Summary of the Client Christina is an 8-year-old child who is being adopted by her cousins. Christina’s mother died from a drug overdose. Her mother was physically abusive, neglectful, emotionally abusive and Christina suffers from other trauma yet to be discovered. Christian spent several years in the foster care system and had five different placements. Since moving in with the Martinez family she has started showing several behavioral problems she is acting out, and avoiding any physical contact she is also being verbally aggressive towards tommy and refuses to share mealtimes with the family.…
Moving Again Have you ever moved schools? Have you lost friends? Well it really stinks. Moving schools have affected me for lots of reasons, but I am getting better.…
Change happens everywhere, and most of the time, it is very hard to deal with. For me, I hated moving. It was difficult to think that I had to a leave the place where I grew up for most of my life. And then when it happened, it did not get any better. “The first step toward change is awareness.…
To all the doctors, teachers, peers, and family members who didn’t believe I would amount to greatness, thank you. When I was young, I didn’t understand why school seemed more challenging for me than it did for everyone else. I couldn’t discern why I was unable to distinguish my right from my left no matter how many times my teacher sighed and told me it was simple or why I could complete math problems perfectly then copy my answer wrong between the work area and the answer line.…
Okay, that was really weird and I don't understand anything. We were waiting to talk to you, my mother wanted to apologize for having moved away, she was not feeling well, it was too hot in the middle of all those people. We were talking about calling you into a cafe when we turned you were leaving the room with a couple. As I said understand anything.…
This case presented a multitude of opportunities to think critically. The fact that triggers needed to be identified in a time sensitive manner presented the opportunity to explore options I was not accustomed to utilizing. I was given the suggestion by my supervisor to try either a narrative therapy approach or a cognitive behavioral, and in researching both I came to the conclusion that with this specific client narrative therapy would be more appropriate. Looking back, I believe I came to the most correct conclusion in regards to what modality to utilize. A personal challenge I experienced with this was never using narrative therapy in practice.…
As a child growing up in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union, the idea of a vast planet brimming with civilization and culture was more like something out of a fairy tale than it was reality. So, when my father announced that we would be leaving the country to go to Scotland, the home of his and my ancestors, my world began to expand at a rapid pace. This trip could not have been timed more perfectly. The summer of 2007 marked the end of fourth grade, my first year at Saint Mary Academy Bay View.…
The summer before my senior year I began my first job. I was a counselor at a summer camp, called Camp Commotion. It took place at my church and was a 10 week program for kids in kindergarten to sixth grade. Being 17, I was the youngest employee of the 27 staff members, everyone else was in college or older. The camp was made up of a theater, gym, and 6 rooms for the different activities, like cooking, sports, crafts, etc.…
The autoethnographies allow for a different narrative. Clinicians play a vital role in therapy sessions. There is no blueprint for therapists; one approach may work for one client but not for another. It’s important for clinicians to be aware of how they relate to others because emotions are certainly involved. A therapist is so involved in a person’s life it goes beyond simple sessions you must build a rapport.…
I was a recovering teenage anorexic working at a critically acclaimed restaurant—the irony never failed to escape me. Bay Wolf Restaurant in Oakland, California was my first job. It taught me how to love food and myself again. I had moved to Northern California from Southern California for an eating disorder rehabilitation center a month earlier. I learned about the position from a girl at rehab and was hesitant to look into it.…
The norm may not always be the right way to go. I no longer want to be a part of a popular or important group of people, if I feel that what the group is doing or believes in is wrong, even if it means I'm not a part of the norm. I am not afraid to stand out on my own. I have challenged this belief for many years. When I was in elementary school, I was bullied by a group of girls that I hung with, looked up to and idolized.…
My interests in counseling is fuel by hurts and pain of people I observed throughout my lifespan. From the time I could speak, I saw family members, being taunted, by traumatic event that occurred throughout their lifespan. As I watched the hurt and pain of others consume them, I watch them suppressed the pain, in a harmful matter. For the future suppressing the pain, like substance abuse became an unconscious systematic coping method for stressors. Furthermore, as years progressed the hurt and pain presented itself through violence, verbal, and physical abuse.…
Do you know what you will be doing five years down the road? For me, it is hard to imagine myself as a therapist though I do share an interest in helping people. The reality is, you can plan for many things but you never can fully predict where life will take you. As a therapist I can identify some potential strengths and weaknesses that I bring to the field.…
Another goal is to encourage the client (s) to examine their preferred answers to their problems that they are going through. Since, clients possess strengths; the goal of this therapy is to use those strengths to solve their problem. (Gehart, 2014). The goal of Narrative Therapy is to use the client’s language to find out what is going well in the client’s lives to enable the client to anticipate a positive change in their life (Gehart, 2014).…
The sickness that I live with is one that some would find excessively appalling, making it impossible to talk about; so I kept it to a whisper. This sickness I thought was to embarrassing to talk about, making it impossible to seek help, left me feeling alone in the dark. This sickness ruined friendships, without me realizing it. This sickness that made getting out of bed a struggle for me. This sickness made it impossible for me to see a positive future, until the day I stopped calling myself “crazy” and began to grow from what we all call, depression.…