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The Fostering Connection
Spring Conference
Foster Care: From the Inside Out
Program Summary:
Introduction
In the spirit of The Fostering Connection’s ongoing effort to expand the perspectives on our work, we invited two young women who grew up in the foster care system to speak to us about their experiences. A very enthusiastic and appreciative audience listened to the stories of their lives and their thoughts about therapy and healing. Both women write for Represent Magazine, a publication created by and for foster youth. (See www.youthcomm.org)
Presentations
Erica Harrigan was in and out of foster care the first 12 years of her life due to her mother’s involvement with drugs. At one point, her mother left her in the care of a neighbor who exposed Ms. Harrigan to physical, emotional, sexual and medical abuse. When the abuse was revealed, Ms. Harrigan was permanently removed from her home, and subsequently spent a year hospitalized. Following this, she resided in several group homes, which all left her feeling lonely and uncared for until finally she was transferred to a small home where she found comfort. In her writing she has described the beneficial impact of this new home situation as “peaceful,” a place where “people respect each other,” and “kind of like a family.” “The staff are real, treat you like a mother would, don’t bite their tongues, tell me how it is, but also teach me, take walks with me, read books and magazines with me.” Through most of her youth, Ms. Harrigan remembers having very brief or no psychotherapy, but attended a number of self help workshops which she found helpful.
Ms. Harrigan is now married with two young children. She plans to work as a mentor in the foster care agency that sponsored her. She wanted to participate in the conference because she is committed to helping other foster children in any way she can.
Ms. Harrigan then read the article she wrote in 2006, “A Therapist and a Friend: I’ve Finally Learned that My Moods Don’t have to Control Me.” In this article, she spoke about her fear and alienation with the psychiatrist she had seen, and the psychiatric labels she learned about herself, and her initial distrust of therapy. Soon, however, she began to appreciate her therapist: “She was reaching out to help me, accepted all that I had gone through, she was flexible with her hours, when I showed her my ‘wild side,’ got suicidal, she called me in and worked with me, and didn’t send me to the nut house and she didn’t change her attitude towards me.” The help wasn’t in what the therapist said, but that “she helped pull the words out of me,” to believe solutions were in me.
Virgen Nunez, started her presentation with a reading of her recent article, “Betrayed By My Father” read by her editor, Virginia Vicksthrum. The article tells the history of her and her sister being adopted by family friends when her parents succumbed to AIDS when she was three. Life was good until age ten when her adoptive father began molesting her and her adoptive mother refused to believe it and became more physically abusive. At the same time, her sister was diagnosed with cancer and she was physically abused by her parents. At 12, when Ms Nunez left her diary in school, ACS stepped in and removed her from the home, but she recanted her story to be able to go home and protect her sister. The abuse resumed, and she was removed again. This led to hospitalizations for self destructive behaviors. “The abuse, the secrecy, and my mother’s denial broke my sense of self. I began to feel that I meant nothing if the father I’d loved so much could take advantage of me and not care.”
She herself related the rest of her history through an interview with TFC’s Clinical Director, Barbara Pichler. Her next years were spent in a variety of diagnostic and treatment centers. For the most part, she felt supported by her therapists, though several were very brief treatments. Her first therapist helped her to open up, another helped her to see she wasn’t “crazy” but had psychological problems reactive to the abuse and betrayal she experienced. Another therapist let her call even in the middle of the night. Ms Nunez suffered a particularly hard time when she was called to see her sister and didn’t quite understand that her death was imminent. Her therapist went with her to the hospital, stayed available, and seemed to almost cry with her. Now Ms. Nunez is in a therapy with one of TFC’s therapists, and she commented, “I think we will be together until we have grey hairs.”
Discussion and Commentary
Ms. Harrigan, Ms. Nunez and Ms. Pichler then discussed what they look for in a therapist or therapy relationship. These two eloquent writers also began to speak freely about wanting to know that a therapist was really paying attention. They frowned at note taking or looking at the clock. They seriously endorsed long term therapy relationships. It didn’t matter if the therapist was “cheery” or neutral, talked a lot or a little, as long as they were genuine. Both cited experiences when the therapist moved out of the traditional frame of the treatment, and how this convinced them the therapist really cared.
Larry Zelnick, Psy.D., a psychoanlayst and President of the TFC Board of Directors, commented on the presentation. He was intrigued with the numerous “voices” spoken; stories told through reading by the author, by the editor, stories told directly and through interviews, and how these different perspectives gave different coloring to the stories. He was also very impressed that in spite of these very difficult histories, both women spoke with great coherence and eloquence. He and the audience were also very appreciative and impressed that the women were willing to be so open and brave about telling their personal stories. Ms. Nunez said she found it helpful to formulate and talk about her experiences. It increased her strength and helped her to “move on.” Both young people expressed their hope that this would help other foster children in therapy.
Postscript
Ms. Harrigan went home from the conference, and that evening was inspired to summarize the “recommendations to therapists” that emerged in the presentations and subsequent discussion. Her hope was that others would be able to think about and profit from the proceedings:
“Fostering Connection Panel Rundown (Support, Listen And Try To Understand) Time Management!!!
Thanks To All That Attended The Event And Listened To The Stories That Were Presented. Here A Recap Of The Must Do’s And Don’ts…
Issue-- Short term therapy only lasting a year is not much help
Solution-- long term is more helpful to many foster care youth and young adults.
Issue-- Not Enough Time
Solution-- Don’t focus too much on the time. If a session is 30 minutes, it’s better to have a cooling down moment so that the session doesn’t go over and the patent doesn’t get cut off from an important discussion.
Issue-- Taking Notes Is Time Consuming.
Solution-- Listen first, notes last. Maybe having a therapist- patient journal where not only the therapist takes notes, the patient takes notes as well and the patient and therapist can go over it together as a warm up, recap or rundown at the beginning of the session.
I Hope That Everyone Enjoyed The Event As Much As I Did. It Was A Pleasure And I Hope That We Were Much Help In Your Journey To Helping Others.” |
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