Lessons Learned: St. Leo’s Values and Stages of Anger in Autistic Patients
The environment of the St. Leo offers a plethora of opportunities for education and training of the skills for helping children, teenagers, and adults with autism (St. Leo University, 2017). The experience that I gained there played a pivotal role in my professional growth. By working with adults with autism and autism spectrum disorders as a volunteer, I learned a variety of important techniques and acquired the information that will help me create efficient treatment strategies in the future based on my knowledge of the stages of anger.
The core values of St. Leo must be listed among the key factors that contributed to my education and professional growth. The emphasis on professional integrity and ethics, as well as the need to focus on a patient-centered and evidence-based approach, served as the platform for the rapid development of necessary knowledge and skills. For example, the need to be respectful toward any individual, appreciate their ideas, and recognize the rights and freedoms to which they are entitled should be mentioned among the core values that St. Leo views as necessary (St. Leo University, n.d.).
The issue of anger management takes a special place in the contemporary healthcare system and especially in the approach toward managing the needs of people with autism. While it is essential to convey to target demographics that giving vent to their feelings is important, it is also imperative to provide them with healthy techniques for handling their anger and the relevant emotions. Working at the St. Leo, I realized that five primary anger stages could be isolated in autism patients. The first stage can be defined as being calm, i.e., the lowest level of anger. The said stage is a desirable condition that social workers in similar facilities must strive to maintain in patients.
The second stage can be described as mild anger, i.e., slight irritation at specific irritants. It is easiest to manage anger issues of autistic people at the identified stage, which means that tools for monitoring changes in autistic patients’ moods and behaviors must be introduced to provide them with proper care. The specified stage is often conflated with the third stage, which can be described as a higher level of annoyance that approaches frustration. Strong irritation and the feeling of being overwhelmed can be regarded as the third and fourth stages, whereas anger itself is the fifth and final stage.
The specified information is crucial for tending to the needs of autistic patients. By creating the environment in which autistic patients will feel relaxed and will not have to deal with the irritants that typically provoke an anger-related incident in autistic patients, one will be able to align with the values and ethics of the St. Leo University. By learning more about the stages of anger and management techniques that can be deployed to handle each of them, as well as participating actively in volunteer work, I experienced impressive professional growth. Based on the information about the stages of anger that I have learned, I will be able to design new and improved approaches toward providing required care and support for people with autism and autism spectrum disorders. Therefore, working at the St. Leo was a valuable experience that shaped me as a healthcare professional and helped me gain a deeper insight into the needs of patients with autism.
References
St. Leo University. (2017). Leadership development. Web.
St. Leo University. (n.d.). Core values. Web.