Maureen Werrbach

When she walked in she was timid, tearful. Beverly (not her real name) sat down, fumbled with her purse and spoke, her voice quivering with sadness. She began by explaining why she had decided to see me. “You see, I’m sixty-two and I’ve never seen a therapist. I don’t know how this works. I’ve been married for 20 years, and, well, I found out yesterday that my husband is having an emotional affair.”

When I started blogging for the ACA I was working in a hospital providing assessments for children, adolescents, and adults suffering with an array of symptoms and disorders. My primary objective was to provide a level of care assessment based on symptoms, presenting issues, and information that the family provided. Based on this assessment, I’d give a referral for treatment. There was a lot of paperwork. Petitions. Pages of notes. Calling the on-call psychiatrist. Calling other hospitals for beds. Talking with the ER doctor. Talking with the ER nursing staff. No counseling.

My dad is actively involved in a non profit organization that helps the severely wounded service menbers receive financial assistance and care packages. He has taken rides with fellow supporters to many VA hospitals around the US to visit those who have been wounded and their families. With much dedication, he has helped many upon many service menbers who have returned from war receive prosthetics, financial aid, housing built to be accessible based on their injuries, and so much more. I witness how difficult it is for returning military members to receive assistance, whether it be financial, medical, or mental health. His dedication to helping out this population has always had me wanting to give back in the way that I can, counseling.

The information that I am giving about completing a petition is Illinois clinicians only. Each state is different in their processes for petitioning a person. Below is the Illinois petition for involuntary or judicial admission. I am frequently asked for help in completing a petition for involuntary admission by other counselors who don’t work in a hospital setting and don’t have to write them often, as well as by those who transport patients, such as EMTs or police officers. So often, our hospital receives petitions that are not properly completed, either boxes are not checked or details about the person’s need for involuntary admission is vague. Either way, this poses as a problem, as the petition is a legal document.

Before I started working at the hospital, I had no experience with using no-harm safety contracts, nor did I have much of an opinion on their usefulness. I remember vaguely learning in grad school about them, something about using them to cover ourselves if things go bad. Not much was mentioned about their reliability, when and how to use them and the different types of safety contracts, i.e. for non-suicidal self injurers and well as those with passive suicidal thoughts.