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3 Dozen Seminarians All In One Room


CatherineM

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And I was the teacher. Don't worry, they all survived. Lectured for 3 hours on how to pastorally deal with the mentally ill. At one point I played a CD that mimics what the voices sound like for schizophrenics. They have to try to read a paragraph and answer some reading comprehension questions while it is going on. It was a 5th grade level test. Few were able to do it. The Dean was sitting in, and couldn't even finish reading the paragraph. Seriously fun.

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cmotherofpirl

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1297127863' post='2209903']
And I was the teacher. Don't worry, they all survived. Lectured for 3 hours on how to pastorally deal with the mentally ill. At one point I played a CD that mimics what the voices sound like for schizophrenics. They have to try to read a paragraph and answer some reading comprehension questions while it is going on. It was a 5th grade level test. Few were able to do it. The Dean was sitting in, and couldn't even finish reading the paragraph. Seriously fun.
[/quote]
The next time videotape it !

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[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1297127863' post='2209903']
And I was the teacher. Don't worry, they all survived. Lectured for 3 hours on how to pastorally deal with the mentally ill. At one point I played a CD that mimics what the voices sound like for schizophrenics. They have to try to read a paragraph and answer some reading comprehension questions while it is going on. It was a 5th grade level test. Few were able to do it. The Dean was sitting in, and couldn't even finish reading the paragraph. Seriously fun.
[/quote]

That's a really insightful way to help them understand! What an important topic...

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Seminarians and priests who have not learned about the topic should definitely learn about this.

When I saw the title of the thread I thought that it was either the start of a joke, "Three dozen seminarians walk into a classroom..." and or you were going to tell us another one of your adventures of going to school with the seminarians.

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The biggest adventure was that the class was on the seminary side of the parking lot. It was my first trip over there. As nice as the college is, they really made the seminary NICE. The woman's bathroom should be in House Beautiful. I was just grateful they had a woman's room.

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[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1297184928' post='2210140']
I was just grateful they had a woman's room.
[/quote]

At first I was confused...then it hit me, seminary. I shall hit myself with the clue bat. :getaclue:

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Ephrem Augustine

In a Sacraments class, the Prof started off with the question:
"A cocaine addict shows up, convinced that the Sacraments of Initiation are the magic cure to his cocaine addiction, and signs up for RCIA to be magically cured. Do you admit him?
Most of the students said yes. The professor responded:
"Aw what a bunch of compassionate seminarians..."
I responded:
"A cocaine addict has no capacity to commit to an RCIA program. I would connect him to a rehab program and agree to accept him after he has shown some signs of successful recovery."

Anyways, my experience is that most young seminarians are as idealistic as their counterparts, and convinced of good human nature as your average young person. It is my experience, that many of the seminarians I knew grew up comparatively sheltered to what I experienced.
You will be in the presence of a mentally ill person, or any other person that might be difficult to deal with, and people will not only expect you to deal with them as perfectly as a health care professional, but also to hold you more accountable than they would an individual who actually is qualified. In addition, I think that the mentally ill, in all their current crises, are just attracted to a church as any other person in a crisis. I wouldn't know what to do, except to refer them to someone who actually is qualified.

Unless I do CPE (which may be deferred until after my ordination), I don't think it is something that I will get.

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We didn't just talk about how to deal with someone who shows up in mass in the throws of psychosis. We talk about how to help the family members long term, and how to deal with parishioners who are mentally ill, but stable.

I told my husband that people wanted to see a tape of our lectures. I thought he'd laugh like I did. He didn't. I think I opened an enormous can of worms. Or rather, you guys did.

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