Well, today’s IPR (Interpersonal Relations) group got down and dirty, so to speak. Today’s blowout was not nearly as bad as some I know of, and really it was working through some honest interpersonal problems between us (exaggerated, but honest). Some groups have to deal with extreme shouting, accusations of racism, and the like. We just have to deal with people who have issues with other individuals over misinterpretations or miscommunications that might have been better dealt with individually rather than being brought up before the whole group.
Today, I was the focus. I didn’t remember a bit of important information from one of my fellow CPEer’s Genograms concerning a relative. The relative died earlier this week. I asked, “Were you close with ____?” My fellow CPEer took my question as suggesting that this relative was unimportant, and also that I was insensitive for even asking such a question since the CPEer had gone over all that during the Genogram.
Of course, at that point it was an orgy of “How does that make you feel?”
I truly felt bad that my question, which I asked because I was truly concerned about my fellow CPEer, was taken as callousness and insensitivity. Of course, there is part of me that just doesn’t care (which I think is a result of compassion fatigue!).
After four hours of group-work, didactics, verbatims, and the like, who in the world has enough emotional reserves and energy to start seeing patients?
There is no such thing as “summer-reading” this summer. I sit at my desk and see all the books I planned on reading this summer and realize I will read none of them. Can we say, “resentment?”