Critical Incident Analysis

Critical Incident Analysis

Incident

The group that I attended was an eight week court mandated program consisting of single mothers whose child/children has been removed from the home due to neglect, substance abuse, or physical abuse. The purpose of this group is to teach parents anger management skills, daily living skills, and parenting skills. The critical incident that I am going to share here is related with this group.

One day a single mother came to a group session. Her ten years old daughter was took away from her because she used to physically abuse her by brutally beating her. She told us that she used to love her daughter very much but raising a child alone isn't easy. She had to face many issues like financial problems, which started changing her behavior towards her daughter and she used to become exhausted and fed-up mother who hated raising her daughter. She told us that eventually she started beating her daughter who was just a ten year old child. She described the way she treated her daughter that was too brutal and harsh. We all felt so much bad for her daughter and that mother seemed so cold hearted to us. When she told us how badly she used to treat her daughter, almost all the group members experienced negative feeling for that mother. But then eventually what I saw and experienced was very much significant for me. With the passage of time we all overcame the harshness of her brutal violence towards her daughter and looked at the situation from her eyes. I observed that she was badly hurt with her own wrong doing and she was so sorry for that. I also understood the difficulties that single parents, especially single mother, have to face in raising a child or children. So I started consoling her and let others also understand the situation from both perspectives. There and then I saw that most of the other mothers understood her position and began consoling her while telling her about their own neglects and mistakes. That was the situation where I felt me and other members of the group very near to each other as we understood each other's situation and tried to counsel everyone. I also saw certain therapeutic factors like group cohesiveness and the hope everyone had in them and which they were trying to pass to others as well.

Why it is Critical?

This incident is very critical to me because it consist of moments when I felt myself and others very near to each other and I also observed certain therapeutic factors in that session like cohesiveness of the group members and how everyone was trying to soothe that mother while expressing their own situations and rekindling the hope. I listened to the group and observed that everyone presented in that session wanted someone to listen to them and understand them. That mother came and with her expressing the situation and what we observed afterwards, those moments became a critical ...