Future Interventions
The “paranoid thoughts” regarding other people appear to be a theme. Gennifer still often thinks that her sister is purposefully neglecting to put money on her phone. While she was successful in debating activating events involving other inmates, she still has trouble debating events that involve her family. This may be because of her deeply rooted mistrust in her family and the extreme disappointment she experiences due to their lack of contact with her. We will continue to practice debating her irrational thoughts and focus specifically on those beliefs that involve her family.
In the most recent session, Gennifer reported that a distant cousin had been writing her letters and sending her pictures of her family. It seemed that Gennifer had some reservations continuing the contact with this cousin, presumably because of the great disappointment she feels toward her family. We will explore the advantages and disadvantages of developing a relationship with her cousin who could present a valuable source of support. I will probe for
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potential irrational thoughts that may prevent Gennifer from wanting contact, such as beliefs that this will be just another person that will disappoint her. Reflection My understanding of therapy with any patient is that the therapeutic relationship has to be safe, trusting, and collaborative.
This is especially the case with women who have experienced complex trauma. I assumed that Gennifer’s and my therapeutic relationship would become stronger as the sessions progress. We spend a lot of time discussing her difficulties and I took an empathetic stance when she told me about her substance abuse and legal issues. Eventually, when I felt that our working alliance was strong enough, I started with the interventions. Most of the time during the interventions, the relationship between Gennifer and me was close to that of a student and a teacher. We both collaborated in order for me to provide Gennifer with psychoeducation and techniques. I taught Gennifer that she is the reason to her emotional disturbances and that working toward helping herself is the key to
success. I still perceive that as a risky approach. The CBT approach can seem a bit forceful and confrontational, which may not be ideal in complex trauma cases. This is why I taught the techniques slowly and while we practiced them often, we still left room to improve our relationship. This approach may have not worked as well had she not been very open to, excited, and compliant about the exercises CBT provides. In fact, I am still surprised about how quickly our therapeutic relationship evolved considering the mistrust she has toward others and considering her frequent “paranoid thoughts.” I believe that we were able to form this therapeutic alliance because we adhered to Bordin’s alliance model which states that “alliance is a negotiated, collaborative feature of the treatment relationship, composed of three aspects: (a) agreement between patient and therapist on the goals of the therapy; (b) the patient’s agreement with the therapist that the tasks of the therapy will address the problems the patient brings to treatment, and (c) the quality of the interpersonal bond between the patient and the therapist” (Hatcher & Gillaspy, 2006, p. 12).
One of her earliest memories came from when she was three years old. Jeannette had to go to the hospital because she burned herself cooking hot dogs. Her parents didn’t like hospitals, so for that reason after a few weeks they came and took her away. Jeannette and her family were constantly moving from place to place, sometimes staying no more than one night somewhere. Her father always lied to them saying that they had to keep moving because he was wanted by the FBI. Jeannette’s mother never took much interest in Jeannette or her siblings, because the mother didn’t want them and thought that they were bothersome and in the way.
The idea of “family” is almost entirely socially constructed. From grandparents, to friends, to wives and fiancés, the means by which we decide who is related to us and who is not is decided by the person and their milieu. In Mignon R. Moore’s “Independent Women: Equality in African-American Lesbian Relationships”, Eviatar Zerubavel’s Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity and Community, and Franz Kafka’s The Judgement, this idea is tested. Who do we consider close enough to us to share our most intimate details and how do we choose them? Each piece offers a different view, which is the “right” way for each of the people described, whether broad (as in Zerbavel’s reading) or specific (as in Moore’s reading), but there are also many similarities in the ways family is defined and actualized.
While her therapist helps her with her father, the therapist unintentionally improves her relationship with her husband. At Southeastern Louisiana University’s common read, Smith explains, “I think I was able to meet him [her husband] because I cleared up a lot of silly stuff through therapy” (Smith). This confirmation allows the reader to receive a higher understanding of the effect therapy impacted Tracy K. Smith.
Precious’ mother and father were extremely abusive towards her and now at the age of sixteen, it’s Precious’ best interest not to interact with either parent. Precious’ mother blamed Precious for the sexual abuse she experienced and one may assume that during a session she would express her thoughts. This exchange can cause a regression in treatment success and can produce negative outcomes of the treatment (Yasinski et al., 2016). TF-CBT explains that treatment can be just as successful with or without parent involvement. Due to the severity of Precious’ trauma, it has become difficult for her to open up to new people. It can extremely difficult for an individual to be put in a situation that forces them to actively think about their traumatic experience, causing them to retract from going to session and completing the therapy (Pukay-Martin, Torbit, Landy, Macdonald, & Monson, 2017). I think that the fact that TF-CBT includes many sessions, Precious will have time to build rapport with her clinician instead of just jumping right into discussing and reliving everything she went through. This treatment will not only benefit Precious but it will also help her children. A component of this treatment is teaching parent skills. Precious was never taught how to be a good mother; she did not have a good example of what parents
The client stated that she came to therapy because she has been feeling really lonely and feeling as though that she is not enough since the death of her father. After the death of her father, her mother did not pay her any attention; she understood that her mother was grieving, especially when her grandfather passed a year later. I stated that the frequent death that surrounded her mother, seem to have caused her mother to distance herself from her. She responded “yes, and it even gotten worse when my mom started to date and eventually marry my stepfather”. She mentioned that once her little sister was born, she became jealous and envious. I emphasized with her by stating that she must have felt as though her little sister was going to take the attention that she sought from her mother. After confirming that her mother paid more attention to her sister and stepfather, she mentioned that during this time she began to cut herself in places that no one would notice. The pain did not take the feeling away, but she wanted to know that if she could still feel pain after the thought of losing everything. However, the only person who paid her any attention during this time, was her grandmother. Her grandmother showed her the love that her mother nor “father figure” never showed her. I stated, “the love that your grandmother showed was not the love you were
Stickley, T. & Freshwater, D. (2006). “The Art of Listening to the Therapeutic Relationship” Journal of Mental health Practice. 9 (5) pp12 - 18.
The counselor accomplishes the above by expressing empathy, developing discrepancies, going along with resistance and supporting self-efficacy. Moreover, the counselor guides the client toward a solution that will lead to permanent posi...
Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic (BBSC) is a non-profit organization located in Toronto, Ontario that aims to help women who have experienced violence or abuse by providing them with free services such as counselling, legal advice, interpretation, referral services, community education and advocacy for and on behalf of clients. The clinic receives its funding from the United Way, the Ontario government and individual donors (http://schliferclinic.com). The major knowledge base required to be able to work in the current social work practice setting includes feminist, trauma informed practice and mindfulness. Earlier in the essay I have dwelled on feminist theory. The clinic envisions
In Trauma and Faith, Dr. Eriksson posed a question that caught on something inside of me and I have not been able to shake it since. She asked what we are to do with clients that are the perpetrators of trauma or whose trauma has led them to perpetuate the cycle. That stuck with me since in the field we mostly talk about treating the survivors not the perpetrators. As if divinely planned, a few weeks later I did an intake with a client at my practicum that embodied this very question. A member of a familial gang since birth, the client had experienced horrific trauma from a young age. Throughout his life, he had then inflicted great violence and trauma on those around him. My experience of sitting with this man who was both survivor and perpetrator,
The Center for Evidence-Based Policy defines successful intervention through statistically significant findings that indicated this intervention was effective in reducing crime or criminality. They use interventions that are proactive, strategy-focused and place-based(Weisburd, 2013). In proactive interventions they anticipate crime, disorder and other problems before they happen using crime analysis and the patterns of crime. In strategy-focused interventions they tailor their strategies and tactics to problems at hand, tactics concentrated on particular types of crimes, groups, people, or crime prevention mechanisms. In place-based interventions is focused on certain jurisdictions in high crime spots instead of random patrol. Based on these
For clients who express their experiences for the first time in counseling, it can be a powerful force to help them heal. It is important for the counselor to pay close attention to the person’s body language, affect and tone. The counselor must consider the possible scenarios that may occur in the first session. Cultural aspects of the client must be considered. From the client’s perspective, the first session is an important session, even if the first session is mostly an information gathering session. The client may have experiences much trauma in their life, never being able to trust a person with their closest feelings. This is why it is very important to establish rapport and trust in...
The rapport and friendship built throughout this movie is vital to the success of the therapy exhibited here. This is a great example of Gestalt therapeutic approach and helps to identify most of the techniques incorporated. The techniques and ways of gently confronting but pushing a client all the way through are very beneficial to each viewer of this film.
Stickley,T. & Freshwater, D. (2006). “The Art of Listening to the Therapeutic Relationship” Journal of Mental health Practice. 9 (5) pp12 - 18.
Within the therapeutic alliance, the clinician-client relationship can be critical to the outcome of therapy. If a client does not feel that his or her feelings, expressions, and or thoughts matter to the therapist, there is no alliance much less a relationship. When a client feels invested in it can certainly change the outcome of therapy. For instance if a client has come to therapy with feelings of inadequacy, lack of visibility and indifference if the therapist treats him or her in the same manner it is highly unlikely the client will return to this clinician. A study (Friedlander, Bernardi, and Lee, 2010) shows that outcomes were more negative when clients felt clinician lack of engagement and involvement in session.
Whether in a classroom setting or conducting therapy sessions, historically, a dual or multiple relationship in the mental health field has been deemed as wrong. However, certain communities or settings may make it difficult to avoid multiple relationships. These settings may be small communities like lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT), specific religions, military, graduate school programs, or rural towns. In these specific settings avoiding a multiple relationship would almost mean the clinician blocking out the world around them. Therefore, under some circumstance avoiding these relationships may actually interfere with a healthy professional interaction (Ryder & Hepworth, 1990). For example, a child who has been in therapy may ask their therapist to attend their graduation or some event of importance ...