Learning new stuff
I'm learning, learning, learning. They were right when they said that the learning curve in the first year in social work is very steep.
Yesterday was quite eventful in terms of learning assertiveness and observing interpersonal dynamics between my client and myself.
I had a man call in and make a request that was way beyond what we could rightfully do for him. I politely informed him that we cannot do so, but he continued to insist on it. When he couldn't get his way, he basically turned to emotional manipulation to try and emotionally blackmail me knowing that I am a social worker/ counsellor. He accused our centre of having failed to provide help and services to him and called us failures. Then he started talking about how with our protocol, suicidal people would have died already. When I politely said that our centre has different policies for handling emergency cases, he tried to make himself into an emergency case by threatening me with death. Eventually, I reiterated my centre's position and politely invited him to call us back if he wanted concrete assistance and to see one of our workers. He said 'No need la. Unless tomorrow you see my face in the newspapers saying I already died.'
OMG. I was really pissed. I get very pissed off when I'm genuinely being nice and you turn around and bite me.
But I'm glad I could be unwaveringly assertive of our position, because usually being a nice person, I will have very big empathic emotional responses when people start threatening me with death. But yesterday, I was able to objectively see it as a form of emotional manipulation and stick to my stand.
On the other hand, I had a interesting case yesterday. It was a man who had issues to hide from me. In his bid to do so, he greeted me with a ridiculously over-enthusiastic greeting and an overly warm handshake. And then, the very key moment came when I invited him into the counselling room and he turned around and invited me to go in first.
Upon reflection, I realised how significant this was. The agency office is my home ground.. it is a place I am familiar with. I am the host, and he is the guest. As the host, my role is to guide him and to invite him to sit at the appropriate places. By turning around and inviting me to go in first, he was actually trying to turn the power structure around by acting as the host and making me his guest. Guests are not supposed to ask questions that are too intrusive. Guests don't tell the hosts what to do. Guests are not supposed to touch that which the host thinks he should not touch. How telling.
I'm not sure I insisted on my host role, but I think I went into the room together with him. I hope I did.
Yesterday was quite eventful in terms of learning assertiveness and observing interpersonal dynamics between my client and myself.
I had a man call in and make a request that was way beyond what we could rightfully do for him. I politely informed him that we cannot do so, but he continued to insist on it. When he couldn't get his way, he basically turned to emotional manipulation to try and emotionally blackmail me knowing that I am a social worker/ counsellor. He accused our centre of having failed to provide help and services to him and called us failures. Then he started talking about how with our protocol, suicidal people would have died already. When I politely said that our centre has different policies for handling emergency cases, he tried to make himself into an emergency case by threatening me with death. Eventually, I reiterated my centre's position and politely invited him to call us back if he wanted concrete assistance and to see one of our workers. He said 'No need la. Unless tomorrow you see my face in the newspapers saying I already died.'
OMG. I was really pissed. I get very pissed off when I'm genuinely being nice and you turn around and bite me.
But I'm glad I could be unwaveringly assertive of our position, because usually being a nice person, I will have very big empathic emotional responses when people start threatening me with death. But yesterday, I was able to objectively see it as a form of emotional manipulation and stick to my stand.
On the other hand, I had a interesting case yesterday. It was a man who had issues to hide from me. In his bid to do so, he greeted me with a ridiculously over-enthusiastic greeting and an overly warm handshake. And then, the very key moment came when I invited him into the counselling room and he turned around and invited me to go in first.
Upon reflection, I realised how significant this was. The agency office is my home ground.. it is a place I am familiar with. I am the host, and he is the guest. As the host, my role is to guide him and to invite him to sit at the appropriate places. By turning around and inviting me to go in first, he was actually trying to turn the power structure around by acting as the host and making me his guest. Guests are not supposed to ask questions that are too intrusive. Guests don't tell the hosts what to do. Guests are not supposed to touch that which the host thinks he should not touch. How telling.
I'm not sure I insisted on my host role, but I think I went into the room together with him. I hope I did.
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