I've always said that having the experience of being a service user will always help me in my career- some of my lecturers and previous educators have said that my disability is a great tool in this career. However, for me to use my disability as a tool a I must get over an emotional barrier first, which, is not straight forward and is proving to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be...
How can I suddenly be the professional and be the one making decisions?.
Being able to empathise rather than just sympathise with a service user will enable a better therapeutic but, when the understanding is so strong it can be challenging to deal with this emotional response. This is when it becomes harder because feelings can only be dealt with if I'm aware that they're rising too close to the surface. I've always being open that I've had occupational therapy when talking with service users and I always will be; at times the fact that I have had occupational therapy can hold me back during intervention implementation.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am very determined and like to aim high in anything I do especially when it comes to my studies. But this emotional barrier is proving to be more difficult to overcome than I initially thought. I like to consider myself as a confident individual who is up for having a go at anything; this emotional barrier if affecting me in ways that I never thought it would when it comes to intervention implementation and making professional decision.
During the first 6 weeks of placement my second-year placement, I wasn’t as hands on as I could’ve been. But it wasn't until my educator questioned this until I realised why I'd been holding back- the reason I've been holding back is because I'm going through an emotional transition.
How can I suddenly be the professional and be the one making decisions?
Being able to empathise is a great advantage to the service user but in terms of me being a healthcare professional it's actually a lot more emotionally challenging. Believing in my professional knowledge and being able to make confident professional decisions is difficult. I also feel like I have been holding back due to my speech impairment not because it's knocks my confidence, because I don't want to cause more of a challenge for the service users.
However, now I have recognised that I am going through the emotional transition it has become a lot clearer as to why I'm not my normal confident self when out on visits and I have my educator to thank for this.
I’ve previously hosted a talk on this. I now feel a lot more confident about disclosure as I know it is ok to disclose. Yes, it’s not appropriate to tell someone your life story, but to give them a little help using first-hand experience is okay too. When I wrote my personal statement, I wrote I’d like to be an occupational therapist because I can offer both professional and personal experience’ and I can. I’m not saying I’ll tell every service-user that I come across but, my weapon is there if I need to use it in an unbiased way.
If you used to be a service user and are now a healthcare professional how did you conquer this emotional transition?
Georgia @GeorgiaVineOT