Episode 1: What’s Better This Week?
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Welcome to TheMattSchwartz(Cast)! where we dive into the world of Social Work in Mental Health & Counseling Settings, and hopefully provide you with some inspiration to start your week! I’m your host, Matt Schwartz, this week’s episode is Episode 1: What’s Better This Week?
I figured I would start the show off by asking listeners (and readers, if you’re reading the transcript, because if we attempt to be anything here, it’s inclusive and accessible) the same first question that I ask every patient who comes into my office each week: “What’s Better This Week?”
I learned to ask this question as part of my training in Solutions Focused Therapy, when I was an intern at the Family Solutions Center in the Cheektowaga-Sloan School District.
It’s an interesting question because usually, responses will fall into one of three categories:
- Something’s Better
- Everything’s Stayed the Same or
- Things have gotten worse.
(I say usually because patients or clients can always surprise you).
What’s important from a solutions-focused perspective, is that, no matter what response our patients are giving us to this question, we’re reframing it to show them their strengths, and their own capabilities.
So if a patient says that something’s better this week, like they had a behavioral change, or they got an A on an exam, or they got a raise, my follow up question is always “wow, how’d you make that happen?”
If a patient says “Man, everything’s just staying the same!” I usually say something to the affect of “that’s incredible – what did you do to make sure that nothing slid backwards? How did you make sure that nothing got worse? What’d you have to do to make that happen?”
And if a patient says “it’s all terrible, and here’s all of the horrible things that happened to me this past week” I’ll usually respond with “wow, that sounds really hard – how have you been coping?”
In each one of these scenarios, We’re showing the patient that they’ve been using their strengths and their coping skills. In the last scenario, sometimes patients will say “I haven’t been coping!” and that’s sometimes a very good entryway to review how they got to your office (which, counseling – in and of itself can be a coping skill), and then review with them that since they’re sitting in front of you they must have used some coping skills this week…and even if they weren’t the quote un quote best coping skills, they used them, and they’re still here.
Please feel free interact and respond to us online over on Twitter by tweeting @TheMattSchwartz. Let me know what’s better this week, and please let me know if there’s something specific you’d like to see on the show. I don’t really have a set agenda, except to cover the day-to-day/week-to-week world of Social Work in Mental Health and Counseling Settings. Since I believe that we are called upon (no matter what setting) to function at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels, this show will address how that plays out in the Mental Health and Counseling world, and I hope to bring in a little Social Work History as Well.
While I don’t like to “fan the flames” too much about the differences that exist within the different helping professions, sometimes I think that some of us (especially those of us who are doing psychotherapy daily) forget the importance in recognizing the differences in each of our professions, philosophies and histories, and the strengths that lie in recognizing those differences when we look at what each of the helping professions brings to the table. So expect some interesting (or what I think is interesting) historical-is-today think pieces on Mary Ellen Richmond, Jane Addams, and others as the program goes along.
Well, that’s all for today, as I go to practice self care with my cat, Akiva, who you might have heard in the background. Remember, you got into this profession for a reason, and this profession needs you – so please, take care of yourself, so you can continue helping others take care of themselves.
The music you’re listening to in the background today is Boston Landing on “Blue Dot Sessions” generously shared through a creative commons license. Please find more of their music at www.sessions.blue, that’s w-w-w- dot s-e-s-s-i-o-n-s- dot b-l-u-e. I’ll see you next Sunday; until then, make good choices.