Client Death: Navigating the feelings when a client dies while in your care

eabridgewater@gmail.com (Elisabeth Bridgewater) — Sun, 13 Mar 2022 02:33:53 GMT

Navigating the terrain when a client dies by suicide. Originally published September 2015

I n the field of social work, we are confronted daily with the possibility of loss. Loss of clients that are vulnerable and on the margins of society. In clinical social work, the symptoms of depression and substance use compound that probability of loss.

Graduate school programs do not prepare you for the loss of a patient. Field placements do not have “death by suicide” as part of a learning agreement. There is not a class on how to manage that volume of loss in this profession.

I was informed that a Patient died by suicide.

There is not a textbook to tell you what to do first; there is not a plan for providers to help you navigate the thoughts and emotions that arise due to this magnitude of loss. As practitioners we learn to recognize, identify, safety plan, and provide outreach. All of us have done that and we are blindly comforted with the fact that we know how to do those practices and that our patients contact us the next day. What happens when all of that is done and the Patient decides that this world is all too much?

Our clinical training tells us that depression is a silent beast, lying in wait for episodic periods of darkness opening a deep hole and encouraging our loved ones and those we serve down the hole, all the while closing the opening to make it difficult for them to climb back out.

I am sad to say that I have experienced this loss before with other p atients. The loss does not get easier the longer I do this work; it teaches me that I am only a small part of this world and in doing this work I am an agent of change and the darkness is at times much stronger than I am.

As you work in your day, whether you are a social worker, teacher, counselor, doctor, take a moment to recognize that depression is bigger and that those we serve are doing the best they can on any given day. I will miss my p atient a lot; I hope they have found peace from their darkness. I am proud to say I had time to know them.

Holiday Musings

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:33:48 GMT

Coming to terms with the holidays: Originally published in 2008

We are now in the throes of the holiday season. Each year I struggle with what the "Holidays" mean to me. My peers and I have this conversation each and each year I think I have an understanding, then again I question the holidays as they come around.

For some there is a religious and spiritual connection to this time of the year, for others it is the draw of family that ignites the holiday spirit and for those of us that question those two frameworks for holidays, where does that leave us?

Being a student for the last 6 holiday seasons I struggle with do I give? or not and if I do not give do I receive gifts? If I do not give into the commercial, am I not in the spirit? As I watch commercial promote an unobtainable "happy family" situations, jewelry commercial that play on the emotions of individuals, and the importance of "food" for the holidays I feel expectations being placed on me as a consumer: if you don't make this pie then your holidays will be incomplete, if you don't by this diamond your love will not be complete, etc., etc...Granted these are my observations and my thoughts but they are what cause the questions to simmer each year and each year I am no closer to understanding.

I am of the school of thought that one should be charitable all throughout the year, giving of both time and money and time with family is special all year long. For me this is a time of reflection...time to assess where I have been, what I have done, and where I am going. With that being said: I love to see the lights, tacky or tasteful, on peoples houses, they twinkle and make the barren winter landscape sparkle a little. I love Nat King Cole singing Christmas music, his voice is clear and crisp and the music is pure, I love "A Charlie Brown Christmas", I love to hear Linus speak the story from the Bible, I love the concepts that are in that story, pure and clean, I love the music of Vince Guaraldi from this movie...it is calming and reflective, not loud and brassy, I Like the smell of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg, I like the smell of a fire burning, I like the crisp of the December air, and even though there is no Santa Claus I still love to laugh with my dad about what is more appropriate for Santa...a tall glass of milk or a fine snifter of Brandy.

As the holidays come screaming at me....I will continue my search for my holiday traditions.

Happy Holidays to everyone and enjoy and cherish your traditions.

New Paragraph

elisabeth-bridgewater

Client Death: Navigating the feelings when a client dies while in your care

Navigating the terrain when a client dies by suicide. Originally published September 2015

Holiday Musings

Coming to terms with the holidays: Originally published in 2008