March 7, 2018 - A Day with MEDU
Mark here again. I spent the day in MEDU's Psychè Center, where I will spend most of my time and energy in the next few months.
It is a small office (basically just a small store front with two rooms and a small bathroom. The first room is the reception area and a room in which they hold meetings at times. The second is their therapy room. They have two psychotherapists, two doctors, several cultural mediators/translators, and a receptionist/case manager/psycho-social specialist who work in this office.
The link above explains what they do in detail, but basically they provide psychological services to refugees who have experienced significant trauma and have a diagnosis of PTSD. They use a theoretical approach called Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) that involves helping the person to repeatedly talk through their traumatic experiences and helping them to put those experiences in the context of their whole life, rather than just experiencing them as a flashback or in other ways that are not grounded in the present. This methodology is short-term and sensitive to multi-cultural differences, which makes it great for this population.
One of the interventions they use with every patient is to lay out a string to represent the life of the person. The person then places flowers to represent major positive life events and rocks to represent negative or painful life events along the string. Each of these events is also labeled. This provides a "road map" to be able to discuss the events in the context of the person's entire life.
They work with about 20 patients per week and have a significant waiting list. People may be referred by their mobile medical clinic or other organizations in Rome, but most frequently they are referred directly from national reception centers where the refugees are seeking asylum. On average, they meet with clients once per week for about six months. In each session, they have a psychotherapist, a doctor, and a cultural mediator/translator present. Sessions are about an hour.
Since I will only be here for three months and because I am not licensed to practice psychology in Italy, I will not be participating in any of these sessions. It would be disruptive to have me start and then leave after such a short time. It would also likely be disruptive to have me sit in on session as there are already three people in with the patient. Therefore, my main role here will likely be helping to develop some psycho-educational groups (discussion-oriented classes or workshops) for patients on their waiting list and maybe for their current patients. I will also likely help them with some research they are doing. Other possibilities may arise as we go along!
The Psychè center also has a theater group and music group that they hold once per week each to give patients an opportunity to connect with each other and to do something engaging and fun. We talked about me possibly helping to develop some group processing components to these activities. We'll see!
It is a small office (basically just a small store front with two rooms and a small bathroom. The first room is the reception area and a room in which they hold meetings at times. The second is their therapy room. They have two psychotherapists, two doctors, several cultural mediators/translators, and a receptionist/case manager/psycho-social specialist who work in this office.
The link above explains what they do in detail, but basically they provide psychological services to refugees who have experienced significant trauma and have a diagnosis of PTSD. They use a theoretical approach called Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) that involves helping the person to repeatedly talk through their traumatic experiences and helping them to put those experiences in the context of their whole life, rather than just experiencing them as a flashback or in other ways that are not grounded in the present. This methodology is short-term and sensitive to multi-cultural differences, which makes it great for this population.
One of the interventions they use with every patient is to lay out a string to represent the life of the person. The person then places flowers to represent major positive life events and rocks to represent negative or painful life events along the string. Each of these events is also labeled. This provides a "road map" to be able to discuss the events in the context of the person's entire life.
They work with about 20 patients per week and have a significant waiting list. People may be referred by their mobile medical clinic or other organizations in Rome, but most frequently they are referred directly from national reception centers where the refugees are seeking asylum. On average, they meet with clients once per week for about six months. In each session, they have a psychotherapist, a doctor, and a cultural mediator/translator present. Sessions are about an hour.
Since I will only be here for three months and because I am not licensed to practice psychology in Italy, I will not be participating in any of these sessions. It would be disruptive to have me start and then leave after such a short time. It would also likely be disruptive to have me sit in on session as there are already three people in with the patient. Therefore, my main role here will likely be helping to develop some psycho-educational groups (discussion-oriented classes or workshops) for patients on their waiting list and maybe for their current patients. I will also likely help them with some research they are doing. Other possibilities may arise as we go along!
The Psychè center also has a theater group and music group that they hold once per week each to give patients an opportunity to connect with each other and to do something engaging and fun. We talked about me possibly helping to develop some group processing components to these activities. We'll see!
Love this! Happy trails to to all 😍
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