Clinical Experience Reflection #2
Create a video to reflect on a clinical encounter when you became emotionally charged during this semester with a patient experiencing anxiety or an e-related disorder.
During this semester, I had a particularly emotional encounter with a patient, a 32-year-old woman who was admitted for severe generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) with panic attacks. She had a long history of trauma, which included domestic violence and childhood neglect. During one of our sessions, she opened up about how her anxiety left her feeling like she was “drowning in silence” and constantly bracing for something terrible to happen. She began to cry as she described how she avoided public places, missed important life events, and even felt disconnected from her own child due to the overpowering fear and tension she lived with daily.
Hearing her pain and watching her struggle to verbalize her feelings triggered something in me—I felt a strong wave of sadness and helplessness. I found myself emotionally activated, not only because of her suffering but also because her words reminded me of a friend I once supported through a similar situation. For a brief moment, I struggled to maintain the professional boundary between empathy and personal emotional involvement.
I took a few slow breaths and grounded myself in the moment by focusing on being fully present for her. I reminded myself that my role was to provide a safe space for her to express her pain without making it about me. Later that day, I debriefed with my clinical supervisor, which helped me process my feelings and reflect on the importance of self-awareness and emotional regulation in therapeutic relationships.
Submission Instructions:
- Your initial post should be a 5-7 minute video. Your initial post is worth 8 points.
- You should respond to at least two of your peers by extending, refuting/correcting, or adding additional nuance to their posts. Your reply posts are worth 2 points (1 point per response.)
- All replies must be in video format, constructive, and use literature where possible.