PIVOTING THE COUCH: CREATING THERAPEUTIC SPACES DURING A GLOBAL CRISIS
Like many, when Covid-19 initially struck I packed up my school-based office and scrambled to figure out how to provide telehealth services for the first time. Despite the stress of fumbling through this I felt assured that within two weeks- a month maximum, we would all be back to our offices and our lives. Children would be back in school, parents and others back to work, life would go on. What would unfold would leave not only myself, but others awestruck in the saddest possible ways. I watched as Covid-19 took root across the United States affecting those both young and old. I watched as beloved front-line workers, many of whom were therapists also contracted the virus. Despite this, I remained hopeful that we would be able to contain the virus and return to life as we knew it. My clients, teenagers, struggled with the transition to being home and maintaining schoolwork. Quickly, not only did I become a tele-therapist, but a resource case manager. I spent all available moments looking for community resources for my clients while assuring them although things were swirling around them, therapy could remain. Within a few weeks, I was struck with the realization that tele-therapy was here to stay. My cozy office with its spacious couch and ambient lighting was gone. It was time to create that space virtually for my clients.
What appeared to be a beautiful window backdrop complete with fairy light accents that just happened to be in my home, was in reality, a hastily thrown together backdrop created on a bare wall in a corner of my home devised with decorations for a baby shower that Covid-19 prevented me from throwing for my dear friends. That curtain served as a welcoming environment for my clients who had already lost all sense of normalcy. Their loss was coupled with my own. I helplessly listened to my client’s loss and sadness while attempting to address my own. The burdens of it all were heavy and my ability to help myself and my clients often felt minimal. While I had once been able to at least provide these teens a safe physical space for an hour, now they were often at home with many siblings and problematic dynamics that were on display in full force. My heart was heavy but alas, therapy persisted. The teens and I found routines in our sessions and ways to make tele-therapy nearly as welcoming as it had been. The world continued to swirl, but for those 50 minutes things seemed a bit more normal, sometimes even more so as we all adapted to having therapist and clients virtually in our most private spaces, our homes. We had all begun to cope as much as we could with the ever-changing world and CDC guidelines. The 38 INSESSION APRIL 2021
