When a high school student was experiencing anxiety, depression, and trauma symptoms in January of 2023, Adult & Child’s School Based Services and Lola Mahner, LSW, were there to provide support. Lola quickly learned that despite the past trauma, current trauma was still ongoing. This client and their family were facing possible homelessness, along with a lack of access to healthcare and food.
Considering all of these experiences, Lola’s first goal was to help the client regain a baseline and control over their emotions. This involved psychoeducation, providing their family with weekly case management and family sessions (which led to stable housing, healthcare, and food access), targeting peer and social functioning, and utilizing components of CBT and DBT to target thought monitoring and emotional control. This required the client to test their limits, to learn new coping skills and communication strategies, and to develop a different outlook on life.
“This was no easy task and resulted in the client leaving the office due to intense emotions more than once, and them wanting to quit therapy on several occasions,” explained Lola. “I never gave up on them. Eventually, I was able to help the client learn that it is okay to have bad days, but these bad days did not define them. Through our therapeutic relationship, they learned how to cope, to communicate, to have more control over their thoughts and emotions, and this hard work paid off.”
This client was nominated by their school for the “Comeback Kid” Award, given each year to a student who faced adversities and hardships that impacted their school functioning and abilities, and who demonstrated resilience in overcoming these obstacles by remaining successful in their academic career. Lola had the honor of being one of three individuals present at the award ceremony to support her client.
“The smile on their face when they saw me there to support them is something I will never forget. When they gave their acceptance speech after receiving their award, my client introduced me proudly and stated, ‘My therapist is here for me today, and I just want to thank her for all the things she has helped me with over the past year. There were a lot of things I didn’t think I would make it through, and I did it with her help.’ This recognition is rarely something that mental health providers receive, and it will be a moment that I will remember forever,” said Lola.
“This moment encompassed all the hard work that we did together. The validation and recognition that my client and I felt that day reminded me of my purpose in this job and was certainly a mission moment for both of us.”
