A day of the life therapeutist

A day of the life therapeutist

Bukhara State Medical Institute,

Student of group 172,

Karimova Zarina.

Therapist or threpautist?

Therapist -
someone who provides therapy, usually professionally.
someone
therapeutist
someone who provides therapy, usually professionally.
someone

In this series of articles, we take a look at a day in the life of our therapists. Their stories illustrate the joys and difficulties involved in dedicating their lives to helping others improve their mental health and cope with mental illness.

• In this series of articles, we take a look at a day in the life of our therapists. Their stories illustrate the joys and difficulties involved in dedicating their lives to helping others improve their mental health and cope with mental illness.

7:30 am.

• 7:30 am.
• I wake up to a chorus of birds chirping, wildly, endlessly singing. The windows are closed and we have no poultry, but for the first minute or so I think I can hear beautiful birds music in the treetops. Eventually, I remember that this is my iPhone's ringtone, and I turn over and hit Snooze. This happens a few more times until I'm ready to put my feet on the floor, sit on the bed and admire the view of the palm trees and sky through the wall-to-wall window.

8:30 am.

• 8:30 am.
• Back from my morning walk, I park my specialized orthopedic walker in the dining alcove. I have been using it as a vehicle for about six years now, ever since arthritis, fibromyalgia and COPD overtook me and became disabled. As the ad says, I love my walkers. I named him Dolly. Without him, I could not have walked more than thirty yards. With it, I can go almost anywhere!

9:00 am.

• 9:00 am.
• After a breakfast of coffee, yogurt and muesli, I open my "office" to see who is in the "waiting room." I used to grab my briefcase and drive to my regular office on time to meet my first client of the day, but now my office is my computer. I hold him on my knees on the rose and celadon couch in the living room, facing outward, past the veranda, to the treetops. I feel like in a tree house! I will be spending a lot of time here today because this is my favorite place - to work, read, knit, call and even meditate. After a while, I'll probably take my laptop to the "office", take it outside to the veranda, and work there for a while. It can be cold at home in New England, but here in Florida it's sunny and warm and pleasant.

10:00 am.
The waiting room (
I love my job. All my life I have wanted to help people find a way out of adversity. I have read books about girls and women who have perfected the arts of healing, teaching, and communication. I started writing poetry when I was seven years old. I also wanted to be a doctor to heal, comfort and inform people. I didn't know there was an area called psychotherapy. If I knew about this, I would be aiming for this from the very beginning, rather than a middle-aged career
12:00 pm.
I have "seen" all my morning clients. Now I have a few hours that I can spend on my own. I cook myself a little lunch (I eat very healthy food - mostly
3:00 pm.
3:00 pm.
I have an appointment with a client I'm flying online. I sit on the couch and call her. For this I use my
I have an appointment with a client I'm flying online. I sit on the couch and call her. For this I use my
3:30 pm.
I go after lunch checking my
I once saw a psychic / astrologer / past life
"By the way," she asked, "what do you do for a living?
"When I told her that I was a psychotherapist, her eyes widened and she said, "You are doing exactly what you should be doing!“
“I know,” I said.
Doing what I was born to do - what seems so natural to me, satisfies my desire to help others - is a gift from life. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world, having one of the best jobs!
My husband also has one of the best jobs. He is a professional musician. While I work in my charming office in the tree house, he often plays in a band somewhere in the city (as he is now) or practices in the extra bedroom that we have allocated for his studio. We're both old enough to retire, but we love our jobs too much to quit. So we found ways to keep working, but at a pace that we can maintain. Four hours a day is enough for me. Four concerts a week are enough for him.
5:00 pm.
Dinner is a huge social event in this retirement community. People dress up every night and loiter outside the dining room when it is about to open. I call this nightly high school graduation meeting because all these seniors are going to meet their date for dinner or set a date with whom to dine with. It is very friendly and pleasant to be part of!
Some of us are "stable" with groups in which we dine regularly and exclusively. My husband and I have regular dates four evenings a week (every evening in different groups), and on the other three evenings we go to the bachelor party. Today is a deer night and we accepted an invitation from a group with whom we had dinner several times before and with whom we really enjoyed it. This practice helped us get to know almost everyone who lives here.
7:00 pm.
This evening, after dinner, a concert will take place in the hall. I take a short stroll through the building and go back to music, a jazz band that includes my husband. At the end of the hour, I sneak off to schedule another hangout with a client for whom regular office hours were not possible.
That's the beauty of online therapy. I can meet my clients' needs for evenings and weekends meetings, and we don’t have to get in the car and drive to some vacant office building. I have been there, doing this, and am very glad that I have an alternative method of meeting. So we will do the same. It's easier and safer than driving at night.
23:00
I served my clients.
I've been practicing the harp.
This is it. I can't think anymore. But I guess if you count the number of clients I serve, there will definitely be more than five in total!
I walked for exercise and fresh air.
I am lying on my back from where I started in the morning, but this time I am already going to sleep. The curtains on the windows are open, so I can see the outlines of the trees against the dark sky. Sometimes I fall asleep quite quickly, sometimes due to fibromyalgia I cannot sleep due to discomfort in my whole body. One strategy I can use to relax while sleeping is to try to remember five things I did during the day:
I still can't sleep. I get up and quietly walk into the living room, turn the TV to low and watch a few reruns of Golden Girls and Frasier. If I can laugh just once, that laugh will relax me and I can go back to bed and fall asleep.
The shows are silly but brilliant. I admire the high quality of writing and playing. Even though I know exactly what's going to happen (I've seen them all before so many times), I laugh out loud.
Then I go to bed again and fall asleep. It's all about laughter. I grew up on this (my whole family loves to tell jokes) and it always works.
I fall asleep smiling, content with my life, looking forward to tomorrow.
Biography: Samantha White is the author of the award-winning memoir, Who to Talk To: Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss.

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