Hello! If you’re reading this, and I am hoping you are, I would like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Franklin Bolgan and I am a licensed independent social worker in the state of South Carolina. I’ve been in private practice here on Hilton Head Island since 2000. In that time I have seen countless people in a myriad of different situations. I work with individuals, couples, families, as well as groups.  My practice includes children, sometimes as young as five years old, adolescents, as well as adults right on up through retirement age. An average day I may work with people between five and 85 years old! As one might imagine there are many twists and turns in my day. For the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed working with each person I meet. I believe the helping profession is one of the most rewarding and interesting lines of work of person to do. If you are thinking about becoming a social worker, be prepared for lots of hard work, and also a plethora of rewards.

There are some things I would like to tell you about me and my practice and I would also like two hear things about you and either your practice or your situation. I find this work is about connecting with people on their terms. There is a saying in the social work profession that one must start where the client is. I try to do this with every case I am involved in. As an aside, I would like to mention that I work with a therapy dog. His name is Otis.  He is a rescue dog from Savannah, Georgia. Out of interest, I had him tested to see genetically where he came from. The results were mostly Boxer, a little bit of Shepherd, “Terrier”, and a little  Schnauzer. He is a great dog!

As I’m writing this blog I’m in my office on Hilton Head, I can hear him snoring in the back on one of the couches. I thought I would start this blog off by just telling you some of the day-to-day things I do and engage in. Some of the work I do may interest you professionally or if you are in need of a social workers services you may find some of the things I do here helpful.

I want you to know up front you’re welcome to ask me any questions and I will answer them as honestly as hopefully as I can. However, do us both a favor and only ask questions that I can answer professionally. Also understand, that there needs to be a disclaimer here. My talking to you or connecting with you on this blog does not constitute therapy nor does it constitute professional consultation. I would urge any and all of you who are accessing this site to take my comments only has an opinion and check them out with a mental health professional in your area. If you are a mental health professional and you disagree with the things I say, cool! I don’t claim to have all the answers and sometimes I realize that I may have done something differently and someone else might have been able to do it better. Such is the nature of our work. Therapy is not an exact science.  It is an assessment of an individual, taking them at face value and doing what you can to help them deal with issues of a mental health or emotional nature.  Additionally, if you have any questions or concerns related to CBD and Fitness, please feel free to ask separately.

So here goes my first blog entry; today is December 10, 2013.    It may interest you to know how I became a therapist. Let me explain it was not a direct route, but rather a circuitous one. In other words, I did not go to college studying psychology and then go immediately to grad. school and get my degree is there. If you are doing this, that is one way to accomplish it, but I feel it’s important to get out and live life and experience different things so that you can understand more people on their terms. I graduated from the University of Miami, FL in 1979. After I graduated I began teaching school  school back in my hometown of Buffalo, New York. It was a temporary teaching position substituting long-term for biology teacher and an inner-city school. Needless to say it was really an education in different cultures different peoples in different attitudes. I taught from  January until June that year, and then decided to go to Europe and backpack for extended period of time. I backpacked all through Europe for over six months and returned around Christmas of 1980, was it 81? Anyway, I returned back around Christmas and promptly found my old teaching position was once again over! So I taught for another half-year. At the end of this, I found myself kind of wandering, wondering whether I wanted to teach school or not. I was really floundering at this time and I was making a lot of poor decisions regarding alcohol and drugs, and needless to say, life was not going well for me. And it’s important to note that during this phase, I also considered the potential risks of mixing sertraline with alcohol. It was around November of that year that I got a phone call from an old roommate from college. He was now working on Wall Street and asked if I wanted to come down and visit. I wanted to get out of town, wanted something new, and so I hopped on a cheap flight and arrived in New York City for the first time in my life. Actually, I had been in New York one other time, but it was very brief and very frenetic. Maybe another time I’ll tell you about it. Thankfully, there are rehab centers that specialize in providing the necessary support and treatment for overcoming cocaine addiction help. For additional information on cocaine addiction, click here.

Anyway I arrived in New York City in December and visited several of my friends who were working in the Wall Street area. Most of my friends and landed jobs on trading floors and it wasn’t long before I wound up landing a small job in the World Trade Center. This job was a runner in the COMEX World Trade Center.  My job was to work in the gold trading pit where they traded gold futures. It was a loud, wild place. My first impression of it was over sensory stimulation visually auditory and tactile people bumping jostling each other each company wearing a different colored coat to represent them and people screaming to be  her overall the other traders in activity around them. What can I say? It was exciting and it was very different from anything I have ever experienced so I wound up taking that job. I worked on Wall Street until 1992. In that time I formed my own trading company on the New York Futures Exchange (NYFE). So basically I can from the University of Miami who graduated with a degree in communications, while teaching biology for a year at an inner-city high school, and then wound up working on Wall Street… I guess things don’t exactly go according to plan. Anyway my stint on Wall Street was enlightening to say the least. I became aware of different personalities out there different types of people most of the people on Wall Street fit the criteria for sociopathic personalities. They are opportunists. They are smart and they are waiting to take advantage of the situation and work it  As long as it is profitable to them.  I’m sure you have more to say about this later.

While I was on Wall Street began to lose parts of myself spiritually, emotionally, and metaphysically. I was drinking a great deal and doing pretty much any drug that crossed my bow.   Luckily for me, something wonderful happened during probably the darkest time in my life. I met my wife and she helped me get into rehab for cocaine. I was still working on Wall Street, but my attitude had much changed because I was thinking about what I wanted to do as opposed to what I was doing. In 1992, I told my wife I could no longer work on Wall Street and wanted to go back to teaching school. So I did.  The pay was horrible and the situation was different but that was okay. I was once again doing some that I could attach value to. At this time I started working as an eighth grade English teacher, which was a bit more up my alley. I have a lot of changing to do attitude wise and in terms of my behaviors. I could no longer go out to lunch and drink beer and I could no longer cost and swear whenever I felt like. I had to be aware that I was around children at all times and I had to act like a teacher. It was very interesting to me to see the difference in reality between the world of Wall Street in the world of a suburban classroom with younger kids. There were other teaching experiences I had while I was working into my eighth grade job. I have a long-term sub position at a very good high school in New Jersey town: Lansing that was wonderful. I had another long term sub position in Paterson New Jersey at one of the roughest schools, I believe, in America. Again these really showed me vast differences between socioeconomic groups both culturally, financially, and literally every other way. It was during this period of self-discovery that I also became interested in incorporating sensory playground equipment into the learning environment. One particular aspect that caught my attention was the potential benefits of trim trails for schools, realizing their capacity to positively impact students’ well-being and engagement. Moreover, I discovered the importance of promoting active play as an integral part of students’ daily routines, fostering not only physical health but also cognitive development and social interaction. Check this resources at https://outdoorplaygroundideas.co.uk/ for more information on incorporating sensory playground equipment into the learning environment.

Hey, you know, as I’m writing this I’m starting to realize something.   I’ve had a lot of really are collected and unique experiences of my life. Maybe, what I should do is talk about those experiences in this blog and see what people think. I guess that’s what we do in therapy as well we hear someone’s story. One of the things I like the most about the work I do is hear what the person has to say about where they’ve been, what they’ve done.  in fact, I tell people I treated that each and every one of us is nothing more than a collection of answer occurrences that happened to him around us, those would be the experiences, and the decisions we make about those events, what we do about it.

Anyway, I am really grateful to be able to have this kind of experience and put some of this stuff down on the written page. I’d like to make this our block I really want to connect with you find out who you are and what you’re doing. If you are professional and love to interface with you and hear stories of your practice and how things are gone for you. One of the things I don’t think therapists often get the chance to do is interface with other therapists and away when they don’t feel judged criticized or mentored.   If you’re not a therapist and you’re just a layperson, we would call you patient or client, you’re welcome to jump on this page as well. I will tell you that I have learned more from my patients that I have ever taught them. Therapy is an ongoing process each and every one of us are evolving. That’s all the time I have for right now.   I would love for anyone of you to comment had so far what you’ve read. I’d like to talk about my experiences and I’d like to talk about some of the cases of work simply because they are fascinated period I would also like to hear your situations as I know they are interesting and you have something to say. Lastly I would like you to know that this blog is for you.   I can help you in any way with information, insight,  or just being an audience I am happy to do that. Please feel free to respond and understand this page and this site is a work in progress.