The Writing Group

Speech-Language Pathology is a vast field. Areas of expertise span from the neonatal unit to geriatric care and include swallowing, communication, and literacy. Before opening WordsWorth SLP, I worked with adults with cognitive-linguistic challenges after acquired brain injury. I primarily worked with individuals who had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) or stroke victims. Typically, I provided my clients with strategies to support them in coping with deficits in language, memory, attention, and executive function. Insurance companies dictate the duration of therapy and clients were frequently cut off from services before they had fully generalized these vital coping strategies to all aspects of their lives consistently and effectively. All too often they expressed feeling isolated from and misunderstood by those who knew them before their injury. Adjustment to a new and altered self takes years, but years of therapy were never an option.

Five years ago, I began a support group, with a focus on journaling and adjustment, for a group of former clients who fell into this complex and challenging space. These clients came from a range of ages, professions, and backgrounds. There was an artist, a business executive, two scientists, a bus driver, and a manager of assisted living facilities. It sounds like a cast of a bad joke. Before their brain injuries, I can't imagine these people ever intersecting, much less imagine that they would become a family of sorts. For five years we have met up every two weeks. I have had the comfort of being present to help them maintain the gains cognitive therapy wrought by reminding them of the strategies that worked and the importance of maintaining reliance on these over time. 

I have witnessed how effective guidance and modeling from their peers have been. Learning is most effective when it is gained from others who contend with similar deficits. Each of them faces challenges with processing speed, attention, working memory, language comprehension, word-finding, and the beast of cognitive fatigue. The empathy they share is unique and quite unlike the well-meaning kindness of those who haven’t endured a brain injury. 

Therapists struggle to avoid burnout in the TBI world.  Individuals with brain injuries grieve losing who they were before a brain injury and often also loose treasured relationships. At times working as a cognitive therapist, you are left feeling like the last strand of support for those who end up homeless and desperate. The unique privilege of this group is to see those very clients find new goals, new people, hope, and adjustment. 

The small band of survivors I have had the privilege to serve for these past years, inevitably face renewed challenges and slides. The support group usually catches them when they fall, guides them when they are lost, and applauds them when they overcome. While they constantly express their gratitude for my involvement in perpetuating this free unending group therapy, I know that I have gained as much hope and encouragement as a therapist as they have as survivors.