River: The training I'm looking for

[mdlbear]

I am, gradually, coming out of multiple decades of some combination of chronic mild depression, flattened affect, Asperger syndrome, ... I have never visited a psychiatrist and have no idea what to call it. In any case, I am slowly gaining the ability to both feel emotions and to respond to them in others. There are some skills I need, and don't have.

• Mainly, right now, I need whatever will help me live with and help a person who has recently developed a chronic, life-altering disease. She needs all the help and emotional support she can get, and I'm currently unable to provide it or even to figure out what she needs. She is highly emotional, and has a lifelong hatred of the psychiatric profession that will probably make it impossible for her to get help in that direction herself.
• Related to that but more generally, I need the ability to communicate with people who become upset (whether angry or tearful) easily, and are incapable of thinking or communicating rationally when in that condition.
• Longer term, I need the ability to communicate with normal human beings on an emotional level: to read emotions in others and especially to make sure that the emotional message I'm sending matches what I'm feeling. I'm coming out of decades of unwittingly having my emotions and motives being completely misread by people close to me. This includes both the ability to recognize someone else's tone of voice and body language, and to control my own so that other people can understand it.
• I need the correct vocabulary for talking about this kind of thing.
• I need to know where to find the help I need, what it's called, and how to get it, preferably from my HMO, Kaiser. All I know for certain right now is that it's somewhere in the social sciences, but probably not psychiatry.

This post is primarily for my immediate reference when talking this morning to someone from Kaiser's psych department or whatever they call it, but suggestions from the audience are certainly welcome. I'm particularly interested not only in suggestions of where to find the training I need and how to ask for it, but of what other skills I need. I need to know the dimensions of this hole in my mind that I've only recently discovered.

Comments

[blaurentnv.livejournal.com]

I think the person you are looking for is a "social worker" - most hospitals will provide these for caretakers of someone with a life altering disease (I have no idea about Kaiser, which is a slightly different animal). Usually the title on the card is LCSW. Like in most professions, some are excellent and some are worse than a waste of time. Try asking for a social worker at the hospital and see what happens. Psychiatry tends to focus on biological causes of mental health issues; psychology tends to focus on childhood causes. LCSW's (in my experience - your mileage may vary drastically) focus on coping mechanisms, which sounds like what you are looking for at the moment.

Good luck!

[mdlbear]

I actually asked for, and got, one of each. All I got from the psychiatrist was the right phone number to call; the social worker was a gem.

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

G and I got enormous help in really stressful times from a psychologist. She helped us learn how to read each other's cues and respond in a helpful manner.

I can't emphasize enough that she was a *good* psychologist. They're not thick on the ground, but she was a Godsend.

It would be better if Colleen would go with you, much better, but I'm sure you can get some help if you go alone.

[firecat]

FWIW, I think you have a good handle on what skills to develop.

I can suggest a book or two on communicating with people, if you think books might be a way you could get information about this.

[mdlbear]

Please, suggest away! (Not that I have a whole lot of time and attention for reading, but this is useful enough that I'd make some.)

[firecat]

The OH and I got a lot out of Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix. A few caveats: It assumes monogamy, and there's a certain amount of Christianity you have to read past. And we aren't sure we buy his "Imago theory of relationships." But the book contains descriptions of various listening skills that are really valuable, especially things to do when someone is having very strong feelings. It also describes ways to heal a relationship where communication has become difficult.

[mdlbear]

Thanks.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Re communicating with people who are upset when you're upset:

Knowing something about the Satir Modes may help; there's some information on that (if I recall correctly) in "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense" by Suzette Haydin Elgin (she has an LJ under the name "ozarque")

I'm not sure this is *quite* what you're looking for, but it is kind of sidling in the direction I think you want. Also Ozarque's journal is worth reading for its own sake, in my opinion. Plus if you can't find what you want in the book(s), she may be able to help you if you send her an lj-mail.

[mdlbear]

Thanks -- I'll have to get that one; you're the second person to recommend it.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I recommend "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and, Doggone It, People Like Me" by Al Franken. Underneath the humor it's actually a pretty fair guide both to self-help and the pitfalls involved.

Humor should not be discounted as a tool to get through the rough patches. It works for me.

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

The type of person you're looking for is either a psychologist or a therapist (in Arizona, 'licensed clinical social worker' is one of the titles that can offer therapy; I'm not sure about Cali).

If Colleen is highly-emotional, then one of the main things is that she needs to feel that she's safe, and that her needs are being taken care of. Probably the best thing you can do is actively listen, restate what she says, and make comforting noises. (In fact, this is generally what needs to be done when someone's upset and incapable of being coherent or rational.)

If it's possible, I'd suggest using a webcam and microphone to record yourself -- perhaps do a video blog thing, and watch yourself, and try to read your own visible behavior. (You could do the same thing in the mirror, in the bathroom, if you have such -- but a recording would also allow you to go back and notice other things. It would also provide a baseline by which you can see how much you have learned.)

I believe what you're looking for is a category of clinical service called "behavioral health", or "mental health". You very likely don't need medication to get motivated to do this, so a psychiatrist would be the bad side of things.

Also... in my experience, if you look at the problem as an engineering problem, you're not going to get much of anywhere (since engineering is an exact and thus non-emotional discipline). It will likely help to look at it more as a "oh! I have something new I can learn about!" situation. :)

[mdlbear]

Drugs certainly aren't indicated, but apparently someone in the psych department is where I have to go first to get evaluated and pointed at the right set of people.

It's not an engineering problem, it's a software problem -- I consider software a branch of literature. *definitely* something to learn about.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a good start on all of this already. A few random hints:

Dealing rationally with a person who is behaving irrationally almost never works. As others have suggested, validating the person's feelings (in a non-patronizing way!) and making comforting noises will generally help. If they're at least partly rational, you might remind them that their unpleasant emotional state will change - that they're not going to be trapped forever in feelings of fear, pain, and depression. Physical contact, especially whole-body hugs, can be tremendously helpful, unless the person finds such contact threatening. (Back when I was a hippie, "talking someone down" from a bad drug trip almost always began with hugging. And an emotional crisis is a bad drug trip created by the body's own internal "drugs".)

For improving your own emotional communication skills, it would be very useful if you could talk, in person and on a regular basis, with one or more people who already know how to communicate with both "normal" folks and Asperger's/autism-spectrum/asocial-geek people. I hope you have at least a few "speakers-to-geeks" (and/or "speakers-to-normals") among your friends. Ideally, they'll be able to translate things in a way that you can grok.

[mdlbear]

Hugging helps a lot, but it's not feasible if the meltdown happens while I'm driving.

I probably need to seek out speakers-to-* among my friends; if there are any out there, most of them probably aren't on LJ, so it'll be hard.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would expect to find more of them on LJ, because it suits people on both ends of the spectrum - the highly social ones, and the geek/loners.

I consider myself a pretty good "translator", although it's entirely a learned skill (my strongest communication skill is "speaker-to-machines"). If I were able to meet with you in person, I could probably teach you the beginnings of it, and, once you understood the basic concepts, you're certainly smart enough to pick up a lot more on your own.

[mdlbear]

I really know only one who I think may be qualified, is local and who I might feel comfortable talking with. She's not on LJ, and I'm not sure she would be comfortable talking to me about it. I also have no good idea how to initiate such a conversation (since she's not on LJ).

There probably are some on LJ, I just don't know who they are. The only ones who have come forward aren't local, though they call me occasionally.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I'll try to figure out which aspects of emotional communication can be taught over the phone.

[mdlbear]

Thanks! It's a subject I know almost nothing about.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

It's really not as incomprehensible as you might think - and it can be learned by people who don't instinctively get it.