Aug 5 2010 was my first day at The Brooklyn Social Therapy group. I will be doing my internship here over the summer and i cannot wait to see what goes on here in a therapeutic environment. During my time here i wll be attending social group sessions and family sessions. Their are also community events and presentations from different people that i will help put together and attend. Not only am I exited to learn from my experiences with the therapists here, but i also intend to build relationships with the some clients. These are normal people that do not one does not get the opportunity to mingle with in a open setting. i adire the fact that these opportunities are created by te Brooklyn social therapy group. I have been informed that the motive of the particular comany is to use social support as therapy for people of all ages, background, ethnicities, economic status and positions. They believe that as a culture, we are increasingly failing to respect childhood and adolescence, pathologizing normal child behavior and foisting burdensome and stigmatizing diagnoses such as ADHD, Asperger's syndrome, childhood depression, and more on children as young as three years old - with an alarming number of children being medicated. For more than 20 years Christine LaCerva and Dr. Anthony Rao have pioneered alternative approaches to helping these children, adolescents, and their families. In different ways they have trained and supervised professionals and helped parents to see and relate to children outside the confines of diagnostic categories and I wish to be apart of that. I believe that this is my calling; this is exactly what my purpose is in life.
Family therapy- During my internship i enjoyed sitting in and participating in family sessions lead by Christine Lacerva. She is the director of the Brooklyn Social Therapy and the only therapist there that does the family therapy. In the sessions, we worked with three chidren, two boys and one girl. We used performance as therapy for the children. They got to act out situations that would help them with whatever issues they were having outside of therapy. We played a car game, where the driver can change his/her emotion and the passengers had to express the same emotion. this taught each player how and when to be a leader and a follower. When ever we sat in a circle and talked, we all had to listen to who ever was talking and not interrupt then becuase listen is a form of support; it shows the person that you care about what they are talking about and they are important to you. These children were very active and out spoken, just as all children. Sometimes they said things that we funny, somethings were unexpected and somethings were in appropriate and Christine or I had to teach them what not to say, why they should not say, and how they can say things in a better way. At times things were difficult because of the emotional difference in each childs temperament. We had to always be honest with them and show them what they were doing. This is where the perfomrance stood out to me to be more effective than fun. The girl that was in the group seemed to be very moody. She never wanted to participate and she wined alot. Everytime someone suggested a game she would shake her head "no" And say "i dont wanna". In the end, we did a skit about needing freinds with her. The other intern played a young girl who needed the help convincing someone to be her freind. At the end of the skit, the girl basically told the intern that people do need friends and that they should not push them away. So the intern told her that she has to do the same and participate in the group activities, but the girl refused. This was funny, but it shows how difficult children can be. Christine says that the girl is spoiled. This seemed to affect the girl and she began to participate more and wine less toward the end of the summer sessions. I was not able to build a realationship with any of these children but i did learn alot from them.
I noticed other abnormal differences in the children's behavior. I was able to identify with some of the disorders that I learned about in my abnormal psychology course. One of the boys we worked with projected some type of gender indentity issue. When ever he got into any uncomfortable situations with other children, he would put on a persaonality similar to a girls as a defense mechagnism. I suppose that that was his way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation. He also acted like a girl to make people laugh. I could tell that he enjoyed entertaining people and making them laugh. However, his mom and some children in his class at school did not like that and it would cause some of the children to bully him even more at school, so in therapy we had to help him figure out deal with his situations in a better. The other boy had aspergers syndrome. I was able to identify some of the symptoms, of course the more obvious symptoms. This kid was very active, he was alway willing to participate in the performances, which is a good thing, but, at times he would take over the entire perfoemance not being mindful of what the others wanted to do. We constantly had to tell him to listen to the others and show support. He was very fidgety, talkative to the point that he talked over others, for long periods of time about things that interested him, unaware that everyone else wasnot always interested. When ever he was asked to share what he has done since our last meeting, he would talk about exciting trips that he and his family went on and he would really focus on the route that they took. My guess is that he is fixated on routes and directions. He would know every detail about the bridges, highway exits, amount of miles etc. he knew everything about how he got to his destination. His mother would get very agitated about some of the things he does. For instance, the fact that he was not making freinds at school or regular camp frustrated her. He was not building relationships like normal kids do because he did not care about freindships and his mother was learning to accept that. One day, we had a session with the kids and one parent for each child. The boys brought their mothers' and the girl brought her nanny. We all performed different skits and the guardians got a chance to see how therapy goes and different ways that their children interacted at therapy. It was alot of fun but we all learned alot about each other and we learned alot from each other. Listening to other peoples problems helps you to inderstand that anyone can have problems, you are not the only one who needs help. Needing help is not a bad thing, it is actually more normal than people think. Interning here i was exposed to the things that i will be working with in the future, when i become a therapist. being here gave me insight of my challenges, and i believe that i can definately succeed at helping people figure out what works best for them. That is what i have learned being a therapist is all about; giving people the tools they need to help themself.
