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| Quote for Self-reflexivity Exercise |
As part of my learning, I had asked to be given the opportunities to be attached to different clinicians so that I can get to experience different styles and learn from a broader pool of experiences. My supervisor had kindly arranged for that. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be put into a family therapy clinic and co-managed cases with 2 different therapists.
While the initial phase was filled with anxieties and excitement, I started to find myself getting somewhat uncomfortable with some of the practices from other practitioners. I do not know whether it was because I became more familiar and increasingly fluent with the different models and practices to be able to offer some critiques or have I simply become too complacent and in fact transfixed on how things should be done that I am less tolerance to differences. Either way, I did not share these thoughts openly with the practitioners involved. I did however trusted my supervisor to share briefly although it was not without apprehension as she was their supervisor as well.
I still believe that I had learnt a lot from them within the sessions. However, as I find myself getting more comfortable in the collaborative approach of working with clients and more familiar with conversations on power, I started to shift uneasily at times during some of the sessions with my co-therapists. In fact, there was once that I had to stop myself from interjecting into a conversation between the co-therapist and the client when I found them engaging in a power struggle. The client had expressed her thoughts about the therapy and the co-therapist, I thought, had taken offence and tried to defend herself and correct the client's perspectives. At a point in time, I thought there was some passive aggressive manner where the co-therapist indicated that she was there upon the referral of the social worker working with the family and if the client is not interested in the sessions, she would not be able to do what she was told to do and had to convey the information to the social worker accordingly.
Extending into my understanding and appreciation of key ideas about engagement such as joining, exploring client's perspectives of her concerns and invitation to dialogues, I thought the situation could be better handled. After the session, we had our debriefing. When I tried to explore the intent of the therapist (just in case it was a strategy which I was unaware of), I faced some resistance. In fact, as I reflected back, I remembered her crossing her arms and I backing off in my seat. While there was no hard feeling thereafter, I knew that I had been mindful of the power differentiation between us (qualified therapist vs trainee; employee vs trainee; local vs student; both of us under the same supervisor) and had chose not to articulate my thoughts in a bid to maintain peace.
Reflecting back, I wonder as I develop myself in this area of work, have I also end up like some of the therapists who often defend their theoretical inclination against others simply because of their loyalty to certain ideas and they reject those they do not agree with. I do not want to be a therapist who is not opened to differences but neither do I want to be a therapist who is so reluctant to voice my concerns when I think the situation may not be helpful to the work with the clients. The idea of social constructionism just came to mind. What is helpful and what is not? What is appropriate and what is not? Who defines them?
