Personality priorities I just got back from a Play Therapy conference. Two days training with Terry Kottman, a former professor at the University of Iowa in the prolific writer and trainer in the field of Play Therapy.
I have seen Terry present before. I may have even seen her five or six times. I actually kind of know her, and we are, in fact, birthday buddies. That is, we have the same birthday!
Terry is the kind of Play Therapist I wish I could be. She is smart and funny and so knowledgeable. She is the developer of Aderlerin Play Therapy. I learned something from her every time I go to see her even though many of the things she presents on are repeats to me.
One of the things I love and use frequently is the idea of personality priorities. Personality priorities is anAdlerian concept or idea that we all have a specific thing that our personalities strive to create. Terry has assigned different animals to each priority. Before I tell you which is which and how it works, think about this. Which animal of these for do you feel most connected to or the most like? I did not say the one you would most want to be. There is a difference. So of these four, which do you feel that you are most like:
1. An eagle
2. A lion
3. A chameleon
4. A turtle
Do you know which one? Now I will tell you what the four personality priorities are. We all tend to strive for one of these four things: comfort, control, superiority, or people pleasing. Can you tell which animal is which? Here's how it works. Eagles strive for control and strength. Lions strive for superiority. Chameleons are people pleaser's, and turtle's strive for comfort. Many people have one personality priority that is evident throughout their lives. Many people have one priority and one secondary priority. I am also convinced that priorities can change due to circumstances.
My personality priority is superiority. Within superiority, there are actually two subtypes. There is out- doing or being superior to other people. We all know somebody who was always trying to one up us in some way or another! But the other subtype, achieving, is trying to outdo your self into as many things as you possibly can! This is my personality priority (superiority), and my subtype (achieving).
I have known that trying to achieve many things as possible has a priority for a very long time. In high school, I was definitely an achiever, and was probably trying to be an outdoer as well. My goal in life was to have the most entries in the high school yearbook of anyone in my class. I am proud to say that my name in the index of the yearbook has more lines than anyone else. I sincerely hope that this is not the crowning achievement of my life!
I was well on my way to continue the trend of trying to achieve more and more things when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. What I wanted to achieve in my life, was to make a name for myself in the field of Play Therapy. I became a registered Play Therapist in about 1994. Becoming an RPT-S (registered play therapist at the supervisory level ), was a relatively new credential, so on my certificate, my number is something like 420. That means that there were only about 400 people in the entire world who were registered as play therapists!
I really like to present and train so a major goal of mine was to try to present as many places as possible and become a world-class, well known Play Therapy presenter. Although I was diagnosed with MS in 1996, the symptoms and disabilities were not really noticeable until much later. I had several exacerbations, or worsening of the symptoms, but primarily I could walk around without a cane and hide many of the other small, annoying issues such as weak fine motor skills, or becoming fatigued easily. I presented in Iowa and Illinois at state Play Therapy conferences, and actually presented at the national conference in St. Louis in 2001 or 2002. (I forget which). But the symptoms were becoming more and more evident, at least to me, and I was becoming less and less able to do anything other than work and be a mom. Of course, I was working a full-time job in maintaining a part-time private practice which in itself is kind of a lot to do! But I was becoming less and less able to do anything extra.
When I was laid off from my job as a supervisor in community mental health, I was hoping to have the time and energy to do a lot of the things that would move my career forward. I briefly looked into going back to school for a Ph.D. in clinical social work and even took the MAT-Miller Analogy Test. The test is scored with percentiles rather than with an actual score. I scored in the 98th percentile of people taking the test who wanted to go into clinical social work and in the 99th percentile overall. I just had to tell you and brag a little bit! However, even as I was exploring the possibility, I realize two things. Number one, I didn't want to spend the money when it was getting so close to my son's graduation and entering into college himself. But the other reason was because I really don't have the energy to study for long periods of time while continuing to work.
Although I later realized that getting a Ph.D. would only be a way for me to achieve something else, this was the first time I realized that I am no longer a spring chicken and that the MS really does have an impact on my ability to do the things I'd like to do. I also realized that I cannot maintain the level of energy I need in order to be able to present to large groups of people. You need to be able to stand and move around a lot in order to be an effective lecturer or presenter. That is just not in my capacity any longer.
One of the things that people who have superiority as their personality priority strives to avoid, is feeling meaningless. I have known for a long time and I do not want my life to be meaningless. I am sure this is why I have always wanted to achieve something that will be remembered long after I am gone. Terry Kottman will be remembered long after she is gone. But I have had to learn to be content with the fact that my legacy will not be people remembering my name. I am not leaving behind a book or some new Play Therapy technique that will revolutionize the world of play. I am just going to continue to do my very small part by maintaining a private practice for as long as I am able.
What I have to remember, is that my legacy is not tied to my ego, this body, or this name. And just because I am not leaving some sort of corporeal reminder of my existence, doesn't mean that my work and my legacy is not reverberating into the future. I have to remember that doing good therapeutic work in and of itself is enough of a legacy and will hopefully reverberate by helping people to achieve greatness within their own lives.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
A Change of Subject
I have discovered that posting about MS has its limitations.
How many times can you talk about what a drag it is to not be able to go shopping? So, while this blog will remain primarily a place for me to have a forum for discussing life with multiple sclerosis, I think it will be a lot more interesting if I talk about life as a therapist. My life may be slow and boring, but being a therapist and getting to know my clients is a lot more interesting!
I really want to talk about what it's like to be in the process of doing therapy. I know I could talk about diagnoses and what is known as "best practice therapy", but that's a lot less personal and a lot more boring.
I talked a little about countertransference in my last post. So I want to give you know a peek into the head of the therapist in the process of being a therapist.
My very first therapeutic job was as a "psych technician" on the mental health unit of a hospital, which was really just a glorified babysitting job. We were expected to observe patients and see what they were doing, write in the patient charts at the end of the shift, sit with a patient while they were on suicide watch, that sort of thing. But we also got to run some groups or talk with the patients one on one if they requested it.
This hospital had a mixed unit of adults and adolescents. I'd usually worked with the adolescent. I'm sure, in those days, that sometimes it would be hard to tell me apart from the patients. I was just out of undergraduate school which meant it could be as little as four years between me, an authority figure, and the kids on the unit. Of course, at the time, I had no concept of how the clients may be responding to me as a peer rather than a grown up.
With my bachelors degree in psychology, I was barely equipped to understand issues which would land teenagers in hospital psychiatric unit! At the time, there was a diagnosis called Over- Anxious Reaction to Adolescents, also known for us OARA. This is a defunct diagnosis because it's really sort of describing every single adolescents in a way, isn't it? It is likely that most of these kids had anxiety disorders, or depression, or were being abused, or were just engaging in some of the antisocial behaviors that teenagers engage in!
Nowadays, kids who are hospitalized have to be considered a danger to themselves or others, but at the time, I think parents could arbitrarily have their kids admitted for an attitude adjustment or something!
When I think about this job, they're actually at least four or five kids, and some adults as well, from whom I met a great deal about the therapist and patient interaction. I'm pretty sure I didn't do any long-lasting psychological damage to any of them! But I'm not sure that the interactions I had were anything other than just trying to listen to them. A really large part of being a therapist is really listening without judgment. This may have been my first learning experience of what it means to just listen.
It is much easier to give advice or send somebody to a psychiatrist for medication than it is to just listen and make a serious attempt to understand what is actually being communicated.
I think one of the most profound experiences of learning to listen was actually with one of the adults in the unit. When I look at pictures of myself now from that time, I realized how incredibly young I was and how incredibly young I looked! I can't imagine how anyone took me seriously! I look like Alice in Wonderland!
When the patients were suicidal, they are placed on something called "constant observation". This was the boring job of just sitting outside the patient's room and making sure that they didn't do anything to hurt themselves. Most of the time, the patients would just ignore us, but sometimes they would engage us in a conversation. I actually do remember having a lot of respect for the adults. There were a few who were psychotic. One elderly lady, who was obviously a very sweet and dignified woman when she wasn't psychotic, asked me to write a letter for her. She dictated to me "I am being held prisoner and someone is watching me." She then said, "Sweetie, what is your name?" I told her my name was Amy and she said, "Okay. Write this down. Nurse Amy is the worst most horrible f ***ing bitch in the entire world." So, I diligently wrote what she said, addressed the envelope to her son, and told her I would put it in the mail right away.
It would have been very easy to take this personally, or to try to explain to her that no one was holding her hostage. I'm not so sure that colluding in her delusion was such a smart idea, but I certainly could have made things a lot worse by becoming defensive.
Although this was a good exercise in just listening without judging or trying to fix things, there were other times as well when listening without fixing was the only course of action I could take. My inexperience and lack of training were large contributor to learning to listen as a course of action in interacting with the patients. I remember sitting with a woman and listening as she told me that she was powerless to change things in life. I remember trying to get her to understand that she had choices in terms of how she reacted to situations. I can't remember what her situation was, I do recall that it was something that was well within her ability to change. After an hour of attempting to get her to see that she did indeed have choices, and having her continue to tell me that he didn't do what I was talking about, I left her room feeling defeated and worthless. A few of the psychiatric nurses were very understanding with me, and one of them said "It sounds as if you have an expectation that you are a failure if you can't get a client to listen to you and make changes.". That was a statement which resonated for me for a long time! The therapist is not responsible for the changes in the clients. You can only listen, make a concerted effort to understand, and then invite your clients to listen to you while you provide a different way of thinking. The healing part is not in the advice. It is in the interaction.
That is enough for today, and I will try very hard to keep neglecting my blog for so long next time.
How many times can you talk about what a drag it is to not be able to go shopping? So, while this blog will remain primarily a place for me to have a forum for discussing life with multiple sclerosis, I think it will be a lot more interesting if I talk about life as a therapist. My life may be slow and boring, but being a therapist and getting to know my clients is a lot more interesting!
I really want to talk about what it's like to be in the process of doing therapy. I know I could talk about diagnoses and what is known as "best practice therapy", but that's a lot less personal and a lot more boring.
I talked a little about countertransference in my last post. So I want to give you know a peek into the head of the therapist in the process of being a therapist.
My very first therapeutic job was as a "psych technician" on the mental health unit of a hospital, which was really just a glorified babysitting job. We were expected to observe patients and see what they were doing, write in the patient charts at the end of the shift, sit with a patient while they were on suicide watch, that sort of thing. But we also got to run some groups or talk with the patients one on one if they requested it.
This hospital had a mixed unit of adults and adolescents. I'd usually worked with the adolescent. I'm sure, in those days, that sometimes it would be hard to tell me apart from the patients. I was just out of undergraduate school which meant it could be as little as four years between me, an authority figure, and the kids on the unit. Of course, at the time, I had no concept of how the clients may be responding to me as a peer rather than a grown up.
With my bachelors degree in psychology, I was barely equipped to understand issues which would land teenagers in hospital psychiatric unit! At the time, there was a diagnosis called Over- Anxious Reaction to Adolescents, also known for us OARA. This is a defunct diagnosis because it's really sort of describing every single adolescents in a way, isn't it? It is likely that most of these kids had anxiety disorders, or depression, or were being abused, or were just engaging in some of the antisocial behaviors that teenagers engage in!
Nowadays, kids who are hospitalized have to be considered a danger to themselves or others, but at the time, I think parents could arbitrarily have their kids admitted for an attitude adjustment or something!
When I think about this job, they're actually at least four or five kids, and some adults as well, from whom I met a great deal about the therapist and patient interaction. I'm pretty sure I didn't do any long-lasting psychological damage to any of them! But I'm not sure that the interactions I had were anything other than just trying to listen to them. A really large part of being a therapist is really listening without judgment. This may have been my first learning experience of what it means to just listen.
It is much easier to give advice or send somebody to a psychiatrist for medication than it is to just listen and make a serious attempt to understand what is actually being communicated.
I think one of the most profound experiences of learning to listen was actually with one of the adults in the unit. When I look at pictures of myself now from that time, I realized how incredibly young I was and how incredibly young I looked! I can't imagine how anyone took me seriously! I look like Alice in Wonderland!
When the patients were suicidal, they are placed on something called "constant observation". This was the boring job of just sitting outside the patient's room and making sure that they didn't do anything to hurt themselves. Most of the time, the patients would just ignore us, but sometimes they would engage us in a conversation. I actually do remember having a lot of respect for the adults. There were a few who were psychotic. One elderly lady, who was obviously a very sweet and dignified woman when she wasn't psychotic, asked me to write a letter for her. She dictated to me "I am being held prisoner and someone is watching me." She then said, "Sweetie, what is your name?" I told her my name was Amy and she said, "Okay. Write this down. Nurse Amy is the worst most horrible f ***ing bitch in the entire world." So, I diligently wrote what she said, addressed the envelope to her son, and told her I would put it in the mail right away.
It would have been very easy to take this personally, or to try to explain to her that no one was holding her hostage. I'm not so sure that colluding in her delusion was such a smart idea, but I certainly could have made things a lot worse by becoming defensive.
Although this was a good exercise in just listening without judging or trying to fix things, there were other times as well when listening without fixing was the only course of action I could take. My inexperience and lack of training were large contributor to learning to listen as a course of action in interacting with the patients. I remember sitting with a woman and listening as she told me that she was powerless to change things in life. I remember trying to get her to understand that she had choices in terms of how she reacted to situations. I can't remember what her situation was, I do recall that it was something that was well within her ability to change. After an hour of attempting to get her to see that she did indeed have choices, and having her continue to tell me that he didn't do what I was talking about, I left her room feeling defeated and worthless. A few of the psychiatric nurses were very understanding with me, and one of them said "It sounds as if you have an expectation that you are a failure if you can't get a client to listen to you and make changes.". That was a statement which resonated for me for a long time! The therapist is not responsible for the changes in the clients. You can only listen, make a concerted effort to understand, and then invite your clients to listen to you while you provide a different way of thinking. The healing part is not in the advice. It is in the interaction.
That is enough for today, and I will try very hard to keep neglecting my blog for so long next time.
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