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17499533
Session 3
Date: around 19.11.99 (She contacted me that she was very busy on the design homework and had no spare time to see me on 19.11.99. She was available on 25.11.99)
Time: 11:00a.m.
Venue: Eastern Law Court meeting room
Objectives:
Intervention
Originally, I planned to have a home visit to interview CWL. However, I had no time to talk to her about the homework and her feeling towards her mother. Then, I decided to have one more session to further assess her feeling, her communication pattern, and her relationship with her mother and other family members. According to her homework, she had finished though in the ¥feeling¦ part, she just wrote down a hidden answer. I tried to help her to reflect on her feeling from the hidden answer. Besides, I would invite her to talk about the expectation about my home visit in the next session.
I. Identifying Data
Name of Client: CWL
Date: 25.11.99 (Friday) (Session 3)
Time: 11:00-12:00
Place: The Eastern Law court building
Worker in Charge: Student social worker R
II. Objectives:
(Comment: Has the issue of stealing been deliberately left out. It will be useful to follow-up on this from the last session. One possibility to ensure continued work on this issue is for the worker to share her reflection on how they have engaged with each other on the issue of stealing in the last session; to share what her observation or concerns are; and to discuss with client how they can move on from there.)
III. Summary of the Contact
CWL came to the court on time. She brought a big box, which looked like a cake box. I tried to joke with her and asked her to give me a piece of cake. She replied that it was homework! Then she opened the box to show me about her homework. I gave her some time to tidy her homework because part of it was broken. Then, I asked her the skills of doing this homework.
I started the session and told her that I would invite her to review the homework (Appendix A) which she had handed to me and shared her feeling with me. I tried to understand when she did the homework, did she just selected some scenarios to talk about or were they the full conversation with her mother. She replied that it was part of their conversation. I told her that I had read her homework and I discovered that in the item of " reflection of feeling ", she reflected many hidden feelings. I tried to understand why she did not tell them directly to her mother. She revealed that her mother would not listen to her. I showed my understanding but I still invited her to tell her feeling toward her mother. I explained that the two-way communication could help her and her mother understanding each other more.
I started to select some special items from her homework and discussed the feeling with her.
Issue one
On 29.10.99, she went to buy a cardboard and her mother told her, §don't buy the cardboard from CS Store, it is more expensive!"
Her feeling: I really want to buy it from CS Store, am I stupid?
I invited her to tell me about her feeling in this issue. She told me that she really felt that she was stupid because she bought the more expensive cardboard.
Issue two
On 30.10.99, she asked her mother to give her money to buy the art materials but her mother replied: "Your mother spend more money for feeding you than buying a house!"
Her Feeling: laughing
I invited her to tell me what her feeling was when her mother gave her such a response. She said that she had already gotten used to it. She said that her mother had to give her money, otherwise how could she buy the materials. She felt that there was no way to solve.
Issue three
On 30.10.99, she needed to go to a friend's home to do homework and her mother requested her to write down her friend's name and telephone number.
Her feeling: troublesome
I invited her to tell me why she had such feeling. She said that she felt "no face" if her mother really phoned her friend's home to check if she was around. She also felt that her mother did not trust her.
Issues four
On 1.11.99, her mother blamed her for coming home late and she explained that she needed to finish the lesson. But her mother suspected that she was lying.
Her feeling: If she really told a lie, her mother would not have known.
The client started to cry and said her mother did not trust her. I tried to give her some tissue paper and said, "You are not feeling good about your mother's mistrust." She nodded. Then, I asked, "Do you tell your mother about your time schedule which I tell you to do so regularly in the initial session?" She replied that she had not because she thought even she told her mother, it was still no use. Then, I referred to the content in her homework (appendix A) and said, "You write down many communications between you and your mother that concern your mother being unhappy with you for going out and coming home late. Do you think it is related to your stealing behavior?" She nodded because her mother did not let her play basketball and go shopping with her friends. She told me honestly that she could only use the excuse - doing homework - to go outside and play with her friends. I tried to understand which group of friends she went out with and where did they go so as to see whether she would have the possibility to break the law again. She told me that she went out with her secondary school classmates (her best girlfriends). They would go to the big game video center and go shopping. I reminded her not to quarrel with other people in the video center and did mention the topic of theft again. She promised me. Then, I told her that I would not tell her mother about these but I encouraged her to be honest with her mother. I told her that her mother worried very much that she would break the law again and that her mother was under great pressure because she thought that she did not know how to teach her daughter. In fact, she made her mother feel very disappointed because she attempted theft again and again and her mother did not know the ways to stop her from attempting theft. So perhaps she felt that one way was retain the client at home. I tried to summarize what her mother and father had done during the period of her remand. She felt very touching and showed that she understood but she still felt very sad about her mother's control. Then, I invited her to tell her mother directly about her feeling and I was willing to talk about this with her and her mother together. She agreed. Then, I talked about the content of her homework again.
Issue five
On 2.11.99, her mother asked, "Is the biscuit used for doing homework or eating!"
Her feeling: I am good at doing it (I can do my homework very well when I have biscuits).
I invited her to explain her feeling to me because the message that I got from the sentence is negative to her mother. However, she told me that she could get a lot of ideas from the food. At that moment, she was ¥using¦ the biscuit to do her homework. Then, I summarize the following issue in the homework, which was mainly about her mother¦s conversation with her about her homework. I said, "Your mother has paid attention to your work because she has asked about your homework." I tried to disclose my experience that my mother did not show concern about my homework. She smiled.
Issue six
On 4.11.99, her mother said that the design of her work design was very poor and her mother guessed that CWL could only get very low mark on this design work.
Her feeling: Copying is not design! Crazy! My teacher appreciated my creativity and gave grade B+ to me.
I asked her if her mother joked with her or not because in Chinese culture, the adults will not appreciate the children directly and they will just use jokes to tease their children's effort. For them, it is the way to show their concern. However, CWL thought that her mother was very serious and she was a bit upset by her mother's comment because she had put a lot of effort into her work. I showed her that I understood her feeling.
The rest of the homework was very similar and I tried to read it out. Then I tried to summarize all her feelings. I told her that I would arrange a home visit for her next week and I asked her about any topics that she wanted me to talk about in the home visit. She just smiled and said "no!" I told her that I tried to share about her feeling with her mother but I promised her I would not disclose her secrets to her mother. She showed that she welcomed my visit very much.
IV. Assessment
In fact, CWL was the kind of person who would not express her feeling easily. However, the observation of the last session showed that she was quite willing to talk about her feeling toward her family. In this time, I mainly talked to her about her relationship with her mother through the tool of her homework. She was sad because her mother disallowed her to go out and play with her friends. Now, she was still in the stage of seeking her self-identity. Hence, she did not like the other's sanction. She had accumulated lots of complains about her mother's control. But she was afraid of her mother so that she followed her mother's instruction. Under this condition, she felt very tortured and would cry to release her sadness.
Although CWL always showed that she did not care about her family, she did care very much about how the family members treated her. In fact, it is not easy to bridge the generation gap between the daughter and the parents. They receive totally different kinds of socialization. CWL's mother is a traditional Chinese woman and she is not well educated. Therefore, she would not express her love toward her daughters and she would not care too much about the way to communicate with her daughters. She would use her authority to teach her daughters so as to prevent them from going astray. However, in the materialistic world, there are a lot of attractive and creative activities and things outside the family. CWL would seek such kinds of new and modern activities and things to fulfill her wants. Therefore, it is a common conflict between the two generations. However, if the mother controlled more, CWL's resistance would be relatively increased. Fortunately, in CWL's case, CWL and her mother's relationship was not very bad. In fact, CWL loved her mother and her mother also loved CWL very much. If they were willing to change their communication pattern, their relationship would be better. Therefore, the coming home visit should provide more chance for CWL and her mother to understand each other more.
V. Social worker's performance
In fact, it was very useful to give homework to CWL. I could understand more about the communication pattern and thinking of her and her mother. Besides, I could work through her feelings with her one at a time and in a systemic manner.
In this session, I found that I could build up trust with CWL satisfactorily. She started to express more in-depth emotions and feelings to me in this session as compared to the initial session. It is the sign of trust in the relationship. Besides, CWL had the motivation to change her relationship with her mother. This made the social worker easier to intervene.
Written and revised by: 17499533 (Student)
Instructor: K S To
Copy Edited by: Phyllis Chee
Commented by: Phyllis Chee
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