As I began talking with the students and observing their interactions with the population, it was evident that there was a gap between application of text material and one-on-one interface.  The students needed more intensive work than what they learned in order to become an effective social worker.  I stepped in to bridge that gap and assist students to better connect and understand the people they were attempting to help. I helped budding social workers recognize the causation as to how the population fell into their predicament (often without the patient understanding how things came to be in their own lives).

 

After the project ended, I reflected on what I had learned and realized that I had a tool to help clinicians better understand what was not being said by their clients. Especially, how to help clinicians ask their patients about their pain so that both the clinician and the patient could gain insight as to the causation of the symptom of the pain (i.e., homelessness, poverty, mental illness, incarceration, and so on).

 

Over the years prior to the Glendale-Burbank Homeless Solutions’ Project, I had been writing stories from my own experience as a social worker.  And now, I had the insight as to how to constructively apply my collection of material.  My body of work begs the question, Where does it hurt?

 

You see, when the question is asked, Where does it hurt?, that question begins the unraveling of the causation of how a person fell into their present circumstance.  That person got hurt but probably doesn’t know, or didn’t know before the question was raised, where did the emotional hurt begin.  They may not even understand that they are emotionally hurt.  They have become debilitated. 

 

If a person learns very early on that love is suppose to hurt, then they learn to replicate that within every interpersonal relationship they have.  Their present is based on their past. 

 

Those things, homelessness, poverty, mental illness, incarceration, etcetera, … those are all by-products as to why a person became debilitated.  But like I said, often people don’t even recognize they are in emotional pain.  They don’t know what it is – they just feel the effects, the poverty, homelessness, and so forth.  So, when a clinician asks a patient, Where does it hurt?, and when the patient can answer that question, or begin to unravel the answer, the patient has valuable information.  They become empowered because of this new information and they have a chance to gain relief from their circumstance… homelessness, poverty, mental illness, incarceration, hyper-behaviors like excessive shopping, eating, and various other addictions... whatever that may be. 

 

We’re seeking a change.  A permanent change.  And unless a clinician can understand the root cause of a patient’s pain, then they are not going to be able to help their patient achieve a stabilizing change.  They are only going to be able to give their patient a short-term fix.  A Band-aid.  And we all know what happens to an adhesive bandage after it has been worn awhile – or gets wet.  It falls off. 

 

So, this is an efficacy issue for the clinician.  They are not going to be very effective in helping someone else if they don’t know what to ask a patient.  But if a clinician applies my program to their practice, the Ask Me Where it Hurts Program, I’m going to give the clinician the tools to ask the questions, as well as, the solutions necessary to treat their patient’s pain.

 

And that’s how I came up with the name for my program, Ask Me Where it Hurts.  My program helps clinicians identify the symptoms of pain which is part of the empowerment  and recovery process. 

 

Once the clinician and their patient are able to see the pain and understand it, the clinician can assist their patient on a walk to a place of wellness.  A journey of health and well-being.  A new way of living.  A new construct of life.

 

Speaking of walking, when I’m not counseling people, I can be found hiking up in the Los Angeles mountains for a quiet moment of meditation… above the fray of the human narrative.