Stumbling in graduate school, please HELP

Unless I have the right diagnosis, the program isn’t required to accommodate me, although, depending on the instructor, it couldn’t hurt to ask. The faculty also does NOT want to know what the actual diagnosis is to avoid it affecting how they view or treat me. I tried telling my supervisor what I thought would work for me in terms of supervision and was basically told that she’d been a supervisor for 9 years and that if tradition supervision doesn’t work for me then counseling isn’t the profession for me and spent more than half of 2 supervision sessions trying to convince me to quit the program.

Hi Katie,
Perhaps you could explain the symptoms/issues that you have identified?
Also names of the tests used in the evaluation?

Hi Katie and welcome to the forum,

Perhaps I might turn your question around, into asking if their is a Professional Counselor, who can help you to understand and deal with the challenges that you have?
Unfortunately, I would have to advise you, that their are no Councelors who have a real understanding of the complex variations of NLD?
All that they might know of, is the standard definition.

What is needed, are some Councelors who can look outside of the ‘standard definition’ of NLD, and recognize that it is in fact made up of a complex range of variations.
Rather than a ‘one size fits all’ model.
But currently such Councelors don’t exist, as research continues to develop a comprehensive understanding of NLD.
Yet only about eight hundred million people have different types of NLD difficulties.

Katie, what I am rather thinking about?
Is the idea of you becoming a Councelor in the area of NLD?
Who understands it from the position of a lived experience?

I would love that, but I have to make it through this program first and then I can specialize in whatever I want. I see a psychologist at the program faculty’s suggestion and when I mentioned it to him he said it “isn’t real because it’s not in the DSM” but if it ever “becomes real, you probably have it” And even the neuropsych who evaluated me, in the face of all the evidence I provided, diagnosed me with something else which, while possible, does not explain all of my symptoms. So, I’m well aware that no one in the profession understands it. There is also no one with NLD that has made it into the counseling profession because of the problems that I am experiencing. I can’t have accommodations specifically for this since my diagnosis is something else, but that would’ve kept me from getting fired from a site which is what ultimately led to me having to withdraw. The director of the counseling center said “It’s only 2 or 3 things” but the fact that I got fired is really what made them decide to remove me from the center for the semester. I know what the issues are, what I don’t know is how to fix them and the traditional supervision I’m being provided is just not working for me.

I’m really wondering what symptoms of NLD, that you think fit you much better?
Where you also said that you know what the issues are.

So perhaps you could talk a bit about this?

My symptoms include the following:

1. Sensory sensitivity which I’ve more or less learned to live with

2. Severe visuospatial difficulties(my columns in math were always crooked, I can’t find my way around even familiar places to save my life)

3. Clumsiness (tripping over nothing, walking into door frames etc.) I’d consider it mild. As you can imagine, gym class was a complete NIGHTMARE growing up and I’m horrible at math.

4. Everyone complains that my handwriting is illegible although somehow teachers and professors have managed to grade essays on my tests.

5. The reason I kept failing classes: My “verbal and nonverbal behaviors don’t match.” This is what the professor who identified it said, but it was caused, I suspect, by being born prematurely and it wasn’t identified until I was 25 and only because my practice counseling sessions were recorded and scrutinized. So, I would consider it mild, they consider it potentially career-ending. They’ve accused me of lacking empathy (major required therapeutic skill) which I DO NOT, but it doesn’t show on my face and no one knows how to tell me to fix it. I feel empathy and can interpret most nonverbal communication in others (and if I can’t, I just ask which a counselor is expected to do anyway so it’s not “weird”)

6. Some mild social difficulties: It’s hard for me to make friends, but once I am familiar and comfortable with someone there are no problems.

7. I rarely misinterpret sarcasm as someone being serious, but most of the time I understand jokes just fine.

8. I think concretely and prefer concrete, practical feedback to the traditional “What else could you have done in this situation?” If they would just tell me what to do instead, life would be MUCH easier, but that’s not how supervision works.

9. Apparently, I don’t always come across to others as I intend to.

10. They’ve accused me of being “unwilling and not receptive to feedback” which, if I am, it’s only because I can’t use it the way they’re giving it to me. It’s also included them threatening to throw me out of the profession and “Are you even capable of carrying on a normal conversation?”

I was “fired” from a site for not being able to find snacks in an unfamiliar building and for my handwriting being illegible. They also said that I seemed “irritated and annoyed” which I WAS NOT. Nothing was said about it to my face and after 2 nights, I was fired by voicemail. If they had only brought it to my attention, I would still have my placement there. The director of my college counseling center said “it’s only 2-3 things, but it was the fact that I was fired that caused them to remove me from the campus counseling center for the semester out of “concern about the quality of care” that I was providing and the level of my skills was poor enough that my supervisor was going to fail me anyway.

Hi Katie,
You wrote that you have ‘severe visuospatial difficulties’.
But in fact, it is actually Spatial difficulties.

Where you said that ‘can’t find your way around even familiar places to save your life’.
This spatial difficulty is termed as ‘Developmental Topographical Disorder’, which I’m involved in a research project into.
In relation to this, perhaps you heard on the recent news, the awarding of a Nobel Prize, to a scientist who identified how we concieve of the ‘places around us’?
Where Spatial thinking uses Place Cells and Grid Cells in the mid-brain. To represent ‘places around us’.
Which is also how we concieve of ‘columns’.

Yet Numbers are also something that we concieve of with Spatial thinking.
Where we use Spatial thinking to concieve of different sized quantities. Then associate the words and symbols for numbers, with these different quantities.

With ‘clumsiness’?
With Spatial thinking, we use the Place Cells and Grid Cells mentioned above?
To form an Internal Spatial representation of our body and limbs and fingers.
As well as an External representation of space around us.
Combining these, we concieve of how far our arm is from the door frame.
Then with hand-writing and fine motor skills?
The brain uses Spatial thinking to locate all of our fingers, and control the muscles.
Where every muscle has a ‘Spatial Receptor’ at each end.
Which is how your brain knows where each of your fingers, and their position in relation to each other.

Then in regard to ‘Empathy’?
When we observe ‘facial expressions’?
How the brain processes facial expressions?
Is using the spatial connection to muscles in our face?
It imagines and imitates the facial expression that we are observing. In what is called a ‘mirror process’.
So that we actually experience the facial expression that we are observing.

Though with Spatial difficulties, this mirror process might not automatically occur?
But in relation to their statement that you ‘seemed irritated and annoyed’?
Also their accusation of your lacking empathy, which you say is because it doesn’t show on your face?
Where you feel the empathy, but your facial muscles don’t automatically respond with the relevant facial expression?

Katie, about one in ten people share your Spatial difficulties.
Where they also share your difficulties with a ‘diagnosis’?
As their currently aren’t comprehensive tests of Spatial difficulties?
So that it can’t be effectively diagnosed.
Where it just vaguely evaluated as a part of some tests.
Which the Evaluators don’t really know how to interpret?

Though I’ve been involved in study and research into Spatial difficulties for about eleven years.
Where these hundreds of millions of people with Spatial difficulties, don’t have access to Councelor to help them to interpret their tests and understand their ‘difficulties’?
But when people with Spatial difficulties are advised to quit studies to become a Councelor?
Their can be no Councelors that have a real understanding of what people with Spatial difficulties actually experience?
Which is really a contradiction of the role of Councelors?

But I recognize how important being able to find snacks in a building are, as a councelor?
In an age where everything is typed on a keyboard.
Where nothing is written by hand anymore?
This is really irrelevant.

I know, I’ve said that the reasons I got fired had NOTHING to do with my counseling skills, but that didn’t keep them from believing that it did. Any ideas how to fix at least the facial expressions? No one can tell me. I’ve asked for concrete, practical feedback in writing which they have pretty much flat out refused to provide me (and without a proper diagnosis and accommodations, I’m not entitled to it). I have the ability to demonstrate the skills, I have proven that to them under certain conditions. If I could only figure out how to recreate those or “trick” my brain into working that way all the time, I’d be perfectly fine. People who know me or those who observe me under “normal” circumstances (ie outside of the counseling room, in my normal life) see no such problems with my facial expressions and I am much better able to demonstrate counseling skills in everyday life than I am when I actually sit down across from someone and am expected to do them flawlessly or risk failure (hence I thought it was anxiety related). You say you’ve studied this, do you know what I can do to fix it? I haven’t heard any more about dismissal from my program yet, but it could come within the next week.

Hi Katie,
Facial expression is a part of Non-Verbal expression.
Which also includes what is termed as ‘Body Language’.
So that I would ask about how you are with both reading and expressing Body Language?

Though a method that I have been trialing for some time?
Basically uses Photos and a Mirror?
To explore facial expression and body language.
Which involves looking at photos of different facial expressions, and then imitating them.
But a key part of this, is to not simply imitate them?
But to explore how the different facial expressions feel?
Which starts with basic expressions, such as Happy, Angry, Sad.
So that after looking at the photo of an expression and imitating and trying to ‘feel’ it?
It also involves looking across to the mirror, and seeing the expression on our face.
So that you develop a connection between how a facial expression both feels and looks like on your face.
Which is also connected to the face in the photo.

Where the crucial thing, is to explore how different facial expressions ‘feel’.
As well as how different ‘body language’ positions feel.

Though perhaps I might come back to the NLD ?
Non-Verbal Learning Disorder.
Where these difficulties with facial expression and body language. Are Non-Verbal communication difficulties.
Where this is factor with Autism and the Autistic Spectrum.
But how NLD has developed?
Is that their are a whole group of people with Non-Verbal Communication difficulties, who aren’t Autistic or on the Autistic Spectrum?
Where the difficulty is a result of Spatial processing and motor difficulties.
Which isn’t currently recognized in DSM-V.
So that millions of people with this difficulty, have adopted the term NLD.
While they wait for recognition in DSM.

I can read body language and facial expressions accurately in others, I’d say about 99% of the time and nothing was mentioned to me about mine looking different until I got into the program where it’s been scrutinized. I was then accused of looking “flat”, as for the abstract meaning of this term, I understand it, but I don’t know how not to look that way, as this seems to be neurological. My body language alone doesn’t seem to be a problem, it’s just the facial expressions. There have recently been a concern that I don’t pick up on the nonverbal communication of others, but I think it’s more that I just don’t know how to respond to it as a counselor since my skills are still poor.

For example: If a client becomes emotional in a session and I don’t respond right away, the supervisor may assume that it’s because I’ve missed the nonverbal communication of the client when in reality, I know exactly what’s happening with them, but because I’m under pressure to respond a certain way, I don’t do so immediately, or I’m simply giving the person space to feel the emotion before poking at it because they’re in a vulnerable place.

When I did a remediation plan where I role played with my advisor, he became emotional at one point and said that once I responded, I did so very well, but that I waited too long to do so. Neither of us were expecting it and I was, and still am, anxious about my skill level and I wanted to make sure I handled it appropriately.

Katie, that is an important distinction, that you can read body language and facial expressions.
Where with NLD, often people can’t read these.

But our own facial expressions, rather occur as an automatic motor reflex.
With different ‘motor reflexes’, linked to different emotions.
Where I would suggest that you do feel these different emotions? That you have empathy.
But the problem is that they don’t trigger their associated motor reflex, on your face?

Though something that I been trialing with people with NLD?
After reviewing research studies into this.
Basically uses photos of people expressing different facial expressions, for different ‘emotions’.
Where they look at photo, and then imitate the facial expression.
But also think and feel the emotion linked to the expression?
Also they have a mirror alongside.
Which they look across to, and look at.
As they form the facial expression themselves.
So that it develops a link between the facial expression in the photo, and how it looks and feels on their own face.

Where I would note that a key part of expressing empathy with facial expressions?
Is to ‘mirror’ their facial expression.
So for example, seeing the ‘sadness on their face’?
We imitate this sadness on our face.
Which immediately communicates to them, that we understand and feel their sadness.

Though I did a search for some free photos to use?
Where I found a set of 21 photos, of different facial expressions.
So that with Sadness for example?
It explores different facial expressions, for different ‘types’ of Sadness?
Sadly: Surprised, Angry, Fearful, Disgusted, and just Sad.

Where these differences are important.

But these 21 different facial expression and feelings?
Could be looked at in terms of learning a ‘sign language’, that uses the face rather than the hands.
Less than learning to sign the 26 letters of the alphabet.
But the signs are linked to feelings, rather than sounds.

Though as I’m involved in study and research into this?
I wonder if you would be interested in working together on this?
Where given your possible dismissal?
I am thinking about developing an appeal?

Which outlines how you have come to recognize and understand your ‘issue’.
As well as outlines your plan to address the ‘issue’.

But perhaps you might also be interested in participating in some related research?

Where the difficulties you have, is shared by some tens if not hundreds of millions of people.
Who equally live without understanding by others.

Where I am rather thinking of the potential you have, to open up a whole new area of professional councelling.

If they do try to dismiss me, which I think I may be safe from since she said I would know by Tuesday and they aren’t going to do anything until after the weekend, I will be appealing it as I have a right to.

I’m also considering possible legal action due to the way they have reacted to me and the fact that they just tried to convince me to quit instead of telling me HOW to fix the problem. I’ve also found evidence that the required supervision I received did not follow the standards of other professionals.

Maybe they don’t know how to help me, but defaulting to blame, threats, and character assassination is not the alternative.

The professor who identified this, when I asked, said “About 70% of the time, you’re a little bit off” he said he didn’t know what to do to help me, but that “If you manage to graduate, nobody’s going to hire you like this.”
[Modified by: Katiebug06 on October 26, 2014 01:20 PM]

They dismissed me, I can appeal it, but now on top of the other things, they’re claiming I violated the ethics code.