Spring Break Adventures: North Carolina
A professor and a graduate student in Bradley’s Human Development Counseling program are presenting research at the American Counseling Association convention.
From Rachel Bridgewater, MA ‘10…
After a rather emotional and serious last few days at the conference, today I had the opportunity to enjoy an extremely fun day! Today was the Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC) sponsored learning day, so we enjoyed several sessions dedicated to this branch of therapy. It just so happens that this area is my greatest personal passion, and I don’t get much opportunity to obtain training of this kind. Needless to say, I was in counseling heaven. Not only did I learn many intriguing and novel perspectives, as an unexpected bonus, I also learned some great relaxation techniques (much needed after such a busy weekend!). So I am feeling very serene, joyful, and thrilled to end my experience here with what can only be the finest “dessert” I could have asked for!
I also bonded with a few kindred peers today who have similar interests. Somehow we actually had time to share some very personal conversations, and we exchanged addresses and numbers. I believe that we will keep in touch, because there was that sense of instant recognition (the kind that comes along very rarely in this life) especially in my case, as I tend to be somewhat eccentric! It was so refreshing to meet others who truly speak the same language. To bring my own journey full circle, I attended my last session with someone I met at our grief presentation on Thursday, and we partnered together on some really neat experiential exercises. We also bonded and exchanged addresses. This entire day gave the concept of “networking” a whole new meaning for me.
To wrap up this wonderful experience in Charlotte, I decided to take a walk this evening around some of the historic district. It was quiet and pretty, and it was cool to see a little more of the city. Many of the streets are lined with some type of white flowering tree, which gives it a dreamy and surreal ambiance. It felt so good to wind down and collect my thoughts. And I was real close to catching a ride on a horse carriage just for the fun of something different, but it was starting to get chilly and dark.
I feel like I have learned more in five days than I’ve learned in five months! So before I lay my head down now and enjoy a night of very deep sleep, I just want to thank Dr. Lori and OTEFD for giving me this opportunity. What a priceless journey this has been!
From Rachel Bridgewater, MA’10…
Wow… I have so many thoughts and feelings that this blog cannot do it justice.
I know blogs are supposed to be brief, light-hearted snippets with minimal detail… but the nature of this conference is anything BUT that! I am finding this experience to be extremely valuable, and I can see why counselors are required to attend such events for continuing education.
I have met so many interesting people from all over the country and world… and I’m discovering that there is no such thing as just a “counselor.” There are many specialties in this field. But I am finding one element that ties us all together — the “helping” component. Each person I have met has that distinctive “heart for people” that I have come to see in most counselors and healthcare professionals. It is quite inspiring, and it becomes increasingly clear to me why I love this profession so much.
Well, I have attended so many sessions now; I couldn’t possibly explain all that I’ve learned. However, I will note an important theme that I am seeing here. I have run into a number of counselors who have been working directly with victims of 911, Hurricane Katrina, and the Iraq war. They are presenting lessons and stories of trauma, and more specifically, how to help culturally diverse populations with various types of trauma. They ALL spoke to the fact that these disasters are still very much alive in the hearts of many families, and that we, as helping professionals, are the key people who will deal with these ongoing traumas.
They also spoke to the horrifying facts that we as a nation were so unprepared for such types of disasters, and that many of our social programs are still ill-equipped to handle the complexity of the ongoing issues and effects.
We have an intense need to advocate for the education of our social services and government programs (and the general public) to better prepare for any future tragedies. I was deeply moved by the stories of these people. There was a certain urgency and desperation to their claims. We do need to pay attention.
From Rachel Bridgewater, MA ‘10…
The weather couldn’t be better - it has been about 70 degrees since we got here. All the spring flowers are already blooming and the air smells clean and fresh. Charlotte is not overly crowded or busy. I haven’t gotten the chance to see much of the city, but from what I can tell it is a very friendly and laid back place. I hope that I get to see a little more before I leave, but the conference is hopping and there are hundreds of people starting to arrive.
We finished our workshop yesterday-and I haven’t had time to write until now because we were completely exhausted last night! Our presentation went very, very well; and it also seemed that the audience was pleased. With a topic such as Grief & Loss, you never know what the audience is actually hoping to learn-and it certainly can be a very uncomfortable realm to explore. We were told that we were only going to have 27 attendees… and there ended up being 54! So, it was clear that
many were interested in this topic. We asked for people to share what they hoped to learn and some of the reasons they were interested in grief and loss. It was intriguing to hear such a variety of perspectives-there were loss concerns for specific issues like brain trauma, dementia and end-of-life care, death, foster care, abuse/neglect, families of deployed soldiers, etc.-and then there was a more general interest in loss as a specialty of its own.
One thing is clear, however. There are many people with questions about how to deal with grief-in their clients and also in their own lives. So we addressed both aspects in depth, because the critical point is that you cannot help anyone else deal with their losses until you have learned how to deal with your own. And since there are so many different types of loss, there is no perfect formula and no straight answer for such questions. The key is to learn how to make sense of your own losses, by exploring the unique meanings it has for your life-and what you, yourself, have learned from your losses. And there are many, many ways to go about doing this.
One reason I think our audience enjoyed the workshop so much is because we spent the entire afternoon doing reflective experiential exercises that allowed for each member to explore their own meanings. The results were fascinating and powerful, and many people gained immense insight into their own loss experiences. That is what we were going for, so I guess that means it was successful! Not to mention… I learned a lot from Dr. Lori about how to present a full-day workshop. What a
priceless experience for me! She is truly a talented professional in this field. I couldn’t have had a better example to learn from.
So now I can relax a little bit and enjoy attending my first national conference. All weekend will be full of hour-long workshops and displays on every counseling topic that one could possibly think of. Tomorrow is the grand opening event, and I plan to attend as many workshops as I can. I will let you know how it goes!
From Rachel Bridgewater, MA ‘10…
My professor and supervisor, Dr. Lori Russell-Chapin and I have been collaborating on qualitative research of grief and loss for over a year now. Last summer, we submitted a proposal to the ACA titled Telling Your Grief Story: Bereavement Interventions that Heal the Loss. To our surprise, we were one out of only twenty pieces selected for a full-day workshop. It’s actually a pretty big deal… especially for me, since I’ve never conducted a full workshop before!
I will be presenting to a group of counseling professionals who likely have tens times more experience than I do. Actually, I’ve never attended an ACA conference, so you will be learning just as much about it as I will. I have heard that there are more fascinating things to do and learn than I could possibly hope to jam into one weekend… not to mention the interesting people I will meet. So I am extremely excited, albeit a little nervous. The opportunity to attend the conference is exhilarating enough to get my gumption going and put a muffle on the butterflies in my stomach!
I’ll do my best to describe my experience over the next several days while giving you my honest and investigative perspective. Until next time…
