain young woman who’s nonetheless showed me she’s smart and empathetic with good listening skills, essentials to be an effective therapist.
I phone the mother. “Mrs. Ching, this is the counselor at Po’okela School. I’m going to meet with your son, but I need a little more information to help me work with him. What are your concerns?”
She has many. The mother and three children got home from an outing to find the father hanging himself in the living room. Mother and older children cut him down and were able to revive him; but now the couple are getting divorced. The little boy continues to have regressive behaviors: anxious about leaving mother, dislikes visiting father on weekends per the custody agreement, wets the bed, and has almost totally stopped speaking.
Traumatic event indeed. We have some work to do.
We bring him up to the counseling room. His serious, reserved demeanor reminds me of Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. My intern gets behind the desk to observe as we’ve decided on a client-centered play therapy approach.
I gesture to the therapy area, where my gear is spread out-a plastic dollhouse with a box of action figures, a pile of puppets with accompanying puppet theatre, and a variety of art materials invitingly displayed on a table.
“This is your time to play with whatever you want,” I tell him. “What do you feel like doing?”
He surveys the toys, his hands down at his sides, his face expressionless. Then he looks at me and shrugs, a big movement that brings his shoulders up by his ears. He’s waiting for me to tell him what to do. I imitate his gesture, and wait.
After a long moment he realizes he’s really going to have to choose. He goes to the playhouse. I sit beside him, crosslegged. He takes out all the action figures and sets them around the house- plastic soldiers, a Spider Man, GI Joe, Tarzan, Buzz Lightyear. He ignores the traditional family figures. When the house is bristling with defenders, he rolls the action figure on the motorbike around and around the house, patrolling. I observe aloud what he does.
There are no accompanying sound effects. This is notable because little boys usually make sound effects- and a motorbike is one of the most fun. The metaphor seems clear-he feels unsafe and is defending himself.
He puts the figures back in the box. Looks at me.
“What do you want to do next?” I ask.
He shrugs.
I shrug.
Then he says, so low I almost don’t catch it, “Draw.”
“Draw,” I repeat. “Okay.”
I wait until he goes to the table, then I sit beside him as he takes a crayon and draws, displaying more confidence than I’ve yet seen. With surprisingly good fine motor skills he draws a fish, its mouth is curved up. I point to it.
“This looks like a happy fish.”
He nods, decorating the fish’s body with big black dots. I get out some more art materials in case he wants something different, and a decorative glass egg rolls out of the box.
He catches it, positions it underneath the fish, and traces around it. He sets the egg aside and colors the water dark blue.
“Is the water warm or cold?” I ask, not really expecting him to answer.
“Cold,” he whispers.
Heartened, I say, “It looks like the fish is guarding the egg.”
“Yes,” he says.
“It looks like the happy fish is taking care of his egg in the cold sea.”
He nods, looks up. Serious sad little face, mouth set. He pushes the drawing to me.
“Do I get to keep this?”
He nods again, slides off the chair and goes to stand by the door.
“Are you ready to go back to class?”
He nods.
“Do you want to come back next week?”
He nods.
“Okay. Miss is going to walk you back to class.” I gesture to my intern. “I really enjoyed playing with you, Ikaika.” He extends his hand, takes hers, walks away. No smile, no backward glance.
I sit down to write my case note. I’ve asked my intern to write one too, for us to compare as a teaching tool. I start:
Client exhibits constricted affect and limited verbalization. Engaged in play using action figures with a guarding, vigilant motif. Chose to do artwork and continued theme…”
I sit for a moment, looking at the drawing. There’s something very hopeful about it-the bright spotted yellow fish smiling, hovering over the oval egg, blue ocean all around.
I finally notice my own feelings: the tension of the morning, stress of demonstrating good skills to my intern, anxiety engendered by the daunting phone call to mother- all have drained away.
I’m feeling relaxed, confident, hopeful. This little boy wants to heal himself, and he’s going to. I don’t have to do anything but set the stage.
My intern comes back, throws herself onto the couch.
“What’s going to happen to him? He’s so shut down, it’s like nobody’s home.” She blinks rapidly and I see she’s holding back tears. No calm feelings for her. I remember being that scared.
“He’s going to be fine. He’s telling me what he’s doing through his play. He’ll keep practicing the metaphor until he resolves it. We just have to trust the process.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know. He knows. He’s the one in charge of his healing, and it’ll happen when he’s ready.”
“Okay,” she says, still skeptical. “It’ll be interesting to see.”
“Yes, it will.” I’m smiling. I love what I do so much.
I’m supervising an intern for her Master’s program. This helps me because the one day a week that I can give to Po’okela Elementary out of all of my other job duties is not nearly enough-and it helps her because a good practicum site is hard to find.
My responsibility is to expose her to a variety of experiences that capture the basics of therapy in a school.
Our first client of the day is a kindergartener whose mother called the principal asking for counseling after he witnessed “a traumatic event.” The teacher has also turned in a referral form: “He can’t pay attention, he cries, and he won’t talk.”
I explain to my intern, “We need more information from the mother to find out what we’re dealing with, and at least a verbal consent. I’m going to call the parent and model a phone interview for you.”
My intern nods, making a note in the little square notebook she takes everywhere. She’s a rabbity-eyed, plain young woman who’s nonetheless showed me she’s smart and empathetic with good listening skills, essentials to be an effective therapist.
I phone the mother. “Mrs. Ching, this is the counselor at Po’okela School. I’m going to meet with your son, but I need a little more information to help me work with him. What are your concerns?”
She has many. The mother and three children got home from an outing to find the father hanging himself in the living room. Mother and older children cut him down and were able to revive him; but now the couple are getting divorced. The little boy continues to have regressive behaviors: anxious about leaving mother, dislikes visiting father on weekends per the custody agreement, wets the bed, and has almost totally stopped speaking.
Traumatic event indeed. We have some work to do.
We bring him up to the counseling room. His serious, reserved demeanor reminds me of Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. My intern gets behind the desk to observe as we’ve decided on a client-centered play therapy approach.
I gesture to the therapy area, where my gear is spread out-a plastic dollhouse with a box of action figures, a pile of puppets with accompanying puppet theatre, and a variety of art materials invitingly displayed on a table.
“This is your time to play with whatever you want,” I tell him. “What do you feel like doing?”
He surveys the toys, his hands down at his sides, his face expressionless. Then he looks at me and shrugs, a big movement that brings his shoulders up by his ears. He’s waiting for me to tell him what to do. I imitate his gesture, and wait.
After a long moment he realizes he’s really going to have to choose. He goes to the playhouse. I sit beside him, crosslegged. He takes out all the action figures and sets them around the house- plastic soldiers, a Spider Man, GI Joe, Tarzan, Buzz Lightyear. He ignores the traditional family figures. When the house is bristling with defenders, he rolls the action figure on the motorbike around and around the house, patrolling. I observe aloud what he does.
There are no accompanying sound effects. This is notable because little boys usually make sound effects- and a motorbike is one of the most fun. The metaphor seems clear-he feels unsafe and is defending himself.
He puts the figures back in the box. Looks at me.
“What do you want to do next?” I ask.
He shrugs.
I shrug.
Then he says, so low I almost don’t catch it, “Draw.”
“Draw,” I repeat. “Okay.”
I wait until he goes to the table, then I sit beside him as he takes a crayon and draws, displaying more confidence than I’ve yet seen. With surprisingly good fine motor skills he draws a fish, its mouth is curved up. I point to it.
“This looks like a happy fish.”
He nods, decorating the fish’s body with big black dots. I get out some more art materials in case he wants something different, and a decorative glass egg rolls out of the box.
He catches it, positions it underneath the fish, and traces around it. He sets the egg aside and colors the water dark blue.
“Is the water warm or cold?” I ask, not really expecting him to answer.
“Cold,” he whispers.
Heartened, I say, “It looks like the fish is guarding the egg.”
“Yes,” he says.
“It looks like the happy fish is taking care of his egg in the cold sea.”
He nods, looks up. Serious sad little face, mouth set. He pushes the drawing to me.
“Do I get to keep this?”
He nods again, slides off the chair and goes to stand by the door.
“Are you ready to go back to class?”
He nods.
“Do you want to come back next week?”
He nods.
“Okay. Miss is going to walk you back to class.” I gesture to my intern. “I really enjoyed playing with you, Ikaika.” He extends his hand, takes hers, walks away. No smile, no backward glance.
I sit down to write my case note. I’ve asked my intern to write one too, for us to compare as a teaching tool. I start:
Client exhibits constricted affect and limited verbalization. Engaged in play using action figures with a guarding, vigilant motif. Chose to do artwork and continued theme…”
I sit for a moment, looking at the drawing. There’s something very hopeful about it-the bright spotted yellow fish smiling, hovering over the oval egg, blue ocean all around.
I finally notice my own feelings: the tension of the morning, stress of demonstrating good skills to my intern, anxiety engendered by the daunting phone call to mother- all have drained away.
I’m feeling relaxed, confident, hopeful. This little boy wants to heal himself, and he’s going to. I don’t have to do anything but set the stage.
My intern comes back, throws herself onto the couch.
“What’s going to happen to him? He’s so shut down, it’s like nobody’s home.” She blinks rapidly and I see she’s holding back tears. No calm feelings for her. I remember being that scared.
“He’s going to be fine. He’s telling me what he’s doing through his play. He’ll keep practicing the metaphor until he resolves it. We just have to trust the process.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know. He knows. He’s the one in charge of his healing, and it’ll happen when he’s ready.”
“Okay,” she says, still skeptical. “It’ll be interesting to see.”
“Yes, it will.” I’m smiling. I love what I do so much.