Capstone: Day 8

        This is a continuation of day 7. On the second hour that I met with my mentor that day, I sat through another evaluation. This patient was there with the help of workers' compensation. He had been injured on the job a couple years ago, and up until today, he is still living with the issue. He injured his left arm and feels pain in the majority of his torso 24/7. Because of it, he can no longer work. He can't even do things he used to enjoy doing, such as camping and hiking. The patient was very open, which I didn't expect because he didn't look like the type of guy who liked to talk about his emotions. Towards the end, he started talking about how it was nice to actually talk to someone and have someone actually listen. He felt like my mentor actually cared, rather than being like the doctors who to him say, "Here's the medicine, see you next week". This really made me see why therapists and psychologists are important to have. They are there for people to talk to when they need someone to listen to them. They keep people from doing things that they shouldn't do. After he left, my mentor asked me to give my impressions on the patient as if I was the psychologist. The point of it was to see how my own personal thinking and my analyzations work.