Major Problem Area for the Client

The client was having trouble in adjusting to life following divorce, which can take anywhere from several weeks to years. The client is experiencing a range of emotions, and she is susceptible to particular conditions such as depression and anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and various physical conditions.

Discuss the affective

The patient is suffering from depression, and this is characterized by feeling extreme sadness and hopelessness, pessimism, and lost a sense of worthiness.  The client is highly emotional, the increased feeling of anger, resentment, and guilt.

Discuss the behavioral

The client’s behaviors include avoiding friends and family, ignoring responsibilities.Lack of focus, overeating, lack of sleep, and loss of interest in some work.

Interpersonal dimension

The client claims to be worthless and inferior to any man around. She has reduced self-esteem.

What potential impact could this client’s culture, religion or gender have on the client’s problems?

The client is a staunch Baptist, which is one of the Lutheran Churches. The church is typically against divorce, and by the client accepting to divorce her husband, she has violated the church doctrine. This is a sin that can lead the client to an eternal fire in the afterlife. The religion thus put pressure on the client and makes her appear guilty and somehow responsible to her current situation.

What seem to be the client’s main strengths, resources, and coping skills

The client’s main strength is accepting the fact that she has a problem and went for a psychological therapy session in an effort to alleviate the problem.

What might this client seek or expect from counseling

The client is optimistic that counseling will help her forget about her past including divorce and develop a positive attitude towards life. She also expects that through counseling her anxiety and depression will reduce or even end. Besides, she hopes the counseling session to help her with ideas and tips to come up with novel ways of raising her child without stress or any worry.  She may expect to learn effective coping skills that can alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

What would your expectations be as a counselor?

To help the client accept her status and learning to accept her situation. In addition, to develop a strategy that will help the client to manage her symptoms during the early stage or her sessions. Other expectation will include enhancing the client’s coping skills and improving relationships. Majority of clients seems to have major issues relating to other because of poor self-image. Similarly, poor social skills can cause people to act oversensitive in relationships.  The objective of the counselor is to aid the client to improve their lives quality by developing the most effective interpersonal relationships.  The counselor expectation is also to promote decision making, by enabling the client to be in a position of making critical decisions about the alternative course of action with no external influence. The counselor expects to help the client obtain information as well as clarify emotional concerns that may be associated with or interfere with decisions involved.

How might your goals and client’s goals be different

The goals of a counselor may include motivational, ensuring that clients are motivated to accomplish their goals. It can also be educative, by helping clients to clarify as well as target issues or problem behaviors they want to improve on during counseling and develop attainable and realistic solutions (Gadoua, 2014).  The counselor’s goal might also be evaluative and treatment goals. On the other hand, the client’s goals might be towards recovery and resuming their healthy lives.

Develop an intervention strategy that might be useful in working with this client.

The intervention strategy will be psychotherapy, which specifically will be cognitive and behavioral therapy.  The plan will involve five stages

Stage I: it involves problem description: the client is requested to describe the problem that has brought her to counseling the objective of thinking on how to shift the conversation toward the subsequent step which initiates solution talk (Smoke, 2014).
Stage II: the creation of well-formed goals: the counselor work with the client to prompt an explanation of what will be unique and different her life when the issue is solved.
Stage III: Exploring for exclusions: the client is asked about those time in her life when her problem is not occurring or is less severe and who did what to make the exception a reality.
Stage IV: End of Session Feedback: the counselor complement the client for her current effort in solving her problems as well as the patient is provided feedback based mainly on information that client has revealed during the conversation regarding well-formed expectations and goals.
Stage V: evaluation of the client progress: the client is evaluated on regular basis, on what she is doing to attain the solutions that meet their goals and what should be done before she strongly feels her problem has been fully solved and is ready to terminate the service.

What theoretical approach underlines the intervention strategy that you have selected

Cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy underlines the selected strategy.  At the center of cognitive therapy is the idea that human thought can affect his emotions (Craske& American Psychological Association, 2017). Cognitive therapy assists patients to learn best ways to identify common patterns of cognitive distortion, negative thinking and to turn such negative thought patterns into a one that is more positive, thus help improve the mood of the patient — behavioral therapy on the other hand aimed at changing bad or undesired behaviors. It employs classical as well as an operant condition to reinforce wanted behaviors while doing away with unwanted or undesired behaviors (Beck, 2011; Wells, 2013).

References

Beck, J. S. (2011). Cognitive behavior therapy: Basics and beyond. New York: Guilford.

Craske, M. G., & American Psychological Association, (2017). Cognitive-behavioral therapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association

Gadoua, S. P. (2014). Contemplating divorce: A step-by-step guide to deciding whether to stay or go. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Smoke, J. (2014). Growing through a divorce. Eugene, Or: Harvest House Publishers.

Wells, A. (2013). Cognitive Therapy of Anxiety Disorders: A Practice Manual and Conceptual Guide.      Somerset: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

 
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