Reflective Essay On Pain Management

The past two weeks at Livengrin the topics of pain management and mindfulness have been the main focus in group with patients. The intentions of these lessons are to give the patients healthy coping skills to deal with their stressors instead of relying on drugs and alcohol to cope. The patients were exposed to meditation exercises and ways to self-regulate their frustrations in life. We also explored when it is appropriate for a recovering drug addict to take pain medications to regulate their pain. Pain medications are only to be used if prescribed by a doctor after a surgical procedure or traumatic injury and for a short amount of time. It was advised that the prescriptions be held and given out by someone the person in recovery trusted. …show more content…
I am not able to officially write up progress notes, but my supervisor has me writing practice ones after group sessions to kind of get a feel for the structure of these notes. Progress notes consist of what the patient took part in during group, their physical and mental state and anything that may have stood out about what they said that particular session, as well as goals and expectations they are expected to complete before their next time meeting with the counselor. A progress note must be written every time the counselor sees or speaks to a patient over the phone. My supervisor told me the easy work is facilitating group and doing evaluations, the real time consuming work is all the follow up and paper work that has to be written after these interactions. All of this information is stored on a secure program called Sigmund, which only the counselors have access to. It is amazing to me how much information you can learn about someone by reading through their assessment and their progress notes, while it may just be a small glimpse into their lives it shows the progression they are making to