After months of planning and laying the groundwork, you've opened your private practice. You've rented an office two evenings a week. And, at $60.00 a week, you have launched. A patient calls and you schedule an appointment. After a long day at work, you drive to your office and wait eagerly for your very first patient. The bewitching hour is 6:00 pm. 6:00 pm arrives and there's no patient. Around 6:15 you begin to wonder if you've been stood up. You're tired. And, if you are really honest with yourself, you are steamed because you've just driven all of the way to the office for no reason at all. The patient doesn't bother to call to cancel. You are left just cooling your heels.
How should you handle this? Do you stay until the end of the hour? Do you call? Do you wait for the patient to call? How you respond depends on your theoretical orientation. Without any information about the patient, it's hard to understand the meaning of her behavior. Is she frightened? Angry? Lost? But, understanding the meaning of the behavior is, of course, the task at hand. And, it is this understanding that will inform your intervention.
Waiting until the end of the hour --- since, after all, it is the patient's hour, sends a powerful message: that the hour belongs to the patient and that she is responsible for how it will be used. This includes, not using it at all. In this way, if the patient arrives 20 minutes late, for example, she knows that you are there. Leaving, after 15 minutes, sends a different sort of message.
And if, indeed, she arrives, do you extend the hour? After all you have no subsequent patients. That, too, sends a powerful message about how you approach the situation. There's not a right or wrong answer here EXCEPT that it's important to have, in your own mind, a clear cut rationale for how you might handle this and why. This will provide a springboard for what you might say to the patient. In any case, it can be very useful to listen to the patient as they explain their lateness. Do they rush in huffing and puffing very anxious about what you might think of them? Or, do they act as if nothing has happened? How does their lateness sync up with their presenting problem? Learning a bit about their experience of lateness in other arenas might be very useful. However, in this early juncture it must be approached with the utmost tact. And, if it can not be gotten at skillfully, it can be tabled until it reveals itself as a more persistent pattern.
What if the patient never shows? Do you call? Again there is some theoretical disagreement about this. Calling maybe experienced as caring. It can also be experienced as intrusive. Not calling may be experienced as respectful of the patient's autonomy and as letting the patient take responsibility for themselves. It can also be experienced as indifference. Any option carries with it consequences and implications.
A key point to consider is that at this early juncture you are establishing a framework for how you will handle lateness and absence. At the very least, it seems important to clarify the meaning of the behavior. Of course, at this stage of the game the meaning can be very difficult to divine. Obviously, there's so much to be said about this topic. I hope that you will write in with more questions.
Best to all, LVF
(c) 2010 Lynn Friedman, Ph.D. All rights reserved
P.S. The waiting list to take this class has grown. Therefore, Johns Hopkins has added a second session to be taught the last weekend in April. Practicing professionals and graduate students from elsewhere may enroll as special students. The course will run from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm on Friday and Saturday. Information about registration may be obtained through the university.
P.P.S. A list of all blog posts can be found at: www.drlynnfriedman.com/blogpractice.html
Confidentiality Policy: Please note for reasons of confidentiality and copyright all letters to the blogger will be summarized and edited. Also, I will not write about real patients. Instead, I will create fictionalized vignettes. When you pose a clinical question, please ask it in a general way. DO NOT write about real patients. Thank you.
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Lynn Friedman, Ph.D.
Psychologist, psychoanalyst, work-life consultant
Faculty Associate, Johns Hopkins University
5480 Wisconsin Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
301.656.9650
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Dr. Lynn Friedman welcomes referrals for supervision or consultation, feel free to call her.///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
explain their lateness. Do they rush in huffing and puffing very anxious about what you might think of them?
Posted by: freelance writing opportunities | November 02, 2011 at 09:32 AM