On my last prac (late entery) i ran daily hydrotherapy sessions. On one occasion, one of the new pts began to reveal highly personal information to do with being abused as a child (aurthorities were aware of this). At this time there were 5 other clients also in the pool. As the session went on the details became more and more graphic and the whole class were giving their 2 cents worth, which ultimately lead to the other class members revealing their personal information, including further abuse and the likes. As the lesson went on a tried harder and harder to focus the class on their exercises to pretty much no avail. To make matters worse 2 PT assistants were sitting at the edge of the pool staring at me as if to say "do something" whilst i just stayed away from the conversation entirely whilst trying to take control of the class. I could see that some of the class members were quite awkward, but i couldn't exactly tell the person that was speaking about their abuse to quiten down. All in all, the session was quite unproductive and quite uncomfortable. Just wondering if anyone else would have handled it differently ie other than just carrying on with the session as if nothing had been said??
Thanks.
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2 comments:
Wow, that definitely is an awkward situation. I probably would have done the same thing. It would have been pretty embarrassing for the pt if you had asked him to not talk about those issues in front of the class, and the only thing you could have done is to try and lead the conversation back to the exercises or something relevant. However, no matter how much you try, you can't always lead (or control) things into the way you want. Some people are incredibly stubborn and just want to do what they want to do. You did all you could do without offending anyone.
Geez Nicki you poor thing, you always seem to end up in such tricky circumstances! I don't know, its hard, I mean that is an area we are clearly not trained to deal with, and its likely to make others very uncomfortable, but you can't just shut someone off. Was there anyone else you could ask, social worker? any other therapist who had worked with her for longer?
Other than that I suppose all you can do is recognize that she is reporting something big and then ask if she needs you to arrange for her to speak to someone in private, maybe that would subtly give her the message?
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