Troubled in the Land of Enchantment by Janis H. Jenkins Thomas J. Csordas

Author:Janis H. Jenkins, Thomas J. Csordas [Janis H. Jenkins, Thomas J. Csordas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, Medical, Psychiatry, Child & Adolescent, Mental Health, Indigenous Studies, Health Policy, Regional Studies, General
ISBN: 9780520343528
Google: hknrDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2020-08-25T03:32:38+00:00

Well, I was basically holding in most of my anger, ’cause I thought that my mom wouldn’t be able to, you know, be willing to talk to me about it, I was holding it in and I was going out with my friends a lot, well, not, you know, like that [i.e., sexually] but [laughs]. But I’d stay out with them for like a long time. And my mom would call me and be like, “You know, you gotta start coming home,” and I’d be like, “OK,” and I wouldn’t go back. And every time I’d go back to my house, I’d feel like, angry, ’cause I didn’t want to be there. It’s part of the teenager stage but it was like, weird. . . . [What’s helpful here at CPC is] me learning how to use coping skills. ’Cause, you know, I think I’m ready to go back home too, and it’s just, I gotta learn how to use ’em. And it’s been working a lot. . . . I’m excited [about going home] but then in a way, I don’t really want to leave here, ’cause I got so attached to it, you know? Because it’s going to be a lot different: I’m going to have more responsibilities out there than in here, but I think I can deal with it. You know, I actually came this time to get myself help ’cause other times I go, you know, like when I went to H Center I was like, “Yeah, you know, blah, blah, whatever, I’m not going to get help.” So I was there basically for five months for not doing my treatment goals, and over here it’s only been a month and I’ll be here like a month and eleven or something days and I’m leaving ’cause I’ll have done a lot better.

Particularly compelling in this reflection is Natalie’s comment that “it’s part of the teenager stage but it was like, weird.” As we saw in chapter 3, there is a tendency among some parents and youth to normalize what is in fact an extraordinary condition by appealing to typical adolescent behavior (albeit exaggerated), but in this instance the young person also conveys the sense that her behavior and situation were not just exaggerated, but weird. She expresses attachment to the hospital environment as well as some apprehension and ambivalence about returning home, where she will be faced with responsibilities. She compares her positive and efficacious engagement in treatment with a previous hospitalization in another facility where she resisted help. Also of note is her engagement in the therapeutic discourse and putting “coping skills” into play. As we will see in chapter 5, our interlocutors exhibited a wide range of attitudes toward coping skills and their value, and virtually all of them had been exposed to the concept at some point in their patient trajectory.

At her second interview, no longer an inpatient, Natalie was reflective about the effectiveness of her hospital treatment and her worries about her family:

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.