Prisoners of Our Thoughts by Alex Pattakos

Author:Alex Pattakos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2016-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Focus on the Positive

Years ago, I (Alex) was working in Illinois for the state department of mental health. I was responsible for coordinating social services within a subregion of the city of Chicago, working with an inpatient psychiatric unit in one of the state’s mental health facilities. This particular facility, along with others in the metropolitan Chicago area, was overcrowded with patients, many of whom were either psychotic or prone to violence, and my unit was suffering from a severe staff shortage. The facility was so overcrowded that patients were sleeping on the floor in the hallways! I felt that we weren’t meeting our ethical and moral obligations to care properly for our fellow human beings. For these and other reasons, both union and nonunion employees complained incessantly about the problems the facility faced. Increasingly, a number of employees avoided work by calling in sick, which made an already poor staffing situation worse. Those of us in supervisory or management positions staffed the agency as well as we could, frequently working multiple eight-hour shifts. Eventually, the complaining and resistance escalated into a full-blown walkout and strike led by union officials.

My boss, Rita, a registered nurse and longtime mental health administrator, said, “Good for them! However, the show has to go on, so let’s see what we can do without them.” I thought, Without them? How are we going to do that? We’re in a serious predicament with no obvious resolution. Maybe she just doesn’t get it. But Rita knew much more than I gave her credit for. First, she focused on the potentially positive implications of the walkout—that we might finally get the resources we had needed for so long. Second, she stressed how much camaraderie was being discovered among those who were left minding the psychiatric unit. We were getting to know each other better, relying on each other more than ever. Rita even invited any patient who had the capacity to help us to lend a hand. For Rita, our situation was reminiscent of her medical MASH-type unit in Vietnam. She had survived that situation, and she was sure she would do the same this time around. By shifting our focus of attention to positive experiences, we found the potential for meaning in our predicament. Inspired by Rita’s guidance and capacity to de-reflect, as Frankl would say, we were not subdued by our circumstances no matter how dire they appeared at the time.

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