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LEARNING AND SUPERVISION
A Blessing
Howard W. Stone
Carter showed up at seminary in August wearing cut-offs, tennis shoes, and a muscle T-shirt. He was in his early thirties, blond, tan, and handsome, with a winsome smile.
Carter had been born into a well-heeled East Coast family and went to the right Ivy League university. After graduation and a two-year stint as a stockbroker, he “dropped out” and moved to Berkeley, California. His life alternated between Telegraph Avenue and the beach … days of sand, surf, and sun, and evenings of meaningful conversations in coffee houses and sidewalk cafes.
Somewhere between the beach and the coffee houses, Carter found faith. It was not the New Age/Zen/Eastern-inspired religion of many of his companions on Telegraph Avenue. It was not the hellfire-and-brimstone religion of the Bay area's street corner evangelists. He started attending a Presbyterian church in Berkeley, and after some time, realized that he needed to make some changes in his life. There had to be another purpose for his days.
Carter felt called to the Christian ministry, and so he sold his surfboards and his wet suits. He left the beaches and the sun of California for seminary in north central Texas, where I teach. A week after arriving in Texas, he sat in my Introduction to Pastoral Care and Counseling class. Carter looked as if he'd be more at home on a surfboard than in a seminary classroom. He was cool and laid back. He had the best suntan in the room. I soon discovered that he was also a good student.
Most of the students at our seminary serve local churches as assistant ministers while going to school. At first Carter declined to work in a church; he was not certain whether he wanted to be a minister and chose to tend bar at a downtown hotel instead. Later that year, he accepted a position as a youth minister in a suburban congregation. He saw it as a way to find out “if this ministry thing is my bag or not.”
Early one Monday morning, Carter caught me in my office. I was busy preparing for an afternoon class, but within seconds his story pinned me to my chair. He said he had not slept since Saturday. He looked exhausted.
Ben, aged thirteen, was a member of Carter's middle school youth group. He played on the church softball team. Carter had talked with Ben briefly at youth meetings and ball games, and knew that his home life was somewhat chaotic. Ben did not get along well with his mother; his father moved in and out of the family's home; Ben never knew if his dad would be at home or not.
With a ball game coming up in a couple of days and in need of a good infielder, Carter stopped by Ben's house to say hello, let him know that he had been missed at several recent events, and that he was needed at the game.
No one answered immediately, but the front door was ajar. Carter stepped partway in and called out Ben's name. Someone Carter did not know showed up at the door. Carter introduced himself as the assistant pastor of their church and asked for Ben. After a little uncomfortable quizzing by this unknown person, Carter was ushered into the home.
Carter quickly learned that Benjamin's mother had committed suicide only a few hours before. The police had been there and gone. The county coroner had left with the body only moments before. Ben's father, William, was there along with Ben's older and younger sisters and several other relatives. Everyone was in shock; they sat in the living room saying little. There Carter stood, dressed for youth ministry, in his khaki shorts, golf shirt, and tennis shoes.
Carter told me that his first impulse was to apologize for being there, excuse himself, and tell them that he would come back later, “but I knew that as a minister, I was supposed to stay with these people, to help them in any way that I could to begin to deal with this terrible loss that had just happened.”
After greeting the assembled group, Carter went over to Ben and asked him what had happened. Haltingly, Ben told the story, with the others in the living room filling in the spaces. Barbara had been drinking for three or four days. Part of the time she was in a stupor, and the rest of the time, she screamed at Ben and his sisters. She was primarily angry at her husband, William, who had left the family once again. William had stopped by to see the children. He and Barbara argued. She went into the bathroom with her husband's pistol, and shot herself in the head.
Ben asked Carter to follow him, and before he could think twice the two of them were opening the door to the bathroom. The floor, walls, and ceiling were splattered with blood and particles of brain tissue. The lights in the bathroom had been left on, and the heated brain tissue on the light bulbs had begun to stink.
Carter stumbled back into the living room with Benjamin. He asked if a minister had been there yet and they said no, he was the only one. Carter asked if they would like him to call the senior pastor at his church. They answered (to his dismay) that his presence would be enough.
Never before had Carter been at the scene of a death or with a family in grief. No one in his immediate family had died, nor had anyone in his acquaintance committed suicide. His mind was reeling, trying to figure out what a minister ought to do at a time like this. Finally, he had the nerve to ask if they would like a prayer. Several people said, “That would be fine.” Carter told me, “I have no idea what I said in that prayer. I just remember the sheer terror I was experiencing in a situation where so little makes sense.” After the prayer, he sat with the relatives in their stunned silence. “Most of the people were looking vacant, hardly saying anything. All of the time, I was in shock. I didn't know what to do, and wished I wasn't there. What does a minister do when someone has committed suicide? What do you say to a thirteen-year-old boy whose mother has just killed herself?”
After a period of time, Carter realized that the smell in the bathroom was filtering into the living room and everyone was uncomfortable with it. No one wanted to clean it up. No one wanted to see it. And yet, they wanted it gone. Carter asked if they had a bucket and a scrub brush.
“I took the scrub brush and a bucket and some soap, and I started with the ceiling and then the walls, and finally the floor. I had to empty the bucket in the toilet a number of times to get rid of the blood and the bits of brain. The hardest part was scrubbing off the baked material on the lights that had heated up and now stuck like glue. I had trouble keeping my breakfast down. I kept wanting to vomit, but I knew it would not be good for them to hear me doing that.”
After he finished cleaning the bathroom, more relatives arrived. Carter excused himself and left. “I wandered around aimlessly the rest of the day doing my work almost as if I wasn't there.”
The funeral was to be on the day following Carter's visit to me. As we talked, he wept. He spoke of his feeling of incompetence and a sense that he had not done what he should have done. Finally, he looked up from his lap, tears streaming from his eyes, and said, “I didn't know what else to do. I just took a bucket and scrubbed the bathroom. Did I do right?” I had been silent throughout the entire tale. When he asked, “Did I do right?” I looked at him and replied, “Yes, you did.” After a moment he said, “Now, I will be able to sleep.”
The story was so compelling that I had listened without comment. But when he stopped and looked straight into my eyes and said, “Did I do right?” I knew why he had come. He needed my reassurance that he had ministered to this family in a proper way. In fact, I was in awe at the way he responded in this agonizingly difficult situation. He had come a long way in a short time, from life on the beach and in the coffee houses of the Bay Area to this poor family's house in north Texas. I merely answered, “Yes,” but for Carter, it was like a blessing, a word of affirmation.
I saw Carter several days later, and he told me the senior minister had performed the funeral and that he assisted at the family's request. He was sleeping again—haunted by the events, but sleeping.
Uncritical warmth and unending supportiveness, whether in counseling or in supervision, serve little purpose. In time, the counselee or supervisee cannot take them seriously. But there are moments when people have experienced the horror of life and seek a blessing. In those situations, we can offer our benediction—saying, in effect, “In the midst of the horror and the tragedy and the brokenness, you did all that anyone could ever do. You did right.”
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A Trilogy of Changes Initiated by the Amazing Brainiac
Shelley Green
Justyna Ford
Kathleen M. Rhodes
INTRODUCTION
This chapter tells three stories—one about a family changing, a second about how this change altered a team of new therapists, and a third about how the therapists' learning changed a supervisor. The case that provides the foundation for the first story was seen early in the first semester of a masters-level practicum by a team of student therapists, and was the first session ever seen by the co-therapists, Justyna Ford and Kay Rhodes. Shelley Green, the supervisor of the team, was behind the mirror during the first and second sessions, consulting by phone, and entered the room to talk with the family at the end of the second session.
This particular story has had great impact for each of us, and for our work together as a team. For Justyna and Kaye, as well as the other team members, the timing of the case was critical. Because it occurred early in our time together, it became in many ways a guide for how we would like to work—briefly, respectfully, playfully, and effectively. It encouraged us to challenge our initial perceptions, to work hard to understand how clients (and we ourselves) are doing the best we can at the moment, and to look for the ways our clients' solutions are working well for them, without assuming those solutions cannot evolve.
For Shelley as well, the timing was important. To watch fledgling therapists not only excel, but arrive at a sophisticated understanding of change in a few short weeks made it possible to use a new kind of shorthand during the remaining weeks of practicum. The team's understanding of clinical cases and the therapists' ability to work effectively seemed to be in fast forward for the rest of the semester. It was and continues to be a delight.
All three of the stories related here are important to us, but before the ones about the therapists and the supervisor can make sense, we must tell what happened to the family. It has now been six months since we met the family, and the story that follows is told from our careful review of the tapes and our collective sharing of what “happened” as we now understand it. Following this family's story, we will tell you about our own accompanying changes—first the therapists' and team's, then Shelley's.
THE FAMILY'S STORY: WEANING THE AMAZING BRAINIAC
Twelve-year-old Michael, his mother (Barbara), and father (Al) came to our clinic desperate to receive help for Michael so that his mother could avoid, as she said, “going crazy.” The two therapists, Justyna and Kay, entered the room for the initial session. As the three family members sat huddled together on a small sofa intended for two, Michael leaned on his mother's shoulder and periodically cried quietly. Barbara stroked his arm and hair; Al looked somber. They described agonizing, exhausting nights in which Michael and Barbara stayed up until 4 or 5 a.m. attempting to complete Michael's homework assignments. Generally, Barbara only learned of the assignments the night before they were due, and the pressure was on for her to help Michael finish. A frustrated Al arose each morning at 3:30 a.m. to get to his job at a bakery. He rarely shared intimate time with Barbara, and he expressed worry about her lack of sleep and the pressure she assumed. Barbara described Michael's problem as one of low self-esteem and great self-doubt. She noted that while she had always helped him with his homework, the problem had intensified this year as he entered seventh grade and received more involved assignments. Also this year, Barbara had returned to work full-time, so the demands on her took a great toll. She described through tears, “I'm tired; I'm so tired of being the one who pulls him through school. I don't have the strength to be up all night with him.” Throughout this discussion, Michael offered silence when asked for input, and continued to whimper quietly while holding his mother's hand.
We learned that Barbara was a teacher, currently instructing adult learners, and loved her work. Thus, she felt compelled to help Michael, and wanted to, but did not believe she could continue her current level of involvement. Barbara also let us know that Michael possessed an extremely high IQ, and that he knew this; but she also thought he might have “some type of learning disability.” Michael told us, amidst tears, that he needed help organizing his thoughts. As he exclaimed, “Everything's going through my head at once, too much stuff too fast, and I can't organize everything.” He described his mom sitting with him and helping him organize his thoughts on paper. His toughest challenge involved getting started on assignments; he spent hours, his father said, “procrastinating.”
The family described this “intensive tutoring” as a family legacy. Barbara shared that her mother did all her homework for her until she was in the eighth or ninth grade. Barbara had helped Michael since second grade, but she refused to “do it for him.” Two weeks prior to this first session, she had decided she simply couldn't do it anymore and had refused Michael's pleas for help. According to Barbara, Michael began “to mope and cry and beg,” and eventually went to his grandmother, who, true to her history with Barbara, simply did his assignments for him.
At this point in the session, Michael began to sob, telling us that his grandmother didn't let him do any of the work. He cried, “She tells me what to write so we can get it done. I don't get to do it by myself, and I want to. Bu...
