Listening.

A few weeks of frustration and tiredness. The feeling of wanting to scream yet having to control yourself.

Don't get me wrong- my placement is going on fine. In fact, I'm enjoying it so much that I'm beginning to wonder if I can ask them for a job there ;p Yes, I have witnessed aggression, poverty , inhibition, very foul language (things u learn from children), trauma accounts, attachment issues, emerging personality issues..etc BUT I can't explain the thrill and calmness I'm experiencing on placement. Even my supervisor was surprised. (I was secretly pleased when she said something about a particular uni having princesses as students).

What makes me frustrated, is the lack of understanding that people show with regards to what I do. Especially to a particular family member who insists that I did not tell him about my research topic, who insist that I didn't inform him that I NO LONGER TEACH for an agency for children with autism and what my course entails.

For the benefit of some read this blog (i no longer knows who does anyway but it's still a good venting source), I have stopped being a reading therapist for autistic children nearly 2.5 years now. For the last 1.5years, I tutored at an university. I stopped this year as I wanted to concentrate on my research + clinical work.

My research topic is on Stress and Rosacea-a skin disorder. I'm trying to find out the role of stress/social anxiety with this particular population.

I do not just work with children but with adults as well-hence it's called CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY. Even though my primary interest is working with children, I also have other interests in health psychology. Other areas of interest include the different kinds of therapy such as Family Centered Model, Systemic Therapy, Attachment theories, Trauma models, Schema, Mindfuless, DBT and behavioral model. If you do not know what they are, forget it-they are just different models that I work from.

Although I'm not a reading therapist, I'm do practice Discrete Trial Training (DTT) for a child with autism.

I honestly can understand why people can fall into depression-why they feel that no one understands what they are doing and feel unheard. People-have u ever looked at yourself during conversations, STOPPED and think about your responses? Is it a self-centered one? Or is it really about listening to what the other person has to say?