I'm tired, I'm not totally well and I have squillions of things yet to do this day, but damn... my profession is EXCITING!!! Lessee... last week I had a Prop 21 pull a Tarasoff on me, then I found myself counseling a sexual predator in the middle of what I thought was a very different sort of case, and one of my favorite group home girls from my masters practicum is back in the Hall and pregnant. Akkk!
Then there was the testing side of things. Last week I had to stop a session because the client was on the verge of seizuring.
Today I walked into the clinic and saw a seriously sinister figure in the waiting room. Brooding, hooded and with a very ominous glare. Just my luck it turned out to be my case for the morning and the background involved lots of explosive violence and other scary stuff. Hoo boy... as it turned out, upon learning there psych testing involved the would be client refused, leapt up dramatically and directed a stream of profanity at my supervisor before stomping out. Oh my!
I have two more colorful cases on my plate as of today and my usual Prop 21 group tomorrow. Phew!
My icouldbe.org kids who I mentor are going gangbusters this year and I have showers of e-mails telling me they're talking to me and doing their activities all week. They've expanded the program to include junior high and middle schoolers so I have several 7th graders, which is new and interesting! A couple want to be doctors, one wants to be a vet and everyone wants to do some sort of psychology in the mix. Kewl!
Doing papers on the H'mong and Mien cultures and one on mirror neurons, along with a case study, all of which is totally fascinating. So all in all everything is brilliant except for stats, and my head is still above water, which is ok.
Sometimes when I get this much interesting stuff on my plate I start to feel a little manic; like a fountain of doctoral passion (ooo la la). LOL! I know I'll have to crash out of sheer exhaustion, but it's good to be high on your chosen profession sometimes, you know? Not real mania though, because even though it's hard to get to sleep with all the thoughts whirling around in my head, I still NEED to sleep and the lack thereof is keeping me permanently on the verge of illness. Have had to force myself to really organize my days in order to keep from dragging out my studying into the wee hours and then being in a fog the next day. Trying not to abuse caffeine either, so sleep and good diet and vitamins are being added to my list of meta-mothering.
Good God... is it really only Monday?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Fresh Fiction Home Delivery!
Are you a fiction lover? Maybe a fiction writer even? Check out this new site Newfiction
It's sort of like the old concept of books on tape, but in this case they are electronic and all the stories are by unpublished authors. My good friend Matt Millar told me about it because he is doing the readings. He rocks, so I know they'll be fun to hear, and they're free if you get a chapter a day (or week, your choice) or you can pay $5 to have it all at once, I think. They'll make their money by advertising on the site, but for now it's brand new. I'm going to put them on my ipod and listen while I commute. What little I heard was a hoot. =)
It's sort of like the old concept of books on tape, but in this case they are electronic and all the stories are by unpublished authors. My good friend Matt Millar told me about it because he is doing the readings. He rocks, so I know they'll be fun to hear, and they're free if you get a chapter a day (or week, your choice) or you can pay $5 to have it all at once, I think. They'll make their money by advertising on the site, but for now it's brand new. I'm going to put them on my ipod and listen while I commute. What little I heard was a hoot. =)
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Little Visitor
Wednesday night we had a little visitor to our house library. The library actually used to be a utility room and on the wall where all the plumbing and cabinetry are we created the cat center; litter box, food bin and in the corner their two bowls with a water fountain between. I was toddling out there to 'feed' the fountain, as it makes slurping sounds when it gets low, and discovered someone in the litter box who was NOT part of our family! It was a baby raccoon, and what he was doing in the box, I'm not sure.
Usually going away after startling them makes little creatures scoot back out to freedom, but little bandit's mother must have really stressed the importance of cleaning one's plate because he stayed on to polish off the cat bowls and then set to prying and thumping on the main cat food bin. Unfortunately our little library is a bit of a culdesac and it's impossible to get behind unwelcome guests to escort them out, thus we tried to help this little one find his way back through the cat door (his much larger relatives ripped the actual door off so they could fit through the hole) by patting him gently with a broom. No dice, instead he climbed up a short bookcase and twined himself around our favorite stained glass lamp!
Again we retreated, but he just kept going higher, pulling all sorts of things down onto his head in the process, until he was all the way on top of our 6 foot bookcases. At one point he reached up and grabbed the edge of a stack of oversized plastic platters (you know, the holiday ones with various decorations on them for serving at parties) stacked way up on top of the bookcase and managed to pull them all down, but miraculously he didn't fall with them; instead he was left dangling by one little hand from the top of the bookcase.
He was quite plainly freaked that it was such a long way down. We know this because he then started to cry, which in a baby raccoon is a series of heart melting little trills and chirps. It wasn't long before Mother coon came to the rescue and HER comments were anything but sweet! Apparently she wasn't impressed. We backed off and let her figure it out, and somehow or other she got him down because when we looked again they were gone.
I'm not sure if his ratty little tail is normal for little ones like this or not. I don't think so because we've had small ones before and I don't recall their tails not being fluffy. Maybe he was an opossucoon? Or maybe a ratcoon?
All's well that ends well. =)
Usually going away after startling them makes little creatures scoot back out to freedom, but little bandit's mother must have really stressed the importance of cleaning one's plate because he stayed on to polish off the cat bowls and then set to prying and thumping on the main cat food bin. Unfortunately our little library is a bit of a culdesac and it's impossible to get behind unwelcome guests to escort them out, thus we tried to help this little one find his way back through the cat door (his much larger relatives ripped the actual door off so they could fit through the hole) by patting him gently with a broom. No dice, instead he climbed up a short bookcase and twined himself around our favorite stained glass lamp!Again we retreated, but he just kept going higher, pulling all sorts of things down onto his head in the process, until he was all the way on top of our 6 foot bookcases. At one point he reached up and grabbed the edge of a stack of oversized plastic platters (you know, the holiday ones with various decorations on them for serving at parties) stacked way up on top of the bookcase and managed to pull them all down, but miraculously he didn't fall with them; instead he was left dangling by one little hand from the top of the bookcase.
He was quite plainly freaked that it was such a long way down. We know this because he then started to cry, which in a baby raccoon is a series of heart melting little trills and chirps. It wasn't long before Mother coon came to the rescue and HER comments were anything but sweet! Apparently she wasn't impressed. We backed off and let her figure it out, and somehow or other she got him down because when we looked again they were gone.
I'm not sure if his ratty little tail is normal for little ones like this or not. I don't think so because we've had small ones before and I don't recall their tails not being fluffy. Maybe he was an opossucoon? Or maybe a ratcoon?
All's well that ends well. =)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Links
Because I had such fits trying to make my links work in the response box to the message below. Here are the articles I mentioned in my reply!
Insight oriented therapy with Psychopaths
And an alternative perspective on the underlying causes of Psychopathy
Thanks for letting me know it wasn't working, Psychgrad!
Insight oriented therapy with Psychopaths
And an alternative perspective on the underlying causes of Psychopathy
Thanks for letting me know it wasn't working, Psychgrad!
Friday, October 05, 2007
Back to School!
Just back from my first week of classes. Two new profs and both look to be
Thank you for the encouraging and interesting comments to my post below about working with Prop 21 kids. I'll answer them here, since I have more to say than I want to stick in a comment thread.
I talked a little about this topic in a couple of classes. In a multicultural class we were asked if there was any population we thought we could not or did not want to work with. A couple of people said they didn't want to work with perpetrators of crimes, but rather with victims. I had the chance to say to the group in a later class that what makes me able to work with this group is that they are both!
At a Restorative Justice conference a few weeks ago I got a chance to see a presentation by an ex gang member, Reverend Tony Ortiz. He made the comment that "Hurt people hurt people." So very true...
During the breaks in our Biopsychology class I was part of a fascinating debate about whether psychopaths are born or made. Regardless of how it happens, my question is, when and how can you be reasonably sure that's what you're dealing with and what can be done with/for them once they're set on that path? Based on Robert Hare's research, psychopaths treated with regular, insight oriented talk therapy are much more likely to reoffend than those who get no therapy at all. Those who are given straight behavioral therapy are less likely to reoffend. So if this study is representative of all psychopaths, then doing insight oriented therapy (and restorative justice is very heavy on insight) actually DOES HARM!!! Thus screening is critical.
Thank you for the encouraging and interesting comments to my post below about working with Prop 21 kids. I'll answer them here, since I have more to say than I want to stick in a comment thread.
I talked a little about this topic in a couple of classes. In a multicultural class we were asked if there was any population we thought we could not or did not want to work with. A couple of people said they didn't want to work with perpetrators of crimes, but rather with victims. I had the chance to say to the group in a later class that what makes me able to work with this group is that they are both!
At a Restorative Justice conference a few weeks ago I got a chance to see a presentation by an ex gang member, Reverend Tony Ortiz. He made the comment that "Hurt people hurt people." So very true...
During the breaks in our Biopsychology class I was part of a fascinating debate about whether psychopaths are born or made. Regardless of how it happens, my question is, when and how can you be reasonably sure that's what you're dealing with and what can be done with/for them once they're set on that path? Based on Robert Hare's research, psychopaths treated with regular, insight oriented talk therapy are much more likely to reoffend than those who get no therapy at all. Those who are given straight behavioral therapy are less likely to reoffend. So if this study is representative of all psychopaths, then doing insight oriented therapy (and restorative justice is very heavy on insight) actually DOES HARM!!! Thus screening is critical.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
New Ideas Bubbling Up
Well one interesting thing that came up as part of the discussion about this job I can't have (that appears to have been worth about $25/hr, dammit!) was that the person who is feeling overwhelmed and wanted a break, Ill call him S, works full time during the week at a nearby prison. This happens to be the very prison that is high on my list of preferences for predoctoral internships. Kewl!
Because I work with Prop 21 kids (those being tried as adults for their crimes) and several have been sentenced just recently and shown a similar set of responses, I am thinking it might be interesting to do a dissertation surrounding this unique population. The initiative was passed in 2000 but took a long time to go into effect due to political battling over how to implement it, so it is a relatively new phenomenon. In past years there have been 2 or maybe 3 Prop 21 kids in our hall at any given time, but recently that jumped to 14! These are long term detainees for us, as it may take up to a year for their cases to be adjudicated (adult proceedings take longer than juvenile ones, it seems). Because most funding for mental health care (read Medicare) cuts off if you are incarcerated, there are no mental health services for these kids beyond crisis management. I've been a new element in all this because I provide a cost free way to give long term counseling to this population... or to anyone in the hall, actually. Now they are thinking of starting a program involving second year masters students and doctoral students to provide counseling. Kewl!!
Anyway, what came out of this thing about S, who works at the prison, is that he is doing these weekend shifts because he's interested in 'trying some new things' with youths who he thinks may be at risk of ending up seeing him at his 'day job.' I mentioned to the program director that S has been really helpful to the Prop 21 kids in helping them know what to realistically expect for their futures and I wished we could all be a little more educated in that area. The PM said he would try to arrange to have S, or someone else from the prison, do an inservice training about what to expect and how to help people facing or serving long term prison sentences. When I meet S I'm hoping to talk to him about whether I can work with him to turn one of his experiments into a dissertation, or if he would be interested in being on my committee if I decide to do something else on this topic.
One of the other people on the weekend rotation works at the J. Hall in the next county over during the week, so perhaps I could work with that person to include Prop 21 kids up there too, if they have any. Just ideas bubbling up through my little noggin...
Ok, so it's not money in my pocket, but at least it's something positive to be thinking about for a change! It's also a good excuse for not having done much on the lit review for the topic I had going. I'm thinking that if I was so uninspired that I didn't feel motivate to do the work, maybe I need to find a different topic.
Because I work with Prop 21 kids (those being tried as adults for their crimes) and several have been sentenced just recently and shown a similar set of responses, I am thinking it might be interesting to do a dissertation surrounding this unique population. The initiative was passed in 2000 but took a long time to go into effect due to political battling over how to implement it, so it is a relatively new phenomenon. In past years there have been 2 or maybe 3 Prop 21 kids in our hall at any given time, but recently that jumped to 14! These are long term detainees for us, as it may take up to a year for their cases to be adjudicated (adult proceedings take longer than juvenile ones, it seems). Because most funding for mental health care (read Medicare) cuts off if you are incarcerated, there are no mental health services for these kids beyond crisis management. I've been a new element in all this because I provide a cost free way to give long term counseling to this population... or to anyone in the hall, actually. Now they are thinking of starting a program involving second year masters students and doctoral students to provide counseling. Kewl!!
Anyway, what came out of this thing about S, who works at the prison, is that he is doing these weekend shifts because he's interested in 'trying some new things' with youths who he thinks may be at risk of ending up seeing him at his 'day job.' I mentioned to the program director that S has been really helpful to the Prop 21 kids in helping them know what to realistically expect for their futures and I wished we could all be a little more educated in that area. The PM said he would try to arrange to have S, or someone else from the prison, do an inservice training about what to expect and how to help people facing or serving long term prison sentences. When I meet S I'm hoping to talk to him about whether I can work with him to turn one of his experiments into a dissertation, or if he would be interested in being on my committee if I decide to do something else on this topic.
One of the other people on the weekend rotation works at the J. Hall in the next county over during the week, so perhaps I could work with that person to include Prop 21 kids up there too, if they have any. Just ideas bubbling up through my little noggin...
Ok, so it's not money in my pocket, but at least it's something positive to be thinking about for a change! It's also a good excuse for not having done much on the lit review for the topic I had going. I'm thinking that if I was so uninspired that I didn't feel motivate to do the work, maybe I need to find a different topic.
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