Essay Grade

Dr. Ruth Moore Professional Counselor
I’m Dr. Ruth Moore. I have been in private practice for 10
years. My job responsibilities have included counseling children
and adolescents, counseling families, counseling a variety of
individuals who’ve experienced a variety of difficulties, abuse,
trauma, depression, anxiety, so pretty much worked with a
variety of clientele with emotional and behavioral difficulties.
There are so many challenges in dealing with this type of work
and this type of population.
I would say it’s sometimes feeling overly responsible for your
clients, wishing you could do more to help them. You’re
working with the judicial system that, unfortunately doesn’t
always protect the children, so you have to go home and try to
sleep at night knowing that even though you did all you could
do, it might not been enough to have an impact or to make a
difference to protect the child from the abusive environment.
I’ve had several clients that really have hit home or that really
spoken to me, I guess, in the sense of feeling their trauma, or
experiencing their trauma. One case was with two little girls,
actually sisters, they were, one was five years old and one was
three years old and they both disclosed their father had sexually
abused them. The five year old made the comment about her
father’s penis and she called it a penis and said that it stuck
straight out in the bathtub like a hotdog, and then she disclosed
that the three year old that her father made her sit on his face and
she urinated on him. And then the five year old and the three
year old were sexually acting out, The five year old was
perpetrating the three year old and the three year old
corroborated the same story as the five year old and when you
hear a five year old use that type of language and I’m a visual
learner and so when you hear someone share their experiences,
and for me you almost do a visual, you feel what they’re saying,
you hear what they’re saying and you see what they’re saying, it
really impacts you. For me, I found that to be very, very
disturbing and found myself having intrusive thoughts about that
for quite some time. We went to court over that case to try to
restrict visitation in a chancery court hearing and the judge,
when we went into the courtroom, said before he hears any
testimony I’m going to tell you that I’m giving this father
visitation with his daughters, and there was medical evidence
that there was abuse, there were disclosures of all that, and he
said because they were three and five, the court didn’t feel they
were credible enough to take this seriously, so there were no
criminal charges, and the judge said I’m not here to decide
whether he is guilty or innocent. I’m here to decide whether or
not this father gets visitation with his daughters and he said I
believe all fathers deserve visitation with their children, so I’m
giving him visitation. And the attorney visiting the mother said
will you at least hear what Dr. Moore has to say. And so he did
allow the testimony and with that we were able to, I call it
buying time, we were able to limit the amount of visitations and
was able to first start with supervised visits and transition into a
more liberal visitation policy, but he eventually got overnight
visits with the daughters and all of that. So in- with the court
system, that’s an example of sometimes where you feel the
court doesn’t protect children. It’s there to protect the rights of
the adults and it can be very, very challenging.
Another case that comes to mind, I had a four year old boy I
was working with and they found him at his home with his
brother who was 12 and the mother had been murdered. It was a
murder suicide, the mothers boyfriend murdered her and killed
himself, and the 12 year old was upstairs sleep while this
happened, and the four year old was there but they are not sure
what he saw or they weren’t really sure what happened. SO the
police were there trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together
to figure out what ha happened in this case. The father had not
been involved in the child’s life because of some difficulties
with the mother, but all of the sudden they placed this four-yearold with this father that he didn’t know. So, the father brought
the child to counseling and since the child was four years old the
police were hoping that maybe by him coming to therapy and
being in play therapy that he might be able to disclose some
things or convey what he had experienced. So in his first
session, we had all the toys in the room and he found the toy gun
and started chanting the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun,
the gun, and then he started saying the blood, the blood, the
blood, the blood, and all of his verbalizations were in chanting
but you could tell his anxiety level would increase and you
really could feel his anxiety as he was chanting this and as he
tells his story you can basically tell he’s very choppy, very
fragmented, but you basically could tell basically was that he
heard the yelling. HE came downstairs and walked into the room
and then saw the gun, the gun, the gun and then the boyfriend
shot the mother and that’s when he said the blood, the blood, the
blood, and so he ran upstairs to wake up his brother and when he
tried to shake his brother, he wouldn’t wake up. He started
saying wake up, brother, wake up, brother, brother dead, brother
dead, brother dead, brother dead, mama dead, mama dead, and
the brother then woke up and then he realized the brother was
asleep and not dead and so he came down and that’s when he
started chanting about the gun and the blood. So what we pieced
together what happened was that he had gone down and that he
was back and forth and just so anxious and not knowing what to
do, and it was a very, very powerful disclosure and when your
doing play therapy, especially with young children and they
reenact their trauma, you see it as if they are demonstrating it.
The toys are their words and so you really really feel that
experience.
I had another child that was sexually abused and she came into
the playroom and found one of those dolls that drinks and wets,
so there was opening between the legs of the doll, and she found
some of the art supplies we have, different types of craft sticks,
toothpicks and things like that and she took some of the tooth
picks and started to inserting them into the opening between the
dolls legs and she started saying hush, hush, I’ll be through in a
minute, I’ll be through in a minute, I’ll be through in a minute
hush, hush, and she just kept repeating that over and over, and
so you knew that that’s what she experienced and though she
couldn’t tell me- it’s not going to be a disclosure like what an
adult would give, but certainly can—you feel their anxiety when
you’re in the room with them.
As a counselor, I think, I’m impacted the most by hearing so
many stories and though they’re all different, there are
similarities as well. I think in some ways you become cynical
and as much as you hate to say that after you hear a variety of
them, you almost start feeling like, okay, you’ve heard it once,
you hear it again. But it still affects you because then you start to
mistrust other people—you say, gosh is there any good left in
the world, and I think that has been a challenge for me in
working with trauma, and I try to make sure I take care of
myself, because you do start feeling like there is no good left in
the world when what you are hearing one trauma story after
another, and especially when you feel that if no steps have been
taken to protect the child.
Whenever I have a client, whether it’s a child or adult survivor
of abuse—in handling my own emotions with that, I’ve learned
to try and keep that in check. I notice my stress manifests often
in somatic symptoms, like I will get headaches, backaches,
neckaches and those types of things and sometimes I have to be
aware physically what’s going on in my body, and when I feel
that I know, you’re taking on too much. Some of what I had to
do is to limit the number of cases that I know with severe abuse
cases because of the court involvement and the stressful nature
of that type of work, and so it’s limiting the number of cases that
I would take so I wouldn’t feel the emotional and physical
effects of vicarious trauma. To deal with my stress with this
population, I exercise. I found that’s a great escape for me. It
allows me to if I need to work out some aggression, it’s a great
way to do that. It’s also a way to clear my head. It’s my time at
the end of the day to decompress and that’s much needed. Also,
I try to have regular messages. I mentioned earlier the stress
tends to manifest in somatic symptoms so the regular massages
and just taking a break from all the stress is a good way for me
to get some relief from that. When I began to work in the field, I
didn’t know what vicarious trauma was. I just that my head hurt,
I just knew that I wasn’t sleeping at night, I just knew I couldn’t
look at a hotdog anymore without thinking of the five year old
disclosure about it, I thought this can’t be normal. Then the
more I became educated and the more I read and learned about
vicarious trauma, I thought, okay, I am not alone and I’m not
crazy and this makes sense to me.
Dr. Ruth Moore Professional Counselor
I’m Dr. Ruth Moore. I have been in private practice for 10
years. My job responsibilities have included counseling children
and adolescents, counseling families, counseling a variety of
individuals who’ve experienced a variety of difficulties, abuse,
trauma, depression, anxiety, so pretty much worked with a
variety of clientele with emotional and behavioral difficulties.
There are so many challenges in dealing with this type of work
and this type of population.
I would say it’s sometimes feeling overly responsible for your
clients, wishing you could do more to help them. You’re
working with the judicial system that, unfortunately doesn’t
always protect the children, so you have to go home and try to
sleep at night knowing that even though you did all you could
do, it might not been enough to have an impact or to make a
difference to protect the child from the abusive environment.
I’ve had several clients that really have hit home or that really
spoken to me, I guess, in the sense of feeling their trauma, or
experiencing their trauma. One case was with two little girls,
actually sisters, they were, one was five years old and one was
three years old and they both disclosed their father had sexually
abused them. The five year old made the comment about her
father’s penis and she called it a penis and said that it stuck
straight out in the bathtub like a hotdog, and then she disclosed
that the three year old that her father made her sit on his face and
she urinated on him. And then the five year old and the three
year old were sexually acting out, The five year old was
perpetrating the three year old and the three year old
corroborated the same story as the five year old and when you
hear a five year old use that type of language and I’m a visual
learner and so when you hear someone share their experiences,
and for me you almost do a visual, you feel what they’re saying,
you hear what they’re saying and you see what they’re saying, it
really impacts you. For me, I found that to be very, very
disturbing and found myself having intrusive thoughts about that
for quite some time. We went to court over that case to try to
restrict visitation in a chancery court hearing and the judge,
when we went into the courtroom, said before he hears any
testimony I’m going to tell you that I’m giving this father
visitation with his daughters, and there was medical evidence
that there was abuse, there were disclosures of all that, and he
said because they were three and five, the court didn’t feel they
were credible enough to take this seriously, so there were no
criminal charges, and the judge said I’m not here to decide
whether he is guilty or innocent. I’m here to decide whether or
not this father gets visitation with his daughters and he said I
believe all fathers deserve visitation with their children, so I’m
giving him visitation. And the attorney visiting the mother said
will you at least hear what Dr. Moore has to say. And so he did
allow the testimony and with that we were able to, I call it
buying time, we were able to limit the amount of visitations and
was able to first start with supervised visits and transition into a
more liberal visitation policy, but he eventually got overnight
visits with the daughters and all of that. So in- with the court
system, that’s an example of sometimes where you feel the
court doesn’t protect children. It’s there to protect the rights of
the adults and it can be very, very challenging.
Another case that comes to mind, I had a four year old boy I
was working with and they found him at his home with his
brother who was 12 and the mother had been murdered. It was a
murder suicide, the mothers boyfriend murdered her and killed
himself, and the 12 year old was upstairs sleep while this
happened, and the four year old was there but they are not sure
what he saw or they weren’t really sure what happened. SO the
police were there trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together
to figure out what ha happened in this case. The father had not
been involved in the child’s life because of some difficulties
with the mother, but all of the sudden they placed this four-yearold with this father that he didn’t know. So, the father brought
the child to counseling and since the child was four years old the
police were hoping that maybe by him coming to therapy and
being in play therapy that he might be able to disclose some
things or convey what he had experienced. So in his first
session, we had all the toys in the room and he found the toy gun
and started chanting the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun, the gun,
the gun, and then he started saying the blood, the blood, the
blood, the blood, and all of his verbalizations were in chanting
but you could tell his anxiety level would increase and you
really could feel his anxiety as he was chanting this and as he
tells his story you can basically tell he’s very choppy, very
fragmented, but you basically could tell basically was that he
heard the yelling. HE came downstairs and walked into the room
and then saw the gun, the gun, the gun and then the boyfriend
shot the mother and that’s when he said the blood, the blood, the
blood, and so he ran upstairs to wake up his brother and when he
tried to shake his brother, he wouldn’t wake up. He started
saying wake up, brother, wake up, brother, brother dead, brother
dead, brother dead, brother dead, mama dead, mama dead, and
the brother then woke up and then he realized the brother was
asleep and not dead and so he came down and that’s when he
started chanting about the gun and the blood. So what we pieced
together what happened was that he had gone down and that he
was back and forth and just so anxious and not knowing what to
do, and it was a very, very powerful disclosure and when your
doing play therapy, especially with young children and they
reenact their trauma, you see it as if they are demonstrating it.
The toys are their words and so you really really feel that
experience.
I had another child that was sexually abused and she came into
the playroom and found one of those dolls that drinks and wets,
so there was opening between the legs of the doll, and she found
some of the art supplies we have, different types of craft sticks,
toothpicks and things like that and she took some of the tooth
picks and started to inserting them into the opening between the
dolls legs and she started saying hush, hush, I’ll be through in a
minute, I’ll be through in a minute, I’ll be through in a minute
hush, hush, and she just kept repeating that over and over, and
so you knew that that’s what she experienced and though she
couldn’t tell me- it’s not going to be a disclosure like what an
adult would give, but certainly can—you feel their anxiety when
you’re in the room with them.
As a counselor, I think, I’m impacted the most by hearing so
many stories and though they’re all different, there are
similarities as well. I think in some ways you become cynical
and as much as you hate to say that after you hear a variety of
them, you almost start feeling like, okay, you’ve heard it once,
you hear it again. But it still affects you because then you start to
mistrust other people—you say, gosh is there any good left in
the world, and I think that has been a challenge for me in
working with trauma, and I try to make sure I take care of
myself, because you do start feeling like there is no good left in
the world when what you are hearing one trauma story after
another, and especially when you feel that if no steps have been
taken to protect the child.
Whenever I have a client, whether it’s a child or adult survivor
of abuse—in handling my own emotions with that, I’ve learned
to try and keep that in check. I notice my stress manifests often
in somatic symptoms, like I will get headaches, backaches,
neckaches and those types of things and sometimes I have to be
aware physically what’s going on in my body, and when I feel
that I know, you’re taking on too much. Some of what I had to
do is to limit the number of cases that I know with severe abuse
cases because of the court involvement and the stressful nature
of that type of work, and so it’s limiting the number of cases that
I would take so I wouldn’t feel the emotional and physical
effects of vicarious trauma. To deal with my stress with this
population, I exercise. I found that’s a great escape for me. It
allows me to if I need to work out some aggression, it’s a great
way to do that. It’s also a way to clear my head. It’s my time at
the end of the day to decompress and that’s much needed. Also,
I try to have regular messages. I mentioned earlier the stress
tends to manifest in somatic symptoms so the regular massages
and just taking a break from all the stress is a good way for me
to get some relief from that. When I began to work in the field, I
didn’t know what vicarious trauma was. I just that my head hurt,
I just knew that I wasn’t sleeping at night, I just knew I couldn’t
look at a hotdog anymore without thinking of the five year old
disclosure about it, I thought this can’t be normal. Then the
more I became educated and the more I read and learned about
vicarious trauma, I thought, okay, I am not alone and I’m not
crazy and this makes sense to me.

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