Saving Life

SSDD… Saving Life

                When a client has been affected by severe trauma or has been impacted by the lack of basic human needs for survival, their therapeutic needs fall into the saving life category. This category of client should be considered at a greater risk for experiencing chronic and acute crisis, personal injury and untimely death. Therefore, it is necessary for a treating specialist to identify this client’s needs accurately, expeditiously and provide therapeutic techniques that will help break the current cycle of behaviors.

                Often times, the client who falls into the Saving Life category is one who has been referred to therapy by an outside agency such as law enforcement, medical/ emergency response personnel or welfare providers. The law enforcement agency may have come in contact with the client when the client was actively engaging in behaviors considered detrimental to the surrounding community or environment. If the client is suffering physical health impairments or active suicidal intentions, the local emergency room may be who refers the client to therapy. Welfare agencies may also provide a referral to therapy if the client has been found to suffer from abuse or neglect to a level that has caused the person to suffer from a failure to thrive. Each of these referral types tends to produce clients who are highly reactive to the environment and who have displayed behaviors which put them or other others in immediate and imminent danger. Therefore, therapeutic techniques should rely heavily upon methods which bring about behavior modification.

                As a therapist, I would rely heavily upon theoretical skill sets which modify current behaviors the client is presenting with. Saving Life is aimed at providing immediate intervention between the client and the environment in order to keep the client alive and safe, even from themselves.

                Behaviorism found that a person’s behavior can be modified and sometimes extinguished with the help of environmental controls which reward, punish and ignore the detrimental behaviors. Because the client is moving through repetitive, crisis-producing behaviors, a therapist must not concern themselves too much with “why” the client is behaving in an undesirable manner, they simply must help the client discontinue the behavior and ultimately save their life.

Behaviorism is a theoretical approach to psychology that can provide life-saving skills to the client.

Theorist: B.F. Skinner & J.B. Watson

Focus: Behavior Therapy requires a functional assessment of the client, identifying and targeting specific behavior and building a therapeutic plan that measures and modifies the targeted behavior.

Strengths: If a person cannot behave in a manner that is safe, lawful and copasetic with life sustaining goals, then it is necessary to modify or eradicate problematic behaviors. Behaviorism provides a method which clearly identifies faulty behaviors and serves to change those behaviors for the sole purpose of keeping a person in check with societal expectations.

Weaknesses: Behaviorism is the purest essence, disregards the thoughts and feelings of the client. Therapeutic techniques seek to simply modify the behaviors a client exhibits without the concern of how the client feels about their behaviors. This could be considered a weakness if the client is existing within one of the other three categories; however, is arguably in the best interest for the client whose immediate need is Life-Saving tactics.

Technique(s) I use:  

In some instances, exposure therapy can be useful to a client who is clinging to irrational beliefs about the world around them. Exposure therapy can help the client to recognize healthy levels of discretion for events and situations that cause them to behave in a self-defeating manner.

Operant conditioning can provide direct results by punishing unlawful behaviors with consequences such as jail time or punitive actions imposed on the client. Operant conditioning can also reward positive behaviors that a client initiates thus reinforcing a more positive life for the client.  

Reinforcement can provide a person who suffers with suicidal ideation a reason to reject suicidal attempts and self harm by rewarding more positive behaviors.

Personal example:  

Currently, I am working with a young lady who has suffered severe sexual, physical and emotional trauma and has spent the past five years of her life in and out of psychiatric units. I found that she has placed great value upon her ability to attend religious services and weekly activities. I worked with her and her residential team to outline safety goals and weekly behavior expectations that are aimed directly at her self-harm tendencies. By rewarding her weekly efforts with greater access to optional religious functions and treating her to personal time in the community, she has begun to work toward greater personal safety and she has had a marked decrease in self harming incidences.