I think I may have said this before, but it seems that there is so much going on in my life - as always, that I feel the need to only blog about the things that actually bloggle my mind (^^*). I suppose that's why it seems like I am neglecting my blog, when I'm really not. I think it's purpose may just have shifted temporarily. Even though this may be a long post, bare with me, I can't sleep since I'm all worked up about it and need to blog about it to just get it out there.
Anyhow, I have been talking to Mr. Bubbles about what our future (academically, as individuals) will look like. I still feel torn between Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology. I have my pro's and con's for each, but right now I feel so drawn to Neuropsychology, it's not even funny. Who wants to do Clin Psych and deal with people's problems, when there is enough of Clin Psychs out there who do the job, right?
I feel Neuropsych is so much more interesting and different from what one comes across in daily interaction (or is it?). Often, it is not so much the actual patient and their reason for referral that interests me in my little hypothetical scenarios, but it is the families that actually need the care. They need to be made aware. They need to be psychologized with. It is THEM who have to change, not the patient. As Oliver Sacks has sweetly put it in his book The man who mistook his wife for a hat:
"If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self - himself - he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it" (Sacks, 1985, p. 38).
In the case of dementia or retrograde amnesia (i.e.: forgetting everything before the damaging event + inability to create new longterm memory from that point onwards) the client often doesn't know and isn't aware of their loss, but it is the families that know.
This quote is taken from Chapter 3 - The lost Mariner. This chapter is about a client with severe retrograde amnesia due to Korsakov's syndrome (memory loss due to prolonged periods of severe alcohol abuse and the subsequent lack of Vitamin B1). He talks about his experience of this particuliarily severe case and his realizations and what this case taught him and towards the end of the chapter Sacks put forward that the "clinical lesson here is that in Korsakov's, or dementia or other such catastrophes, however great the organic damage and Humean dissolution, there remains the undiminished possibility or reintegration by art, by communion, by touching the human spirit: and this can be preserved in what seems at first a hopeless state of neurological devastation" (Sacks, 1985, p. 42).
So I read this this morning and of course forgot about it throughout my busy day, until tonight, when I had sat down on one of the residents' bed and fed her dinner. She suffers from dementia that has been worsening steadily. When I first met her she was up and walking and now she's tied to the bed, suffering from delusions. Anyhow, so as I was listening to her talking to me, her speech is very clear, but her sentences often don't make sense semantically and every couple of minutes or so she'll talk about something completely different as she would have forgotten what she was talking about in the first place.
Eventually, her daughter walked in to visit and so I sat there and finished feeding her mom, who was happily talking about the world and nothing, when all of a sudden she said something random that didn't make sense at all. I didn't really mind, because I make people talk just so they talk and get all there tension out - even if they don't make sense, I believe it is important for ones own peace. After all it is one of the first things you learn in psychology that people possess an innate need to communicate. So anyway, I didn't mind, because I usually go along with their story and instead of the daughter understanding, she laughed out loud and said "OH GOSH! SHE'S DELUSIONAL" .... There was an awkward silence, the mom had stopped talking for a little while and I felt hurt, because like. HELLO! This is your mother! You are a SOCIAL WORKER! You are meant to have compassion and be able to deal with these situations even when it's your own mother! Anyhow, so I walked off since I had finished feeding her anyway.
I returned later once I was done with my shift and listened to the resident some more and all of a sudden she said: "I can't take this anymore, I had even forgotten that my husband had passed away"! I was shocked to hear such a clear statement come out of her mouth! I mean WOW! So I talked to her a little longer about her husband until she switched topics again.
As I was leaving and telling her that she didn't need to worry about anything, she looked at me and told me that she was incredibly thankful since I was her only visitor today who cared and that I had a kind soul. Eventhough this came from someone who very much lives in the moment, it was a very humbling experience. My co-workers always smile at me and say "ah you shouldn't care, they are just going crazy" but really? Is that what life is? You are incontinent and tied to a bed and you stop living and taking in your surroundings? I don't believe it.
On my way home I was angry and happy and sad and all these emotions and I remembered what Oliver Sacks said and his realization that there is something beyond the genetic and biological make up of people, and I think he's right. I think it is precisely that, which forms the basis of my belief that you can touch a persons soul, implicitely. Even though they may not remember you as soon as you walk out the door, you have the ability to change their lives and touch their hearts consciously for a moment and unconsciously for a lifetime.
I feel Neuropsych is so much more interesting and different from what one comes across in daily interaction (or is it?). Often, it is not so much the actual patient and their reason for referral that interests me in my little hypothetical scenarios, but it is the families that actually need the care. They need to be made aware. They need to be psychologized with. It is THEM who have to change, not the patient. As Oliver Sacks has sweetly put it in his book The man who mistook his wife for a hat:
"If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self - himself - he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it" (Sacks, 1985, p. 38).
In the case of dementia or retrograde amnesia (i.e.: forgetting everything before the damaging event + inability to create new longterm memory from that point onwards) the client often doesn't know and isn't aware of their loss, but it is the families that know.
This quote is taken from Chapter 3 - The lost Mariner. This chapter is about a client with severe retrograde amnesia due to Korsakov's syndrome (memory loss due to prolonged periods of severe alcohol abuse and the subsequent lack of Vitamin B1). He talks about his experience of this particuliarily severe case and his realizations and what this case taught him and towards the end of the chapter Sacks put forward that the "clinical lesson here is that in Korsakov's, or dementia or other such catastrophes, however great the organic damage and Humean dissolution, there remains the undiminished possibility or reintegration by art, by communion, by touching the human spirit: and this can be preserved in what seems at first a hopeless state of neurological devastation" (Sacks, 1985, p. 42).
So I read this this morning and of course forgot about it throughout my busy day, until tonight, when I had sat down on one of the residents' bed and fed her dinner. She suffers from dementia that has been worsening steadily. When I first met her she was up and walking and now she's tied to the bed, suffering from delusions. Anyhow, so as I was listening to her talking to me, her speech is very clear, but her sentences often don't make sense semantically and every couple of minutes or so she'll talk about something completely different as she would have forgotten what she was talking about in the first place.
Eventually, her daughter walked in to visit and so I sat there and finished feeding her mom, who was happily talking about the world and nothing, when all of a sudden she said something random that didn't make sense at all. I didn't really mind, because I make people talk just so they talk and get all there tension out - even if they don't make sense, I believe it is important for ones own peace. After all it is one of the first things you learn in psychology that people possess an innate need to communicate. So anyway, I didn't mind, because I usually go along with their story and instead of the daughter understanding, she laughed out loud and said "OH GOSH! SHE'S DELUSIONAL" .... There was an awkward silence, the mom had stopped talking for a little while and I felt hurt, because like. HELLO! This is your mother! You are a SOCIAL WORKER! You are meant to have compassion and be able to deal with these situations even when it's your own mother! Anyhow, so I walked off since I had finished feeding her anyway.
I returned later once I was done with my shift and listened to the resident some more and all of a sudden she said: "I can't take this anymore, I had even forgotten that my husband had passed away"! I was shocked to hear such a clear statement come out of her mouth! I mean WOW! So I talked to her a little longer about her husband until she switched topics again.
As I was leaving and telling her that she didn't need to worry about anything, she looked at me and told me that she was incredibly thankful since I was her only visitor today who cared and that I had a kind soul. Eventhough this came from someone who very much lives in the moment, it was a very humbling experience. My co-workers always smile at me and say "ah you shouldn't care, they are just going crazy" but really? Is that what life is? You are incontinent and tied to a bed and you stop living and taking in your surroundings? I don't believe it.
On my way home I was angry and happy and sad and all these emotions and I remembered what Oliver Sacks said and his realization that there is something beyond the genetic and biological make up of people, and I think he's right. I think it is precisely that, which forms the basis of my belief that you can touch a persons soul, implicitely. Even though they may not remember you as soon as you walk out the door, you have the ability to change their lives and touch their hearts consciously for a moment and unconsciously for a lifetime.
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