Letter 2: Virtues

Yo,

I hope everyone is doing well and taking care of your health. On today’s chapter, Mary talks about what it is to be a good therapist or different types of strategies on becoming a therapist. I am not sure what to expect when I go on the field and try to help people bring awareness to their problems. These past couple years, I haven’t been doing a whole lot of reading and research on Human Behavior. One thing for sure, I am practicing self-care and making sure my mental health is stable. We all have issues, it’s just how we deal with them will be the outcome to our reality. One practice everyone should participate in is remembering that you were once a child that wanted to be creative, scream and shout, try something new, and be loved. When I started on my fitness journey, I did not think I was going to be consistent… It’s been three years and I haven’t stopped. Since then, I have noticed how much my body and health has changed. I can’t eat greasy food without having a stomach ache and people tell me I look young for my age. Not only have I gained confidence but I am putting in the actions on loving myself more. Fitness is something that has helped with my mental well-being. Of course there are other areas that I need to work on like making sure I am educating myself, knowing my worth, setting boundaries, not worry so much, spending time with loved ones, make sure I have time to do the hobbies that I enjoy doing, and hanging out with nature, etc. It is so hard to do everything when you have a job, school, family/taking care of your kids, and the problems you are facing. How does tie in with my profession? I want to become a good therapist that wants to serve the people that want my help, so, I am doing the practices on myself so I can proudly say, “You know what, it does help me recollect myself.” I feel like I have to practice what I preach, that is my virtue.

Mary begins her letter with a conversation she had with her niece. They had a good talk about her niece’s career, she wanted to become a webmaster. It got Mary thinking about how she went into being a psychologist. Basically, she didn’t have the funds for anthropology and just ended doing psychology which is the best decision/redirection for her. She met the director of the clinical program and considered the Ph.D Program that has funding along side. This gave her the opportunity to work as a therapist, consultant, teacher, writer, and speaker—this is all because she became a psychologist. Mary tells laura she is going to give her a “Aunt Mary” conversation because laura is unsure if she has the talent to be a therapist. This will also be my teaching lesson.

“Doing therapy requires energy, focus, and patience.” Said Mary. I know one of my biggest challenges is being patient, sometimes I can not wait and begin to get frustrated. This job can’t be based on the desire to help other, I have to remain disciplined to have focus, to have patience and feed my energy. Mary talks about being a therapist isn’t remunerative or prestigious. I appreciated her acknowledging that they are many therapist that can’t do it all. Therapist Harry Aponte said that he works well with people that he see’s himself in them or they saw something of themselves in him. She gives a good point that respect tends to be mutual and so does contempt. Maybe there will be a person that I feel like I am not being helpful or we just don’t click. I wonder what my strategy or what kind of therapist will I embody.

I love how Mary brought up certain sessions in laura’s letter on how she acts as a therapist. One client she had was a mother with too much responsibility. She had a handful of kids and a husband that wasn’t a good provider, everything was on her shoulders. The first session was Kimberly crying and letting herself feel, Mary just sat there and let her cry. At the end of her session, she handed her a Kleenex and gave her a hug. The second session, they started getting into her problems about always taking care of the kids and not having a reliable spouse. (she was the decision making and emotional support.)

Mary tells her, “You have already done the hardest thing which is to face this problem.”

Sometimes you need someone to tell you that it is hard to do the first step which is to face your problem. In my personal life, I have really really really bad stage fright. The club I am in was hosting Poetry and Storytelling Night, I was excited because I was able to dress up as a student from Hogwarts and hang out with my friends. Beforehand I submitted a Halloween theme poem, a little nervous but wanted to push myself. Once the night came, I was suppose to go up but as I walked towards the stage… My throat started to close up, my legs felt weak and my head started to hurt. I turned around and asked if I can go later. I was kind of ashamed because I told myself that I was going to face my fear. Luckily enough, I was around friends that lightened up the room and made it feel welcoming. As I saw people present whatever they had, I felt myself wanting to go on that stage and make a fool out of myself. Finally, I got up there and read my poem. It wasn’t so bad, I knew that I had to get over my fear eventually. I know that I have to continue getting up on that stage and just talk, know what kind of public speaker I am. From experience, I understand how difficult it is to take that first step, and after, you feel like you can do anything.

As Mary gives out more advice to Laura on how to be a therapist or more like, what to expect, she tells her that we need to recognize and know whom we can help and whom we can’t. She gives an example on how she can not work with violent men, they scare her and she can’t forgive them for hurting woman and children. As I start to go more into being a therapist and start doing my thing, I wonder what kind of clients I might be able to help with. Unlike Mrs. Pipher, I feel like I can deal with violent men, my personality is more ghetto sometimes… But when that time comes, I’ll let you guys know who I can and cannot work with lmaoooo.

As therapist we don’t need to be paragons of mental health, but reasonably well-adjusted. Mary was saying that addicts, psychopaths, and self-deluded therapist can damage vulnerable clients. We need to learn good people skills, which Mrs. Pipher likes to think of herself as being a waitress. She has dealt with crabby, persnickety customers, snobs, drunks, and cheapskates when she was a waitress. She has also met charmers, jockers, and some of the most heartwarming customers. I was talking to my psychology, Professor Naomi. We started talking about how we manage our emotions and she said, “A cool mind prevails”. It got me thinking, how strong do I have to make myself be to overcome my own mind? When I think about strong minds, I remember Naruto’s character and how warm his heart is for others. To the people that have seen Naruto, they know that he is someone that was an outcast his whole life and never knew his parents but he didn’t let his past bring him down. If anything, he used it as his determination to prove to everyone that he will be the strongest Ninja. He went through a lot of pain in order to become someone that wanted to show the world that they can depend on him. In order to prevail my mind, I have to eat the pain and spit it out. A good example is when I went to go shadow my brother-in-law at the UNM Hospital. Dr. Rafael Mancha has graduated from University of New Mexico School of Medicine and entered Residency as a Psychiatrist, he works chronically to have the knowledge and make sure he is careful with his patients lives. When I was shadowing him, there was a mother and a son walking into the Crisis Center. Her son was diagnosed with Autism, he was screaming, kicking and punching his mom. There was so much overwhelming emotions going on in the waiting room. Mom was crying because she did not know what else to do, she told us that his behavior was getting bad again. He was hitting kids at school again, not listening to his mother, and hitting her. We took the kid inside so his mother can have a second to breath. She gave Dr. Mancha permission for me to be inside the cubic rooms with them and I just listened. She was telling us how he was making progress with his behavior but recently he has been acting out. Dr. Mancha asked her if she wanted him to stay at the Crisis Center and see what they can do. She was hesitant and said no. Time passes and we go to the waiting room.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART:

We see the mother and her aunt, Dr. Mancha starts to talk to her about what has been going on and what kind of medication they gave him. He gets cut off by the aunt many times, telling him about the certain kinds of medications (sorry, I forgot the names) and I was starting to see that he was getting frustrated because she was questioning his knowledge and kept interrupting him. When the aunt finally stopped talking about how much she knows about medicine, Rafa’s faced relaxed and responded in a caring and reinsurancing manner. I thought he was going to be passive back but he didn’t let her anxious mind meddle with his.

There are going to be so many different types of personalities that we face in our lives, it’s how we drive out emotions in certain situations. Although there are going to be people wanting to become therapist, does not mean they have the best intentions or know how to navigate with their patient. There was a “psychonoxious” therapist that was included in Mrs. Pipher’s class, there was a video of a guy named Rob talking to a client for some testing at their state mental hospital. She described him as someone that seems to enjoy making other people small. In the video, Rob was talking to a depressed english major student that he soon brought her to tears. His hostile questions were, “Do you really expect me to believe that?” or “Are you trying to manipulate me?” and last, “Why didn’t you do something more intelligent?” Her teacher was stunned and stayed quiet, they reported the video and Rob was transferred into experimental psychology where he worked on rats.

Mary talks about her experience with her therapist and becoming a client is one the best lessons of her career. It has helped her have a better perspective on how to be a better therapist, as she went to her first session, she said her voice cracked and she felt embarrassed, stupid and vulnerable. She understood how hard it is to admit failures and to share secrets with a stranger. She was very observant like noticing when he blinked and what kind of pen she would use. She did like her therapist, he would hardly give advice and wouldn’t analyze her like she would do to him. He was a kind man, he helped her identify feelings she did want to acknowledge. She cared about what he thought and took the smallest remarks seriously… It seems like she understood the position of a client, being scared that there is something wrong with you and putting your heart on your sleeves. Even if you are a self-aware person, does not mean that you know how to deal with the emotions and feel them.

“Good therapist have a tolerance for ambiguity. The human condition is variegated, multifaceted, and particular. There is no one-size-fits-all way to proceed.”

So basically what the quote is trying to explain is that we have to understand that when we are helping out different kinds of clients, it is NEVER going to be the same. It literally just depends on who I have to treat. Rigid therapist who think, its my way or the highway are flops, said Mrs. Pipher. Their black and white smugness drives clients, who live in a grey world, crazy.

There was a therapist in Mary’s town that seemed more of a commercial based therapy session, no matter what their problems or personalities they had, he would give them behavioral-focused, short term therapy sessions. This can cause some damage and be useless to some clients. Clients are not just beings that need their problems fixed so fast, that’s not how our emotions go. There are some that can take years of healing and recovering from their problems whether it’s being a severe alcoholic or being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Complex is a non-judgemental word that buys time and space. It suggests that their problems can be looked at by new and surprising revelations.

We therapist need to be able to sort true from untrue, deep from shallow, and temporary from long-term. I was struck with the truth in this paragraph when Mary said, “that muddled thinking and mealy mouthed affirmations never help anyone.” She met a sweet but fuzzy headed therapist at a psychotherapy institute that told her that she gave unconditional positive regards to everyone, even psychopaths and borderlines. She quoted from The Beatles: “All you need is love”. and Mary thought to herself, “Clients need much more than that. Almost all need clarity, perspective, and a few need a figurative kick in the butt.” I like Mary, she knows that sometimes, gentle “parenting'“ can’t always be the answer.

“Non Judgemental can mean indiscriminate and openness can mean rudderless.”

We need to understand that our field had its share of space cadets, strange agents, and woo-woo practitioners. Some advice that mary was saying was, “Good therapist walk on a balance beam between maintaining old-fashioned common sense and encouraging new ideas.” We can try to help with them as much as we can, find a balance on how to make sure they are understanding and acknowledge that their hardships can be overcomed. Although, we have to deal with the fact that our advice will not always fall through with certain clients.

To become a good therapist you need to know science, intuition, and kindness. What is the best way to become a good therapist is a real person connecting to a real person. Gosh, it seems like I have such a long way to know my profession. I have been reading a book called, Jung on elementary psychology : a discussion between C. G. Jung and Richard I. Evans. It’s one of Carl Jung’s interviews with a guy from University of Houston named Richard I. Evans. What a guy, I wish I was able to meet Jung because the way Richard describes his presence seemed very heartwarming and a man filled with wisdom. Carl Jung was someone that believed in spirituality and poured it into his critical thinking. I hope to see progress as I read his books and look more into psychological research of different personalities. Everything ties together… Even JOJO hehe

Okay well, this took me a whole week to do, I have been so busy with school like getting caught up with math, and I am on the Editorial Board for SKD. We are creating a journal called Oraciones, we got all of our submissions for the journal. Now were are trying to see what kind of template we want to do, Sylvia has been doing such an amazing job creating the layout for our journal and Brianna has been making revisions for the pieces. Two very intelligent woman that I applaud for putting so much effort into creating the Journal. I am just sending out emails and helping with what I can, I have a pretty good team. (Also Shout out to Dylan and Dr. Karra for giving input, organizing the submissions, and help structuring the layout during our process of creating this Journal.) So much other clubs and task that I have been doing as well but overall, thank you for reading!!! Hope y’all have a good day.

Lots of love,

Val