Wednesday, January 29, 2014


I worked in the field of Mental Health ...nor with a title that would draw familiarity though.  I did have a title, but the end of my title was 'worker'.  

Those with the title of 'supervisor' had the task of supervision of those working under them ...which included me.

I only supervised the patients ...or as they later were more favorably called 'clients'.  Through the years, they were sometimes youth, and other times adult prisoners.

My experiences throughout those years did not follow Freudian theory ...it came from extensive observation.

One particular time a young adult 'client' surprised one of the female workers by quickly coming up to the side of her ...and kissing her.

She responded by saying, "Don't ever do that again!"

He appeared to comply with the firm request, but waited only a couple minutes before doing it again.

Me and others escorted him out of the room.

His therapist wanted to talk with him, and because of the always present potential of impulsive behavior ...a 'worker' had to be also present, and this time it was me.

Therapist: "Do you realize that if you did that on the outside (referencing, outside the facility) you could get in big trouble?"

Client: "Oh, yes."

Therapist: "So, you know it's wrong then ...what you did."

Client: "I didn't do anything wrong."

Therapist: "You could get arrested and charged for doing that on the outside."

Client: "Oh, I know."

Therapist: "So, you admit it's wrong."

Client: "I didn't do anything wrong."

I realized that what appeared to be a ridiculous discourse, suddenly made sense to me.  The client didn't really think it was wrong ...in his mind, the outside world was the place where people are unreasonable.  And he appeared happy to be in a place protected from those unreasonable people in the out side world.  It was the outside world that didn't really understand.


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