Nobody Understands _______ About Me

Hello all!

So it turns out I didn't have to pee in a cup for that drug screening. Instead, I sat in the Carondelet Associate and Wellness office with a thermometer-like thingy in my mouth until it collected enough saliva. It was a great start to the day...

Anyway, all bodily fluid discussion aside, Friday was another busy day at Bridges. Three patients were scheduled to discharge and towards the end of the day we had another admit. But despite the hectic atmosphere, group session and art therapy were quite productive.

For our group session, Ms. Endreson suggested a more interactive "check in" (as opposed to simple conversation). We had each patient fill in the blanks and draw a portrait on this worksheet:

Here are some of the results:

Most patients, again, shared very personal stories with such a simple task. The portraits seemed to be secondary to many of them, but were still a good exercise in self-reflection.

As I drew my portrait, one of the patients commented: "Wow. I wish I could ask you to draw mine for me!" I was of course flattered, but I was even more taken aback by the fact that he had practically guessed the art therapy activity. Ms. Endreson and I exchanged glances as soon as he said it.

The art therapy activity of the day was a paired activity. One person in each pair was to play the role of "master," while the other played "servant" (we didn't exactly say servant, but you know...the person who does the dirty work). The master had to instruct the other partner what to draw and how to draw it. We hoped the activity would help the patients learn to not only cooperate, but to see how other's think and feel.

I worked with a patient who, again, did not speak english very well ( after three Spanish speaking patients, I am beginning to regret my foreign  language choice). But as my partner timidly explained an image for me to draw, I tried my best.

The patient explained to me that this was an image of his church, complete with a parking lot and musicians. 

We switched positions after a while and I tried to explain to him how to draw a rose. It was frustrating for the both of us, to say the least. He did eventually end up with a rose-like thing on his page, but with the combination of the language barrier and my (probably) overly bossy approach, it was a bit of a mess. I'd say we both learned something.

The other patient pairs encountered similar struggles with their pieces. I could sense which patients had more dominant personalities and which patients had more submissive personalities. I hope they realized the same thing.

PS Here's what some of the clay pieces look like from Thursday (the prehistoric fish is in the top right corner). We might add some color in the future!

Until next time,
Tia