Meeting-The-Challenge-Making-a-Difference-Practitioner-Guide

Learning points from Chapter 7
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Some people do not like working with people with personality
disorders, and may not be suited to this work. There are staff
members who feel more comfortable working with service users
who are more obviously ‘ill’.
There are also many of us who like working with people with
personality disorders, who we can see are similar to ourselves,
except that people with personality problems
have got particularly caught up in unhelpful patterns of
thinking, feeling and behaving, often in response to trauma
or difficulties in childhood.
Whatever the primary task of your organisation, and your
role and responsibilities, it is likely that it is how you relate to
people using your service, which will have a big impact on
whether they benefit.
Being open to observing, engaging with, and thinking about
the people you work with, will at times leave you exposed to
feeling troubled, upset, anxious, confused, and frustrated.
To do this work, we need the support of teams, and clarity
about what we are doing and how we are going to do it.
Space to think, reflect, discuss, and get ideas and support,
are essential to being able to do this work well, and being
able to maintain wellbeing at work.
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