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Considering my profession (psychotherapy) and the places I've worked, such as psychiatric hospitals, inner city drug treatment programs and rural mental health clinics, I sometimes think I've seen it all. Whenever that cocky notion saunters brashly into my brain, I'm usually being set up to learn otherwise. Earlier in my career, this was my state of mind when I was training a new psychiatric technician to work in the locked security unit of an inpatient hospital where I toiled.
This newcomer, Jim, was green, idealistic and poor. His BA in history hadn't landed many offers of employment, and being a humanistic type, he decided to earn some survival cash while helping those allegedly less in sync with reality than himself.
Fortunately for him, our psych hospital was short on techs (glorified orderlies) and badly needed a warm body in the security unit, a quasi-jail for patients who demonstrated their mental imbalance by menacing and sometimes attacking people around them. By the way, the vast majority of folks with a mental illness are not violent. In fact, they’re more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.
Managing Violence
When Jim showed up for duty, the only patient in security was a young goon with a lineman’s physique who toxified his brain with street drugs and, after his admission, sent two techs and a nurse to the emergency room for injuries he inflicted. This nasty hombre went by the name of Chuck.
I gave Jim a short course on managing a violent patient. After I laid out each safety tactic, Jim would peer at me innocently and ask, "And what if that doesn't work?"
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"Just pray it does," I'd grin meekly.
The security unit was around the size of a three-car garage and about as comfortable. A nurses’ station, enclosed in unbreakable plexiglass, occupied one quadrant, a small bathroom the other, while a patient "lounge" and a few stark rooms with mattresses on the floor and padded walls finished the appealing decor.
When Jim was ushered into the security nurses’ station, Chuck was prowling just outside the plexiglass, his wrists bound in leather restraints and his body clothed in crumpled scrubs.
"Gosh, he looks like something out of The Body Snatchers," Jim exclaimed to the on-duty nurse.
He kind of is," she mumbled back.
Bonkers or not, Chuck was no dummy. After the nurse left for a short meeting, he sized up Jim with a few menacing stares and then shuffled into the bathroom, out of sight.
Breaking News
After 10 minutes without any sign of Chuck, Jim got nervous and, breaking the rules, left the polymer cocoon of the nurses’ station to check things out. Unbeknownst to him, Chuck had spent those unobserved minutes chewing through his leather restraints and was poised in the bathroom doorway, ready to kick the hell out of anyone nearby.
Abruptly, Jim was facing someone who looked like a cross between Rasputin and Dick Butkus. All the practical, useless advice I'd given him about handling violent people faded away in a terrifying instant, and he was left to his own untested wits to save his behind.
"So, what did you do?" I asked Jim later when he told me his story, first swearing me to secrecy.
"Well, I did the first thing that came to mind. I dropped my pants."
You dropped your pants?" I replied, certain I must have suffered a blackout and missed the middle of our conversation.
"Yes. I just dropped them down around my ankles."
"And what did Chuck do?" I asked.
"Nothing. He was so surprised that he just stood there, staring. So, I quick waddled back to the nurse's station before he figured out what was coming down, no pun intended."
Only a beginner could have conjured such a wildly creative solution. A veteran like yours truly would have employed some glib sleight of mind strategy, and then gotten his head caved in.
I'm still waiting for an opportunity when I can employ Jim's unique approach to conflict management. Meanwhile, I told him I was adding a new piece of advice for onboarding trainees.
When all else fails, drop your pants.
For more, visit philipchard.com.
