new job

I've been idling on the sidelines a bit at my new job - waiting for training, teams to be formed, etc. But recently I feel like I've been thrown in the deep end of the pool. It's only one family I'm really working with and the levels of dysfunction are mind-boggling. This work is so different than hospice. In hospice, your work ends when the patient dies. From the beginning you know the end. There's not such an emphasis on change. I rarely had impulses to 'help', or tell people what is best. You respect their journey... you simply witness, and that can be transformative.

In this job working with families, I witness, and I just seem to open Pandora's box...layers and layers and it just gets deeper and deeper. People look at me like I have answers, and I don't. Or if I think I do, that's a good sign I'm not being a good therapist. So I'm having trouble balancing that disposition with the situations that are just screaming out for some change. How do I witness, empower and work through these deep patterns in people's lives (which takes time by the way), when the environment most resembles a flaming cauldron of crisis?

These are my questions today. And it will balance out, and I'm glad for the questions because it means some learning is coming my way. But I had a dream about this family last night, which is a sign for me to watch my boundaries. Even more of a sign is the dream's content, which doesn't require a Freud to analyze: I was using their bathroom during a visit, and the house shook like a turbulent airplane (ever try to pee when that's happening?)... and then it got so windy that the door blew open and I'm there with my pants down feeling helpless and stupid.