S.C's first job after graduating with her MSW degree was as a psychiatric social worker and trainer
Question:
S.C's first job after graduating with her MSW degree was as a psychiatric social worker and trainer of paraprofessional refugee counselors in a first asylum camp for Vietnamese boat people on an isolated island in the Philippines. When she arrived, she found that she had the most mental health training of anyone on the island. The Filipino non-profit she worked for had psychiatrists on call for consultation by phone and would fly a psychiatrist in for several days every two months to assess and prescribe medications. There were very few telephones on the island, and Ms. C had to borrow another agency's phone to make a call. Often, the connection was poor, and it was hard to communicate with the psychiatrist. Ms. C had a caseload of more than 100 clients who had fled Vietnam by boat and had experienced multiple traumas. Many of the clients were suffering from severe mental health problems, and some faced ongoing violence. Ms. C found herself working with multiple cases of trauma with both the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) at the same time. She only had access to peer supervision, with only sporadic access to a more senior, experienced supervisor when they visited the island.
Within several months, Ms. C's sleep became routinely disrupted. She began to have frequent nightmares. When she examined her nightmares, she realized that they were not her own—they were those of her clients, especially those who had experienced atrocities on the high seas during their escapes from Vietnam. The nightmares were filled with images of Ms. C hanging on to driftwood, watching helplessly as her loved ones lost strength and drowned in front of her. She also saw images of herself being attacked by pirates at sea, shot, and left for dead in a pile of dead bodies, and pretending to be dead until the pirates left. She had a recurrent nightmare of watching her brother murdered by others on the boat and seeing them eat his corpse in order to stay alive. (NetCe Continuing Education, 2019)
- Is Ms. C experiencing Vicarious Trauma?
- Is it possible for Ms. C to continue working with clients in crisis?
- What is Ms. C at further risk for should she continue working this way?
- How do you feel Ms. C's home life is impacted by this?
- What are some self-care strategies Ms. C can implement in order to ensure this does not occur again?
Management
ISBN: 9780730329534
6th Asia Pacific Edition
Authors: Schermerhorn, John, Davidson, Paul, Factor, Aharon, Woods, Peter, Simon, Alan, McBarron, Ellen