Getting Better Day by Day

What a delightful week it's been! Two days of internship with fun people doing interesting things. For example, I met one THRILLING client with a nasty case of scabies and an odor that could knock a horse over. Then there was another client who has often been found on top of vending machines, on rooftops, darting past classroom windows and grazing on wild mushrooms on school grounds.

But I mustn't forget to mention the interns and practicum students who make the professional part a pleasure, too. Most are from my school, so I know them already and am feeling like every day is a reunion. Some are new to me though, and so far all are great fun. Besides the camaraderie, I particularly love the mental challenges. Lunch with my fellow interns is all about discussing and debating theories, ideas and sticky cases. We're all plotting out our futures and everyone is enthusiastic. This is what I had hoped to find in grad school and was disappointed that it was pretty rare there. But now that we're all clear of the coursework it's a very different energy! And too, I suppose that the site has selected for people with lots in common, philosophically speaking.

To add to all of that, a fellow classmate, now in her PostDoc year, has just started at the Prison I left. She's only been there a few days, but her experience is so far really good. I'm delighted about that because it confirms for me that it wasn't the prison in general, it was my supervisor and the internship program. It also assuages my guilt about 'tainting' my school's reputation in some way. I know she'll do well there if she chooses to stay long term. Anyway, it's fun sharing experiences about the place.

The more time I spend with my therapist, the better I like her. I'm finding all kinds of things like that making a big thick silver lining over the horrific cloud of my first internship experience.

I suppose after the past few months this post must sound positively MANIC! It's just really nice to feel like a normal human being again. And somewhere in all this I've had a fundamental shift in my priorities. I don't really care how long it takes me to get through this degree now. I'm going to enjoy this as much as I can, learn as much as I can, and let the chips fall where they may with respect to post docs.

VINDICATION!!!

So today I got an e-mail from the Director of Training at my school saying that the faculty met and agreed that the feedback I received from my internship site was specific to that institution. They said they feel very confident about my professional competence and support me in beginning a new internship. My plan to start part time and move to full time in the summer is being reviewed to be sure the State internship program is ok with it, but they don't anticipate it being a problem.

So hopefully that will be that and the TD at the prison (I've taken to calling it Azkaban) will leave well enough alone. I'm still working at Juvenile Hall and with luck will be back in the swing of the internship next week!

I hate coming here and just whining whining whining all the time, but it seemed that mess just consumed my every waking moment! The support I've gotten here has been wonderful though, and I can't tell you how much it has helped!

Still though, I'm looking forward now to having more interesting things to blog about. Like, for example, the fact that I am seriously crippled by overdoing on my new Wii. LOL! But seriously, I have promised myself that I'll add in one non-technical book to my list at all times, to be read in bed and on weekends. And should post pictures of our lovely canyon all wet and wild with the creek raging (while it lasts, poor dry CA is soaking up water like a sponge just now). I'm going to lunches and breakfasts with friends and watching more movies with AR in the evenings. Trying to restore balance in my world...

Nope, I am NOT going back there...

I have proclaimed that 2010 will rock and I am sticking to my guns. So why am I posting this at 1:30 in the morning and why am I getting angrier and angrier by the minute? Apparently there is a problem with me being resilient. Perhaps if my functioning before this internship was excellent and my performance afterward continues to be excellent, it might suggest that what happened was about the internship, and not about me being broken. So now it seems that it is an ethical breach for me to start another internship right away because I am so gravely impaired that I need to sit around bleeding for a few months before I even think about getting back on the horse... even if I am at a site where I've worked before and am completely at home with the work and the supervisors. Even if I start up cautiously, part-time, and even if I am simultaneously in therapy, working through what happened at their site. There are those who feel so strongly about this that they felt the need to call and make decidedly unsubtle threats to my school about writing to the Board of Psychology if I was allowed to start a new internship, and wouldn't that be a terrible thing for the APA accreditation process of a burgeoning young program?

I have thus far chosen not to file any formal complaints against my supervisor or the site, nor to appeal the loss of 700 clinical hours. I'm concerned about the possibility that even if I am successful, it could do harm to my professional reputation, especially in such a small community. I have been told that I have a very strong case, but I would still prefer to move on and be satisfied that the director of the overarching, state-wide consortium promised me that there would be substantive changes to the internship as a result of my feedback. But now come these threats. My school is fielding this for me for the moment and most likely I won't be held back for more than a week or two, so I'm going to consider this slop over from 2009 and not sully this lovely new year with it yet.

My Director of Training at the school was shocked by some of the details of my supervision experience and it is possible that the school may file complaints even if I don't. In that case this may drag on for some time to come. Much as a part of me wants to see these people go down in flames, I really just want to live and let live, and hope my resignation and my feedback is enough to change things for the next intern in line. So I guess I'll do a reframe and say that if they want a showdown, then this time around I am not going to allow myself to be the victim, and that will make the experience positive, and not negative.

Now I'm off to hit the NyQuil so maybe I can at least make some progress on my dissertation tomorrow. Phooey.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I have decided 2010 is going to ROCK! Because I said so, so there. =)

Worked at Juvenile Hall my first day of the new decade. Good, quiet day. So far so good...