Second round of classes in school; agh.

So today I had a rough enough start: my car was towed. Supposedly one of Rob's neighbor thought I was blocking his/her drive way. Unpleasant, super unpleasant, since I had to pay almost 160 dollars for this stunt. The drive up to school was really rough, too: 405 was again a huge parking lot. I was an hour and 15 minutes late to my assessment class. Agrrrrrh.

Professor Harris did a very good job illustrating the points of suicidality and homicidality. Today we focused on how to assess and the steps to take after assessment during Intake with these issues. Plan, means, prior attempts, support system, diagnosis, age, gender each play its role. These were things that I was working with from time to time while I was working directly with clients, and to have these points introduced in a refined and precise way felt useful.

The Lifespan Developmental Psychology class, however, was another story. The instructor read from the book rather poorly, mistaking one psychological stage from another and stammering while she was at it, for the first hour or so, intertwining the rigid reading with her personal life stories that weren't directly related to the subject matter. Then, she broke us into three small groups and a different question for each group: should pregnant women be mandated by law to be tested for HIV/AIDS and start medication to protect the fetus if tested positive, describe one trait, talent, attitude of each individual in the group and determine if it was nature, nurture or coaction of the two that produced each trait and how the trait impacted other people, and the third question that I don't remember because we didn't even get to it.

I was in the second group, and might I just say, it was such a strange experience. The first woman who spoke up talked about her assertiveness and how she viewed that as a product of coaction, fine. The second woman jumped right in and started talking about violence and abuse in her family and how that forced her to become quiet while she felt her true nature really was more outgoing before she observed her alcoholic father beat her sisters, very brave to jump right in, still fine. The third woman went in pretty deep as well, talking about her lack of nurture her entire life and how she still managed to become a nurturing character and she believed the power of nature; very well, she was congruent and genuine. Than another woman talked about alcoholism and how she modeled her father's violent and moody tendencies. Someone else talked about how she was humorous (although quite honestly, it's always not very funny when someone starts talking about how funny they are.) Then, W talked about how she is more social than her parents. I asked the person keeping notes if she was going to state each person's name if she read the notes to the class when we were supposed to report back. The woman said yes, if the instructor asked, and then I asked her to not do so because I didn't give my consent: she still asked for my name and wrote it down. Man, how exasperating. I personally don't feel comfortable sharing intimate details in a setting where is no confidentiality, apporpriate boundaries or personal trust established. I didn't see her asking other students if that was an okay thing to do.....and these people are supposed to be therapists....I guess that is why we are in school. Anyhow, the notekeeper went last and shared about her being sexually molested and how she took on the trait of humor as a survival mechanism. I briefly talked about being the caregiver due to various personal circumstances.

The first group reported back about their discussion, basically it was a butchered discussion because everyone was just dishing out their personal opinions and there was very little actual intellectual concept being raised, identified and discussed; everyone was flying high with emotions, stating personal beliefs. Fine, whatever. This woman launched into a long explanation of how she thought it was important to mandate sexual abuse or assault survivors, especially minors, to be tested and to receive medication. I thought she was off her rockers: SART exams automatically tests for HIV/AIDS post sexual assault, and why would she argue this particular point and use it as a basis for the discussion of a law that is designed to impact the female population as a whole? Was she saying that she opposed the passing of this law except for the group that she specified? I didn't bother clarify. She was extremely loud and upset over the topic, cutting people off while they were still speaking; I was not about to engage when really all that I wanted was to be let out of the class.

When it got to our group to report back. Gees, one of us bravely disclosed the fact that she was sexually molested while the instructor spoke about how she still wonders why some child abuse survivors become abusers themselves while others become healers or justice enforcers. She really brought quite a bit of depth with her and I appreciate that very much, and then of course the woman that was speaking passionately about sexually abused minors being mandated for testing spoke up again, in a frentic and crazed manner about how she was abandoned by her biological parents in a third world country and that she firmly believed that people should be hugged and told that they were loved. I was really irritated. I thought, while it was clear that it was a very emotional moment for her and I could see how the first woman's disclosure prompted the desire for this second woman to speak up, the entire space was, nevertheless, somewhat boundary-less and chaotic. The teacher tried to faciliate and pointed out that the two of them shared the similarity of wanting to make a new choice to create a different reality than the one they were born into; the second woman then went on and on about how she thought that abusers were genetically different than those who make a choice to be different even if they started out with an abusive background.

Ai-ya, and the worst was yet to come.

The teacher launched into a discussion about one of her current client with multiple personality disorders. She most definitely was off her rockers: the whole topic came up whe she was talking about the fact that HIV testing results alternates with people with this disorder, that the changing to another personality within themselves could end up in a different result for HIV testing. Okay, fine. Then she went into GREAT DETAILS about her current client: age, weight, characteristics of various personalities and length of therapy she had been in. I felt more and more uncomfortable as she went on--what was the point of her sharing these details? This was, after all, a developmental psychology class and we were discussiing certain stages that had absolutely no connection with this particular disorder. The sharing of the details served no other purpose than introducing students to horrific details without a context. What the hell? Was I being forced to witness a clinical level of the Jerry Springer Show? This was worse than cocktail party chitchat under the disguise of class discussion. A sweet old lady indeed she was; I was still feeling gypped. She didn't even pay attention to time and the third group didn't get to share since we ran out of time.

Man, this is grad school; can people please be more concise and to-the-point? Is it so hard to stay on track? If I wanted to play journalist (note, not even therapist) or talk about my feelings randomly, I would have gone to school for something else or just join a support group. Gypped. So gypped.

And she made it mandatory to attend class. I hate that rule.

I hope this gets better. I am gonna wait a month before I speak to her: the thought of sitting in a class like this for three hours every week brings more than a cringe on my face.

Man! Why!

Fine. Agh.