This month marks 2 years of PLACE meetings. I cannot overstate how grateful I am to you for all we’ve done and accomplished together in that amount of time. Group is a unique, priceless emotional support component for those in need, and make no mistake: I am one who needs this.
It’s serious business, but I thought I’d take a moment for a bit of levity and warmth. I’ve run a lot of groups of different sorts in my years doing this work, and the funny moments and sweet memories now fight for attention in my mind as I sit down to share a few.
A private practice brought me on right out of grad school, and among my duties there was getting a peer support group for people with social anxiety off the ground.
Let that sink in for a moment. My task was to gather people who were afraid of being in gatherings. I was a sharp enough clinician with a lot of practical ideas to offer people. How did it go? We had two groups ever before our handful of participants vanished. I still wonder if it was some sort of practical joke the owner played on me.
I’m a firm believer in counselors having challenging work early on to sharpen their skills. I worked for an agency years ago that placed me on East Lancaster in Fort Worth, which is where much of the homeless population is concentrated. That work challenged me daily. I held one on one sessions in a warehouse, and was once tasked with holding group in the TV room of a homeless shelter.
Turning off the TV to announce that we were having a peer support group was not well received. Still, I soldiered on. A few people gamely tried to participate, but soon two men got irritated with each other and squared off on either side of me. One said to the other, “Man, if you don’t shut up I’m going to judo chop you.”
I burst out laughing. “Did you say you’re going to judo chop him? That’s not a thing.” Soon they were both laughing, and the situation dissipated.
Although it only lasted for a semester, one of my favorite groups ever was for immigrant and refugee teenagers at a local high school. These kids were from across the globe: the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and more. I gained such valuable perspective listening to them as they shared their experiences.
As the end of the semester approached, I suggested we celebrate with a party. I asked them what they thought we should bring. After a moment of thinking, do you know what every kid from every represented nation suggested?
Rice.
Ok, we could certainly do that. I pressed them for more ideas. After several minutes and about five items into the list, one finally whispered, “Cookies?”
I hope they’re all doing well.
I ran a peer support group for people with bipolar disorder for years. Thinking back, it bore some resemblance to something we see in PLACE: People would attend the first group and be dumbfounded to meet others working to cope with the same distress. It was a thing of beauty.
I spent many years running groups for drug and alcohol treatment programs in a law enforcement setting. Male felons were brought to the campus each morning for about 7 hours of groups. One day I led them through a guided meditation that ended just as the van came to take them back to the probation office. The next morning the driver asked what I’d done to them, as they’d all fallen asleep on the drive.
In another group, two men nearly came to blows over whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
A pregnant young woman had her water break in another group one night, and let me tell you, that necessitated some quick thinking. She made it to the hospital, and the baby was delivered with no problems.
I could go on and on, but let me conclude with this: I am grateful and blessed to witness what happens in PLACE. We laugh, cry, complain, solve, share, theorize, and lean on each other as only people who share a common experience can. I’ve seen a lot of magic in groups over the years, but PLACE is beyond any previous such experience. Thank you.
