Therapist in training in 2014

Last week I had an opportunity to perform a role play with one of my fellow students.

She was the Client and I was the Counselor. She presented with a whole heap of issues. Stress, anxiety, poor self care, grief & loss and relationship issues stemming from drug and alcohol abuse.

We had an hour session together and my teacher encouraged me to invite her back for ongoing treatment. So we agreed to meet yesterday for a follow up session.

I didn’t expect her to attend. She’s a fellow student and under no obligation to share her personal issues with a therapist in training. I’m not sure I’d agree to attend ongoing appointments if I were in her shoes.

But she turned up!!! I have my first official client that I’m treating!! So exciting.

She gave the best feedback too. She said that talking and sharing her issues had made her feel so much better. She didn’t realize she’d been carrying around so much angst and it was such a relief to finally share it with someone who listened, understood and cared. Isn’t that just the best feedback!

She said that she’d been practicing the breathing exercises. She said that she’d enjoyed them so much that she’d just decided to start doing them every day. She said it helped her feel centered when her ADHD felt unmanageable.

And the difference in her appearance was like night and day. Before she looked unkept, untidy and messy. Now she looked stunning. Her hair was styled, she was wearing makeup. You could tell just by looking at her that she was feeling better.

I thought she’d want to talk about her relationship issues since they had been the primary concern last week. So I had brought all my material in preparation. Turns out the grief & loss was her primary concern this week. Bit of a lesson on how to change tact and put the needs of the client first. That’s OK, now I’ve got all the material ready to go for when she’s ready.

Later that evening I was at work umpiring netball. It was the last game of the night and it was against a team (Chikas) who are all really good players and a team of ethnic African girls (Hectics) who range in ability.

During the first quarter I could see that the defenders from Hectics were getting frustrated at the calls I was making against them. So I held time to explain to them what they were doing and why it kept resulting in penalties. We don’t usually hold time to coach players. We’re only suppose to umpire and that’s it but this is social netball and we want people to enjoy the game. So sometimes we make exceptions.

Anyway, despite my explanations they struggled to grasp the nuances of the game play. Even the other team started explaining it to them but by that time their snarky attitudes had taken over and there was no reasoning with them.

In the third quarter, after yet another penalty one of the defenders from Hectics swore at me and my boss was standing at the bottom of the court at that exact moment! So I held time and gave her a warning for swearing. Swearing at referees is poor sportsmanship and isn’t tolerated in any sport really. I was just fortunate that my boss was standing there at that exact moment and witnessed the whole thing.

Because at the end of the game the team Hectics shouted “3 cheers for the fat ref” and then the whole team cheered! I was off to the side talking with my boss so I didn’t really register what was happening but the other ref was right there and she had a go at them! Telling them their behavior was unacceptable, disgusting and they should be ashamed of themselves! We walked back to the office and the team Chika’s kept asking me if I was OK and how appalled they were at that treatment.

A few weeks ago Hectic’s had 10 players but tried to borrow 3 players from another team to help their chances of winning. My boss pointed out that it was against the rules and they weren’t allowed to borrow the players. The Hectic’s told my boss that the only reason he was enforcing the rules is because they’re African and he’s racist. He had to politely correct them and point out that it had nothing to do with race and he was simply enforcing the rules of the competition. Like he does for every team.

So last night when we were in the office I pointed out to my boss that a few weeks ago they were saying they were discriminated against for their race. Yet they think it’s OK to discriminate against staff for their weight/appearance? Discrimination in any form is not OK and shouldn’t be tolerated. He looked at me and said you’re right. So we all filled out a bunch of paperwork and it’s going to be submitted for review. They’re looking at a ban for 4 to 26 weeks, depending on the severity of the offence.

I wasn’t too upset about it last night. I think I was still on a high after the amazing day I’d had at school. I’m feeling a bit upset about it today though. I hope they get banned for a period of time as punishment.