[humanser] Working on a psychiatric hospital floor inpatient as atherapist

[JD Townsend]

Hi Rebecca,

Are you working on an inpatient psychiatric unit or within a medical unit? 
As a psychotherapist I'm guessing that it would be a psychiatric unit.  The 
position depends to a great deal on the expected duties.  In some hospitals 
you would be a glorified discharge planner, in others you might be running 
groups, holding family sessions.  In others you would be grinding out 
psychosocials and treatment plans.  Perhaps you will be doing a combination 
of the three.

Things to remember are that the patients come and go, so learning patient 
names by their voices may be a challenge.  Educating staff that you are a 
benefit rather than an added responsibility can, also, be a challenge.  Some 
of the people I supervise working in adult inpatient psychiatry find that 
being female the male staff look at them as vulnerable on the unit, so you 
may need to prove yourself more to your fellow staff than to the patients.

Please let us know how things go.

JD


JD Townsend LCSW
Helping the light dependent to see.
Daytona Beach, Earth, Sol System