Entering social work school in 2001 was a bit of a culture shock. Having grown up in the Bronx and having been lucky enough to go to a very down to earth undergraduate school like Lehman College, entering professional social work school was a bit daunting. Between struggling with concerns about whether or not i could handle the academic demands, demands of parenting, and the general demands of life there was an additional concern – the demands of a competitive educational arena.
There was the fast pace of Manhattan that permeated the school environment. There was working through and with issues regarding race in my class room education, my day-to-day interactions with other students and staff, and my own slow process of awareness and understanding that i was personally very much struggling with. Then the added layer was learning theory and practice, did i truly understand the difference between a Psychodynamic and Cognitive Behavioral Approach, did i ever actually get Jung? By the time i graduated, i had absorbed so much and learned so much it was hard to know what to hold on to and what to let go of. Sometimes it felt as if the theories, and discussion of theories without more of the discussion of self and the day-to-day removed us from using more of ourselves. Then there were the real “rules” like responding to direct questions with questions about why it was important and other things that just didn’t seem totally appropriate to me. If i was practicing in my own community, which i was, did it make sense to operate from a model that i knew would never make sense to my community as it had never fully seemed relevant to me?
I remember one of my early meetings with a teen-aged girl who was psychotic and being treated in the emergency room at North Central Bronx Hospital. It was myself and the director of psychiatry for the program i worked for meeting with her. He asked away with questions and left little wiggle room for her to speak outside of responding to him. Which also left little room for any true understanding or connection on her part. She shut down and would not respond to him at all until we finally left. Afterwards i went down stairs and chatted with her about her mother, her friends at school, and talked a bit about my own children. Within minutes she opened up and i completed the entire assessment and we were able to get her to where she needed to be. The psychiatrist thanked me and said he figured that it would work out. After this, and many other similar experiences i decided to let go of a lot of the things i had learned from theorist after theorist and approach after approach. At the end of the day people respond to empathy, compassion and a real human connection.
amiramartinlcsw 