Host intro: The experiences and challenges of psychotherapists working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic has brought extremely rapid change, going frommeetings in person to meetings taking place by phone or video which may make it harder to connect than in a face-to-face meeting. Working remotely with clients has exposed psychotherapists to a range of new and testing circumstances with reduced interpersonal cues. Here isYuleisy Fernandez with the story.
AMBI1: Birds outside the window sound
AMBI2: Birds outside the window and rain sound
TRACK: Due to the social distancing I am conducting aninterview over the phone with Jessica Lorraine. Jessica is a Psychotherapist at the Center Western Queens. As a person who practices psychotherapy Ms. Lorraine explains what social distancing means to her on a societal level.
ACT: Yes, so Social Distance was a term that was introduced earlier this year that many people didn’t have, I want to say a lot of knowledge. Right? on in an evolutionary perspective. We are social creatures by nature and we need social connections with other people. Right on.. And also it warms a lot the basics of many societies, of many cultures. So there are many psychological, environmental and situational factors that can affect the functioning of a person in social distance and from a psychological perspective it has been proven that long term effect of quarantine right who have very negative effects on individuals; creating symptoms of anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness, feelings of frustration, boredom and so is really important as mental health technicians to really assess every individuals.
TRACK: In this tangle of stress Jessica goes into details on how she has managed to adapt to work from home and how her patients feel since many of the meetings are taking place by phone or video, which may make it harder to connect than in a face-to-face meeting. Ms. Lorraine make some suggestions on how people should maintain their wellness and emotional wellbeing.
ACT: It’s important for us to maintain some sort of support with each other, to connect with each other, to check in with each other, How are we doing? I like to tell my clients that this is a new experience for everyone! It was a very unique time because for the first time my clients and aregoing through the same exact things. We are on quarantine, we don’t know what is going on and before we knew is a novelty unexpected and we had to quickly transitioned from Monday to Tuesday all of a sudden okay everything is shutting down , everyone go work from home which we’ve never done. Right, so it was a transition, so it was important to be supportive of each other to check in with each other. And so, just some clarifications and I think some genuinely as a clinician toward our clients who has also said hey, this also new for me! This is not something that I’ve done before but I am open and willing which also shows some encouragement and motivation for the clients.
TRACK: Now that we entered stage four Ms. Lorraine will be returning to work physically. She expresses how she feels about meeting several clients per day with the new norm.
ACT: It’s a little bit different for us, So I will be returning to work on Tuesday. Ahm, some of my clients have expressed interest in returning saying “that I really prefer in person”. And what’s really important is to have a conversation and a dialogue with them on how they feel and if they feel comfortable. Some of them didn’t feel comfortable, the ones that don’t feel comfortable will continue to receive tele mental health services. But it is very important to have a transition that transitory conversation, about their comfortability and their willingness and their desire and their motivation and their interest in coming in person and expressing to them the precautions, the necessary measurements that we will be taking in order for everyone to feel safe. Go for your daily walks if you are a person that likes to work out, continue working out. Get creative. Creativity huge! So important. And like I tell adult clients, ‘what happens with a child if you put them in a bedroom because you are punishing him and the bedroom has nothing in there and you punish the child, you close the door, you come back an hour later, Guess what? The child stops crying and he probably found the crayons that were in the room and decided to have like a possible painting somewhere and he got creative. And as individuals, as adults we cannot lose that sense of creativity.
TRACK: As many others Psychotherapists Ms. Lorraine has had to face the many challenges of reconfiguring the relational and personal dynamics of the therapeutic alliance. She has responded positively and with fortitude and imagination to safeguard the well‐being of her clients and herself. Looking to the future and beyond the pandemic, there is a sense that the practice of psychotherapy has been profoundly and lastingly changed. For Baruch College, this is Yuleisy Fernandez in Brooklyn, New York.https://soundcloud.com/yuleisy-fernandez-286950692/monday-11-32-am-2-wav