(Untitled)

[funkdaddy]

It's a slow night at work, so I thought I'd expound on something. I decided (after dealing with a psychotic client tonight) that I'd give my thoughts on dealing with the acutely psychotic person. Of course, first things first - being aware of what you're dealing with. After a couple years of dealing with psychiatrically ill folks, you generally get

Comments

[pucette]

Years later, a response.

The spokesperson stuff is fairly important when it comes to my volunteer work. If a patient is highly aggravated by a particularly long wait (sometimes even 5 minutes is a particularly long wait for some people), and they are Hispanic or African American, they will occaisionally not respond to me at all. I totally understand why, and make sure the security guard (who is usually one of the above or both) is on the case before moving on to the next patient. Maintaining control of a situation includes knowing when something isn't best for you to handle.

Physical presence is also very important, yes. Keeping your hands steady, not crossing your arms, keeping just enough eye contact... all of those apply to me as well, and not just to the folks there for detox. Of course it is MUCH more important to pay attention to in the case of a psychotic patient, but I'm just piping in with my "ooh I know what you mean!" anyway. :)