Thomasville Crises Center Reflection

On October 20th, 2015 I had clinical in the Thomasville Crises Center. First, when I entered into the building, I felt uncomfortable, the atmosphere was unpleasant, people (patients) seemed scary. Later after interaction with the patients the fear and uncomfortable feeling disappeared. Despite of patients’ variety conditions (substance withdrawal or mental health diseases), they are the same people I may interact in public places. Also, some of the patients possessed adequate judgement and/or thinking patterns which was surprisingly new for me. In my opinion, clinical was an eye opener to see the whole picture outside the textbook. Based on the covered lectures, I could relate some of the symptoms to the disease process. For instance, there was a patient who shoveled back-and-forth to the rooms and couldn’t sit still; exhibited bizarre ideations by saying “Electrical outlets are messing with me”, hyperactive, constantly looking for something or maybe even for someone, moved extremities in constant motion; most of the time was quite, didn’t talk, but when had an opportunity to talk could not stop talking.
When patients were talking to each other, they could tease, say something unpleasant, or show aggressive behavior. When we (students and some of the staff members) talked to the patients, they would calm down, follow the command, answer the questions, and talk openly during the conversation. The story of every of them (patients) was interesting. It was a good practice to see that everybody reacts differently to the stressors. Prior to having mental health clinical, I thought that talking to the patients in the facility will be difficult. Considering patient’s mental health issues, I was curious how to start a conversation with the person. At that point it was a biggest obstacle for me. In reality, patients were glad to talk to someone; they felt themselves interested and provided meaningful