End of Week 3...

I am now at the end of my third week here in Umeå...

I've had another busy, but brilliant week. On placement this week I began my first appointments with my own patients. It was great to finally get started on this and book future appointments. This is the first time, in a community setting I have had the opportunity to build my own therapeutic relationships which is something I'm really looking forward to. My own patients are happy to communicate with me in English, some of my mentor's patients aren't so confident in this. However, I have also found this to be very valuable: as I am unable to understand their verbal communication, and them mine, I have appreciated this to be a truly unique opportunity in which to build upon my non-verbal communication skills. Not only am I able to authentically assess the service-user's non verbal communication, but I too am able to assess my own non-verbal communication and how this reflects my attitude, skills and practice to the service-user. I have to constantly mindful of my own non-verbal communication to ensure I am reflecting myself well as a mental health practitioner.

I also spent a morning this week on the in-patient ward. As this is where the majority of my experience has been in Scotland, this was a fantastic opportunity to compare practice between the two country's. I only got a snapshot at some of the work done here, but as the weeks continue I will be spending more time on this unit. 

I also had my first visitor from home this week - my lecturer, Lesley. It was really good to see a familiar face and spend time with her on practice. Picture to follow!

Yesterday, Helena took me with her and her friends to a summer party BBQ. Here I met a lot more Swedish people. Helena's friend gave me a tour of her house, which was very unique and typically "Swedish". Out in the middle of no where with plenty of land and loads of space. The homes here are generally a lot bigger than at home, and more open planned. Having green space around your home seems to be important to the Swede's and seems like such a brilliant way to live. Being so close to the city yet feeling a million miles away. After the BBQ, they started several party games. I didn't get involved in this as there were so many people there, but it was great to watch and see how family and friends gatherings here are done. Generally speaking it was different from what I'm used to in Glasgow! I will attach a video of one of the games where balls are placed on the grass, and players must cover there faces with just a small hole to look through and be the first to find the balls. 

After this, we went back to another friend of Helena's and drank some wine and enjoyed good conversation. Here we discussed more about the societal differences between Sweden and Scotland and this proved to be really interesting for me! Just small differences, but that would make a difference to our daily lives. 

I have always admired Scandinavia's social and political policy for example higher taxes, fairer society generally by way of education and welfare. While I still believe this to be true, I have learned that social interaction and way of life here is different from what I am used. Last night's conversations reinforced my life-long love for Scotland, and in particular Glasgow as a friendly, inclusive city where often you can truly be yourself, celebrate your success with people and drown your sorrows with them also. I appreciate even more now how friendly a city Glasgow is. 

Anyway, I can feel myself rambling a bit here and don't want to bore my loyal readers! 

Start of another working week tomorrow and the arrival of my second visitor which I am very excited for!

Julie :)