they're unique!

This is my first time to interact with special needs children at such close quarter. Personally, I feel that the school has been putting a lot of afford in guiding and cultivating these students. Students with special needs have to be reared with great attention and care by parents and school. This program has been conducted to let these two main parties to works together to assist the children with special needs better. The talk given by Min See gave me a new idea about how ‘play’ can be used when dealing with special needs children. Just a simple game will teach them some of the skills. Activities such as catching the ankle can improve their brain development, riding the horse can let them play the role of leader and follower and how to teach them to learn words by using games. These no doubt will make the learning process become more interesting and help them to learn easily. I was in great agitation when those kids perform on the stage with full of confident. They are expressing themselves through their interests. Awesome! It’s like a celebration of their uniqueness! I think their parents were proud of them too. Just like a snowflake or a fingerprint, every child especially a child with special needs, is unique in their own special way.

-cool to be you-

After such a long period of preparation, our “Cool to be You” kids camp has been successfully held on 11/4/12 at PenangPac. I’m so grateful to have numbers of staffs to help us throughout the event; they diminish our burdens. I’m so touched by their willingness to offer us assistance and guidance. Without their helps, it is kind of impossible for four of us to make this event succeed. Previously, I used to involve in organizing camps and community services. What makes this event so special to me not just because of the earthquake but it improved my administrative communication with interns and parents and publicity. Another thing is language, those camps or community services I conducted mostly are in Mandarin and Malay. This is the very first time I have to lead an activity in English. No doubt that it became a burden for me. Days before the camp I was suffering from excessive nervousness due to my high expectation of myself. I feel great to work together with other interns as all of us can contribute our ideas and capability in different areas. I think we did a great job in distribute our duties.  Thanks for your commitment. Giving will reap the greatest harvest. Finally, it’s over.

She's smiling

GH session: I am very happy to see that a young patient, Sifa started to talk to me after I play with her for few times. Last week she begun to respond to me by nod and shake her head to tell me what she wants and does not want. This week, she can verbally tell me what she wants to play and take the initiative to interact with me while playing her puzzle. Even it just a small breakthrough, but it gave me a sense of accomplishment. It is glad to see that she is getting healthier and can walk around the room. =）

therapeutic storytelling

As we doing our play therapy in general hospital, another activity we can do to interact with the kids there is story telling. We can convey our message by using metaphor and imagery in the story to change the way the kids see their lives and the world, at the same time offering healing and growth to them. The story can be an encouragement and comfort for the kids. So today, Alex teaches us about narrative skills in story telling such as how to maintain eye contact with all the participant, get their attention, physically and mentally prepare them to listen story and etc.. The most important thing is the story teller has to enjoy telling a story. In order to make the story more interesting, the story teller has to add adjective and description in story to the children. This is to help the children more involve in the story and  visualize the story. We are actually given the chance to tell a story in front of the ‘kids’. The story i choose to tell is about the prodigal son. What Alex said is true that kids might feel hard to connect themselves with the story. Thus in order to relate the story to their age, I change the ‘father’ to ‘Daddy Rabbit’ in the story. When we playing different roles in the story, we need to pay attention to our voice and tone. It is to differentiate which character we are playing.  

      Another thing we can do is puppet playing. We can either use the puppet to tell the story or use the puppet to interact with the kids. Again, we have role play in puppet playing. Each of us have the change to play/talk to the puppet and showing an emotion by using puppet. I never though it can be so challenging. Puppet is not just we play with it by using part of our hand but the whole self have to be commited into the role. In the past, my understanding about narrative skills is how we create and tell a story. But from the training today, I get to know more about the therapeutic technique about storytelling and how we choose a story. One particular thing that I need to remind myself is my speed. When I talk, I used to talk fast. I have to slow down my speed in my speech else the children or my client might not manage to get what I trying to tell and if I talk too fast, they seems to have hard time following me. It’s time to me to prepare one story in mind so that I can use this technique to approach the kids there. Alex suggested the story can be related to how to dealing with pain as the kids were suffering from physical pain. By doing so, the story can be valuable source of healing for kids.  

the doll has something to say (this is not a ghost story)

I love what has been learnt today as it’s something new and useful for me that I can apply it for my next hospital session. When there’s patient that only focus on his or her playing without interacting with me, normally what I will do is sit next to him or her and observe how he or she is playing. What I thinking is, I will not forcing the client to interact with me if he or she is uncomfortable to play with me. I will let him or her play alone. But today what Alex has taught is like a ‘that is so!’ in my head.  When the client is unwilling interact with us, what we can do is modeling; we follow what he or she is doing. We get the same object with the client and imitate the way he or she is playing.  By doing so, we begin to build up the connection. We can even send our message to the client through the object. This also can get the client’s attention in what we are doing rather than being passive. What we can do is we talk to the object what we actually want the patient to know.      Alex even requires us to get attach with a doll. It’s kind of weird at the beginning as there are so many eyes are looking at me. But as I take some times to really feel the doll, to sense what kind of feelings that I have when I holding the doll, somehow I manage to involve myself into the role. The open armed doll makes me feel accepted and welcomed. As I let her lay down on my shoulder, I feel both of us are closely related. This also reminds me I used to talk to my doll in the past. I guess there’s why I manage to connect with the doll easily. Another issue that I need to overcome is doing it without care about how people might respond to my behavior. It’s true that the first thing come into my mind when seeing a lady talking alone to the doll is ‘I think she is mentally deranged. But if I really wish to get connected with the children patients, this is something that I need to overcome.

play session

As I observe the way sue plays, she reminds me about compliance personality. I was surprised a compliance personality can be so obvious in a six years old kid. She is systematic and organizes in her playing. She wants very thing to be accurate just like the moment she drawing the straight line.  Min See tells us that this can be part of her personality but also may because of the expression of her psychological needs. When Sue cannot control the real life situation (such as her father remarry issue), she will try to control those things that she can control. Throughout the session Sue did not show any sign of self-harm behavior, she is very quiet and polite instead.  She is very passive and didn’t talk much with us, only talk to us when she needs something. Most of time she talking with herself; even I tried to draw near I still couldn’t heard clearly what she is saying. When she wants to play at another corner of the room, she didn't directly tells us she wants go move over there. She will look at the corner and waiting for us to ask her. Min See told us that this is because she need affirmation/assurance to do something. I personally feel comfortable to play with Sue even though she did not talk much with me. Working with children in the play session requires more attention and observation, because we not just playing with them but we have to be aware of what the children trying to tell us from the toy they choose, the way they play and so on. 

ALS homework

What I see in the picture is a black lady with long eye lashes, wearing white colour dress with white hanging earring. She has black long hair tied by white flower hair decoration. Closed eye.

Her hands is open up, butterfly stay on both hands. there 14 colourful butterflies in the picture. The background colour of this picture is green and yellow. 

self-others-ideal

-how i see my self-

I'm introvert people

compare to hanging out with a group of people,

I prefer to being alone and have some self talk or journaling, reading, listen to music.

I'm being loved and taking care of

-How I think others see me-

others often regards me as extrovert people, sociable and easy get along with

-My ideal self-

 

I hope that I can be more open up myself and connected deeply with people around 

 instead of being love, I hope that I can express more of my love to people that I appreciate. 

The reason that I choose two cards to represent my own perception about myself and my ideal self is because both card also can exactly represent my thought. There are obvious contrast between how I see myself and how I think people sees me. People often get shock when I telling them that I enjoy being alone. In front of others I can be very talkative, making fun around but this does not mean that I can't enjoy loneliness. Being extrovert is my persona, it this the mask that I choose to show to the world.  I do hope myself can be more open to those people that is love me so that I can connected with them and sensitive to their needs. The contrast for this is in the card I choose to represent how I see myself is just one person in the card but when come to ideal-self it become four people. Another picture that I choose to represent myself is the picture with small plant and the ideal-self is the small plant become a flower and the hand that is open up represent giving. 

the flower stone

A stone is staying under the sea happily. The sea is her comfort zone; the stone is safe in the sea. Every stone will transform into a brilliant flower. But if after the stone turn into flower, she will being attacked by insect and strong wind. Insect will eat her leafs and wind will makes her sick.   So the stone refuses to turn herself into flower, she chooses to stay in her comfort zone. Then the leaf around the stone encourages her, give her support. Day by day, by the nutriment of the leaf, the stone willing to risk herself and become seedling at last.

I actually didn’t think much of what I want to draw after I draw a stone in beginning of the story. So let the feeling leads me. Instead of drawing an ordinary stone, I want the stone to be different. Because I love something that is special, that is out of ordinary. It also represent each of us is special and unique. For me, sea reminds me about freedom and calm, so I think it is the best place for the storm to stay; hiding under the sea. When I was asked to think of the mission for the stone, I really can’t think of any of them. What does the mission a stone ever had? == Again, let my unconscious lead me. Draw whatever that comes into my mind- a flower. It might be sound ridiculous for a stone to become a flower, but the thing I like about arts is I can throw away all the logical thinking and give free rein to my imagination.

Then I realize, I am the stone. For me, stone is strong, did not show up its weakness and emotion and keep everything inside. I see myself as a stone in the past. I can be very tough, efficient and independent in order to protect myself from being hurt. I thought it was a right choice to make but I started to lose my heart.  I set a very strong boundary between myself and others, just like detached personality. The only thing is know is I must protect myself.

But then, I see the purpose of my life in to love. There’s something that only Eve alone can offer to this world. I draw a flower to represent the beauty that only women can give to this world. The beauty does not refer to the appearance but something internality. I have to admit that I am social creatures who yearn to belong. And here come the challenge; to love we have to open up ourselves and its risk taking. We might be hurt, rejected and disappointed. Just like the insects will eat the leaf and the leaf will lose part of itself.  The leaf represents God and the good friend around me.   They encourage me in order to love and loved, I have to risk myself. God will be my resource to love and to open up my heart. At last, the stone begin to sprout. I now manage to open up myself and express my love to people. 

Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. 

<Anais Nin>

After I complete the last drawing, I come to realize it’s not a stone, it’s a seed.

I’m not a stone, I’m a seed who meant for blooming =)

ALS task

after having skype meeting on Friday night, we decided to conduct school refusal program for standard one student. 

Aims: help school refusing children (standard 1) to feels good about their school.

Assessment: Children are screened regarding their suitability for the program. Information is collected from the family and school in order to specify the problems and clarify the situation.

Who: standard one student. (Get permission from school and parents, parents can accompany their children during the program so that the participants did not get nervous or anxious)

Number of the participant: around 10 people

When: school holidays in March (choose one day from10/3-17/3)

Where: their own school

How: station game. We will set 8 stations in the school and participants have to go station by station. By doing so, they indirectly walk around the school and get familiar with the school. We also would like to let the participants realize that school can be so much fun.

Follow up: Children are assessed at various follow-up periods after the program. This involves interviews and assessment of school attendance.

beyond the words

ling, adolescence, Chinese girl but she looks like little girl with the age of 8 or 9 because she is so teeny weeny. This is my first impression about Ling. I show her matryosh doll to bring up her interest and pass her another matryosh doll to let her try to open it. But she seems to find difficult to open the matryosh doll because she not have energy to open it.

I playing with her as she is a 9 years old girl and I feel comfortable about it. I react with how she interacts with me in the present without thinking much about how her behavior is incongruent with her biology age. Furthermore, her behavior did not remind me that she is actually adolescence. She is playing with the dollhouse and starts to put furniture into the dollhouse without further consider whether the furniture is being able to fix into the dollhouse. For example, the sofa might be too big to put into the dollhouse but she still wants the sofa to be in the house. After the dollhouse chocked up with furniture, I take one small matryosh doll to represent myself and invite her to take one figurine to represent herself. I believe each figurine we choose contain special meaning or reminds us something. She chooses a white girl with gorgeous outlook but after a while she changes it to another figurine with short black hair and skinny girl.  The first thing she do after taking the new ‘her’ is take out the bag on the doll. (The doll is carrying a bag) Even though I tried to ask question but she only answer me with her smiling face and either nod or shake her head.

 But after we play for some times, she started to take the imitative to interact with me by giving some of the furniture from her doll house. (My little matryosh doll has a house too) She just playing at one corner and is surround by toys. So I ask her if she want to move to another place in the room. She agreed and we take ‘ourselves’ to another toy cabinet and pretending our school is there. She choose aeroplane as her transport to travel from her house to the school; I tell her that I need to take more time because I don’t have aeroplane and have to walk back home. For the next time we go to school, she passes me a car. I ask her is it this is the transport for me so that I don’t have to ‘walk’ to school. Ling nods her head. =) For ‘the next day’, Ling again takes the initiative to come to my ‘house’ and go to school together. I told her that ‘I’ was sick, not able to go school with her. She immediately takes medicine from the toy cabinet for me. This makes me feel that she is a very caring girl. Keshini interact with Ling by using soft toy, she did not show any sigh of resistance. She then took another doll with long hair and she takes away the necklace on the doll.  I immediately linked this to she took away the bag hang over another doll. I wonder if she does not want anything to be on the doll. Ling even invites ‘me’ to stay in her dollhouse together with her. This makes me feel that our distance is getting closer even though she still remains silent. Our connection is there even we didn’t talk.  

As i doing my ALS homework about "empathy", a sentence that I want myself to remember is ' Reading about a feeling and intellectually knowing about it is very different than actually experiencing it for yourself.' In order to practice empathy toward others, it important for me to emotionally connected with others.In the past, I used to kept an emotional distance with others. I afraid of invest too much emotional toward others might cause me a lot of troubles like I might not being able to hold impersonal attitude about an issue . I know how myself will react and respond to other's emotion, that's why I will limit myself for being too emotionally involve with others. But now, as I learn how to open up myself, I started to adjust myself. Just as regulation of boundary in Gestalt theory. 

2nd ALS

As we came to discussed about the program we going to conduct, Alex reminds us about the three main core of a program/group process : warm up, main activity and closure. Tuckman's stages of group developmental model (forming, storming, norming, performing and mourning) is something new for me but the concept is very similar with developmental stages of group counselling by Corey (pre-group, initial, transition, working and final stage).  The purpose of warm up is to physically and mentally prepare the participants for the main activity, thus the warm up must be related to the main activity. We are asked to really put into practice how we'll conduct the warm up for a group of adolescence. During the practice, Alex emphasizes on how is the process of the warm up rather then what is the program all about, how we facilitate the group. What been taught by Alex is much more deeper than the concept I used to know about warm up. I choose eagle to represent my favourite animal; it reminds me about one bible verse 'but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary;they shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)

session1

mixed feelings

We finally decided to focus on orphan as our project participant. Our objective is help them to develop better social skills, from these they can connect with others effectively. The program will last for one month with four different sub themes will be conducted each week.


Today is my first time went to hospital for play intervention with patient. I never think of how myself will respond when playing or interact with them. But when I really sit next to them and talk,play with them, I feel pity for them;they are so young and have to experience all these pains by their own. A very strong compassion feeling raised in me when I talk to a leukaemia patient. I wonder what kind of feelings she had, does she afraid of it? She looks so calm. Again, this reminds me that we shouldn't take thing for granted, be grateful with what you have and appreciate it. I know I was there not just play with them, but with our interaction I believe play intervention uniquely responsive to children's developmental needs. We are not only interacting with children patient there but their parents as well. But when I listen to one of the patient's mother sharing, I wonder how should I respond. I mind was stuck, I was lack of words. 


For the first time being there, I take this as an opportunity to explore what is it play intervention all about, building relationship with children patient there. I understand is not easy to work with children patients. I know I will experience up and down depending on the patient's condition. I pray that God will comfort and strengthen them as they go through their lives.  

targeted group?

during our short discussion for ALS task, we have decided to take children as our participant so our program will focus on children's needs. As I do research on children in Malaysia, I still think that it is 'children's need' is a far and wide topic. To be more specify, I suggest kids from orphanage. By  narrow the range, we can best serve the population. When I think about orphan, the first thing I concern is how they sees themselves, their level of self-esteem. How our program can help them? I think this is something that we have to come together and give opinion about it.  But then this is just my opinion and suggestion, others might have other concern regarding to our targeted population.

oh and, happy valentine.. =)

hi, CCAT

Wow, I still can't believe that it can be so much fun on my first day of intern. Before that  a lot of worries came into my mind. How does the environment looks like, how about the people there, I thought is going to be a lot of rules and regulations and 'fixed office working hour'. (That's why I was surprised when been told I do not have to come to the office on the next day) It was really out of my expectation.

The first thing we did is introduce ourselves by using visual card. I like this. By using visual card, we can share more personal things about ourselves rather than just 'giving information' (e.g your name, hometown, marital status..). After choosing the three cards that represent myself, I was thinking do I really have to share that much about myself? This is just the first day. But then another thought came into my mind, 'Since I'm going to spend my four months here, why not I fully commit myself into this self-growth training program?' Thus, I use the same cards and share how it make sense to me.   I  like arts not just because it's my hobby but it can help me to think or share in creative way. During the ice breaking session, we not just sharing but learning at the same time. We are given the chance to summarise other's sharing. This makes me feel like every sharing is a learning opportunity. Another personal learning for me is pay full attention to every single sharing by others, active listening not just happen to my clients. =.=

After getting clearer picture about the Action Learning Set, we proceed to our training. I have learn about 'Empathy, Unconditional Positive Regard and Congruence' before but never really go deep into it and demonstrate it in class. So today training session really help me learn a lot and become more aware about how my nervous influence my connection with my client. I was so effected by what Alex's narration about Saul's background, when Saul come to me I tend to focus on what is writing on Alex's note rather than what 'Saul' is telling me. But I thank God that this happen during my training session and not real counselling session. I'm so grateful that Alex correct me on the spot. I have to admit that I was so anxious to giving the correct respond in stead of stay connect with my client's emotion. Some times in session, we do not have to bring the client to some where else by asking facilitative questions, we just have to stay empathetic. Another reminder for myself: your proficiency does not being evaluated by the speed of your speech.

Plenty of information and knowledge I need to digest. Cool.