My Group-

My Group consists of 6 women-as I had mentioned earlier I chose 6 women out of 40+. These women are either mentally retarded, have epilepsy or are just in old age. We meet for about 1-2 hours daily. These women have made such progress within our first week of group therapy- it’s unbelievable. All day long, all they do is sit outside in the sun; they have no activity which gives them some brain stimulation. A lot of the times if you walk by the ward you will see these women either yelling at each other, or just sleeping in the sun with flies all around.
Gulshan Ji and I have decided to take a few women and experiment different activities on them-to see what progress they are making. Then after that has been completed we will be taking a 3 of the 6 into the Sensory room. The Sensory room is a place where the walls and floors are padded- lights turned off, music is turned on, and different types of lights are projected onto the floors and walls. This is a room for the therapist to observe the patient interact with the lights and sounds. This room as created by another volunteer, such as myself for the children. The second Sensory room is a brightly lit room with many colors- it is also padded wall to floor- with toys and objects which help the patient work with touch, smell, feel, sound etc.. Gulshan Ji and I would like to see how this type of brain stimulus will help our patients from the Psychiatric ward.
Our Group consists of us talking about different topics- we talk about how to cook food, the prep of that food, we do Simran –(Chanting of gods name) which is absol amazing- because they know so many religious songs, and sing very well. We also sing songs, which is very sweet because they know songs from the early 70’s or 80’s and have no idea about songs from any later time. We also talk about a scene- and draw it. For example- I will ask them what is outside a House- and as they talk and start to yell out different items I start to draw it on a piece of paper – they will yell out: House, Windows, Trees, Plants, Flowers, Cycle, Grass, Water Pump, Car, Birds, Garden etc.. And at the end of this activity I will pass around this sheet which I have drawn all these items on and they will identify them. We have drawn many scenes, such as: The Ocean, School Grounds, House, and Kitchen. One of the activities which they really enjoyed was when we drew the Ocean- because we also drew a boat- then we took some news paper and we folded it into a boat- It was great how some of them were able to keep up with the activity and some were not- the ones that were able to keep up with the activity were helping the ones who could not make the boat.
3 of my Group members talk a lot and 3 of them do not- Many times I have to tell Kancham, Tari and Satnam ji to talk less, and I have to yell at Lukhbir, Farida and Shanti to talk more. It’s amazing how their speech has imporved and clarity. I always tell them that I am Hard of hearing and that they need to speak loud in order for me to hear them- Then they start to speak louder- They were given the task to talk amonst themselves and talk about different types of foods they like and how to prepare those dishes. It was amazing how they forgot for a while that I was even there- they were so involved. They talked forever about food and preps of those foods and then asked each other advice and even gave advice. It was fun to watch them interact and become friends.
This week we plan to start some arts and crafts with them, hopefully some clay therapy, drawings, and string therapy. I have many plans- lets see if they are able to fall into place-