Psychotherapy Networker, Volume 31, Issue 3 (2007). pp. 32-39.
Language:
English
Abstract:
Tai Mendenhall is a medical family therapist who works with other medical professionals in family medicine and emergency settings. His office can serve as an emergency room, trauma unit, or hospital ward as well as a quiet consulting room. He deals with interpersonal violence, sexual abuse, attempted suicide, death, and every imaginable emergency, and his job is to stabilize these crises, help patients calm down enough to ensure their short-term safety, and set up a counseling schedule with them if possible. He sees some people for six weeks to six months. He writes that 'every day in 'crisis land' brings its share of jolts to the nervous system, and often I'm pushed beyond the boundaries of my baseline clinical training and personal comfort zone.' For example, he once received a call about a teenage boy who threatened to kill his mother, himself, and some policemen. He said he would take Adam into his care and the police did not press charges. He talked to Adam for five hours, and the boy talked about his pain and suicidal urges and promised to get care and not hurt himself. Mendenhall counseled a woman with borderline personality disorder who had threatened to cut off her clitoris but agreed to get counseling with her boyfriend. He helped a Hmong woman with recurring headaches deal with the stress of 8 children and a dying husband. He worked with a little girl who had genital herpes, and it was found that her uncle was sexually abusing her. He worked with a young woman who had been forced into prostitution at a young age and was recreating her life in a foster home and new school. (LMC) (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)