When I was 'in training' and so designated as 'a trainee' to become a 'counselor' I was assigned to a Spinal Chord Injury 'Unit' at a VA hospital. As part of that 'duty' I had to (attempt! to) 'counsel' a guy who had been 'diagnosed' as (previously at least being) 'psychotic' and (presumably therefore self-medicating) 'alcoholic' and then a 'quadriplegic' with minimal hand and arm motion capabilities (as a result of having his gotten his neck broken in the course of a bar-fight!).
His 'presenting problem' (the 'problem' which resulted in his being 'assigned' to me) was that he kept on getting drunk (as a result of his ward-mates sharing alcohol with him) and doing 'outrageous' things (like driving his motorized wheel-chair up the down-ramp of a mechanical escalator at the race-track where his and his buddies had been taken on a 'field' trip). He also has a very bad case of 'phantom-limb'
pain which physical therapy (someone else 'exercising' his paralyzed legs) had had no effect on and so continued in spurts unabated.
Long story short: I went ahead having 'professional' (which in due course became 'friendly') talk-sessions with him despite the fact that I was such a greenhorn I didn't know what the heck I was doing let alone actually 'do' to 'help' him and also felt I would personally rather be dead than live in his shoes! (Of course, I didn't 'reveal' the latter fact with him).
Very surprisingly (to me at least!) the friendship and re-viewing of his life-situation in that context yielded quite positive 'dividends' over the course of the nine-moths that I 'knew' him. His 'acting out' (including his vicious swearing at the doctors and 'black' nurses who attended him on the ward) completely stopped. I was also told that he became a 'model patient', someone who was 'nice' to the staff and supportive in relation to newly admitted 'spinal-chord injured' fellow ward members.
He came (in his motorized wheel-chair) to see me on the day he was being discharged to go and live with his brother and sister-in-law (who was a professional 'nurse' who could manage handling his physical needs), to say thanks and good-bye as well as ask me if I wanted his down-filled winter coat since he wouldn't be needing it anymore, as his brother lived in Florida.
I didn't need the coat but accepted it (with
very warm feelings!) as a gestural way of 'completing' our relational dance together.
As he was going out the door I managed to overcome my awkwardness and matter-of-fact curiously asked him, "By the way, Bill, whatever happened to your phantom-limb pain?" (I had 'studiously'
avoided bringing up the subject with him ever since I had made a completely amateurish attempt to hypnotize him and 'suggest' it 'away'!)
His quite causal answer: "Oh, its still there; it doesn't bother me any more though."
The whole 'episode' of 'knowing'
him (and thereby about
Life ITSELF) was an
amazing experience, to say the very least!
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