Group Therapy Intern

Tomorrow I will have completed my second week at my new field placement. I am interning at a psychiatric day treatment/outpatient addiction recovery program. Although I am getting over it, it has been difficult to let go of the placement I lost at the hospital psych unit. But the more time I have spent at the day treatment center, the more I am accepting my new responsibilties and getting comfortable with the idea of providing group therapy. I also spoke with some alumni of the program who live in the Boston area, and was assured that I have a quality placement. That was a huge relief!

So...I am going to be faclitating therapy groups starting next week. My supervisor has me sitting in on any group that seems interesting to me. We have decided that I will be facilitating a women's group in both the psych program and the addiction recovery program, as well as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy group for the psych program. Next week, I will be co-facilitating these groups, and then facilitating them on my own after that. Sometimes I feel confident that I can do this well. Sometimes I doubt my knowledge and skills. But I suppose it is normal to feel these things as a first year student. And I have an advantage over the other first year interns since I have already completed my first year of course work this summer, while they are just beginning classes this month.

I'm also realizing the quality of education I got this summer. Smith has a way of transforming students into a therapists, by shaping the way we see the world and interact with other people. They don't expect us to memorize lists and formulas and facts. They guide us on where to look for information, and expect us to take the initiative to learn whatever we believe we need. It's really hard to explain the way they prepared me for this experience. A professor once described to me her opinion of what happens during summer classes. She said that we are learning all of this new material, and have no one to practice it on but ourselves. And so we end up doing therapy on ourselves nonstop all summer long. I don't know....like I said, its hard to explain. But I feel strangely prepared, and for that I am glad!

The clients I'll be working with are amazing. Its funny how once I become involved with a new agency, I can't remember what it was like not to know my clients. In a sense, they become a part of me. They make me feel humble and remind me to lighten up. Sometimes I wish there weren't confidentiality laws (not really!) so I could tell you all about them! Witnessing their resiliency causes me to see humanity in a different way. I get to see the miracles that happen when people are given fourth, and fifth, and sixth, and seventh chances. I get to see the way legislation affects individuals, in both detrimental and therapeutic ways. I get to watch people change their lives. I get to see the wheels turning in their minds. I get to be a part of the motion of the wheels. I feel honored, and like I said, humbled, that they allow me to be part of their experience. I have the urge to cry often. And I guess that's how I know I am where I belong!

Extended Vacation

I was excited to find out today that I won't be starting my placement until September 17, since this arrangement was so last minute and my background check won't be complete until then. That means I get an extra two weeks of vacation time!! I have been bored out of my mind just waiting for news the past few weeks. So I decided to have some fun with my extended spare time. My friend Loreen and I are making plans to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail, either in New Hampshire or Maine. Today we are going shopping for our necessary supplies and food, and we will be departing Boston sometime this weekend. I am soooo looking forward to this trip! I'm sure I'll have a lot to say in my next post about my five days spent in the mountains!!

Moving to Boston

So I still do not have a field placement. The school has contacted most of the supervising agencies in the Boston area, and none of them are able to take me. We are waiting on an answer from Massachusetts General Hospital right now. The supervisor is on vacation and will return on Monday. If this supervisor agrees to take on the responsibility of another student, then I will still have to interview for the position since it is a placement for a second year student, and I am only a first year student. If I get this placement it would be an amazing experience, as I would be challenged to do more than if I were in a first year placement, and this hospital is a nationally renowned training hosptial for Harvard (as was my placement I lost).

The dorms closed today and I had to move out regardless of my lack of placement. I had several people offer to let me stay with them temporarily, but I decided that since I have paid for August's rent at my new Boston apartment, I would just move in and hope for the best. I felt really good about my decision, maybe too good. I arrived at my new apartment last night and feel so at home here. My roommates left me a card in my room welcoming me to the apartment, along with hand drawn maps of the area. A friend and I walked around the area last night and got a bite to eat. There are several cute little shops and restaurants and coffee shops right around the corner from my apartment. And I'm in the city! I can breath again! I'm a little concerned that I am too happy living here, since I could very well have to pack up and move accross the country again next week. But here's to hoping!

A bit of disappointment...

Well, its finals week in social work school and I have written more papers than I'd like to remember. Everyone around me is busy making final plans to relocate to their field placement destinations. I was one of these people, working out living arrangements and travel details. Until Monday when I found out that my supervisor had gotten sick and I would no longer be able to do my field placement at Cambridge Health Alliance. And today I found out that there were no field placements left in Boston, so I would have to go somewhere else. And I have to do this by next week. I am trying to stay positive. Trying to see good in the placements I have been offered in other, not as exciting, cities. But I'm really bummed. All of this summer I believed I had one of the best placements the school offers and to top it off I found a great apartment a few blocks away. Now I have to break the lease I just started and make travel arrangements to start a placement that I am just not excited about. Its hard to make sense of some things in life. I guess I have to let go of the idea that things are supposed to always work out for me. So I'll keep you updated...who knows where I'll be living next week...

Time Travels

So I'm back in Northampton and almost halfway through my second term. Its incredible how much happens here in such a short amount of time. We call it Smith time. Because we sqeeze so much into these 10 week summers, everything is forced to happen at a much more rapid rate than it normally would. We learn more than we thought possible in two hour classes, we build friendships really quickly, and it seems like its always time to move again. That's right, I'm moving again! I found an apartment in Boston last weekend and I'll be moving in just three short weeks. It seems like I just finished first term and spent a week in San Diego. And that's because I DID just finish first term and spend a week in San Diego! And now its time again to take mid-terms and then a week later take finals and then pack up and head to Boston. At least when I get to Boston, I'll be able to stay unpacked for ten months!

My Smith Experience

I am just finishing my third week at Smith College School for Social Work. It seems that there is so much to say that I don't know what to start with. When I was applying and preparing to relocate to this graduate school program, I heard these few things about the 'Smith experience' students have: that it is intense, that Smith focuses on the whole person and not just the intellect, and that the program is transforming. I wasn't quite sure what these things meant until I arrived on campus for orientation. After participating in meetings, activities, conversations, etc. I began to feel the weight of what I was getting into. Smith has a very respected social work program, and we are responsible for representing the school well in our field placements, where we will be beginning social work therapists. During the summer we take ten classes over ten weeks and the homework load is humanly impossible. But the classes are pass/fail and the professors are therapists who make every effort to make the classrooms safe and supportive environments where we can process our thoughts and feelings over the material we are learning.

As well as learning to process my own stuff while trying to learn an immense amount of information in a very short time, I am living in a dormitory sharing a bathroom with 20 other females and eating all of my meals in a cafeteria with 200 other people. The second year students fondly call this summer experience 'summer camp.' And the name fits. We are all dealing with heavy material in our classes, away from our support systems, and going through this really intense experience where our emotions are bubbling at the surface. It does remind me of being an adolescent at summer camp.

The campus here is amazing. All of the buildings are New England style made with red bricks and hardwood floors inside. The dorms look like big houses (they used to be mansions before the school purchased them). Last weekend some friends and I checked out canoes at the pond (yes we have a pond and canoes!) and paddled up the river to a swimming hole. Everything is so lush and green, and there are tons of cute little squirrels and chipmunks running around everywhere. The rain comes down in huge drops and it just pours. Its no use trying to stay dry, even with an umbrella your legs get soaked. I'm just glad its summer!

That's my update for now. Sorry its taken so long to post! I'll try to keep up on the everyday stuff now that you have an intro to my life here!

First year Field Placement

I just received word from Smith about my first year field placement. I will be working at the Cambridge Health Alliance on the psychiatric unit with mentally ill adults. I am really excited for this experience. I know it is going to be incredibly challenging (this agency is affiliated with Harvard!) but I know I am getting the best social work education possible.

Life as a Graduate student: The Next Era

Well, I'm moving again. I know, some of you are wondering when this girl is ever going to settle down. If that ever happens, it will probably be far off in the very distant future, so don't start getting your hopes up now! There are too many interesting things to see and experience in this world to stay in one place. In fact, I have a fear of settling down. It's like when I was a kid and I was afraid of missing out on the fun when it was my bedtime and the adults were still awake. If I stay in one place and have that frightening combination of a mortgage payment, a three car garage, and a trampoline, I'll be missing out on so many opportunities that I could experience without the obligation of a permanent home. Like moving to another part of the country to go to the grad school program of my dreams!

In case you haven't heard, I got accepted into Smith College School for Social Work. I will be moving to Northampton, Massachusetts at the end of May to begin my first term of classes. The program works on a block schedule, so I will take classes in the summer and will be working at my field placements in different parts of the country (or possibly outside of the U.S.) during the other 8-9 months of the year. My first year field placement assignment is in the Boston area, so I will be moving a short distance again in August. The program has a clinical focus, which means 'counseling' in the social work profession. It is one of the top graduate social work programs in the U.S. and is very unique in its structure and amount of time spent in field practice. So now begins another academic era of my life, wish me luck!


A street in Northampton, MA