The first meeting with Maria was interesting. We met at my desk she sits in front of me and I started the Risk assessment. The assessment is basic, questions about back from home country, mental status, psychosocial and other basic information about the journal to the United States. Unfortunately the meeting is not private and children are not able to talk comfortably about anything. Starting, my hypothesis about Maria was, a child from El Salvador who wanted to reunify with her mother. It may take two to three weeks to conclude the reunification. At the second meeting, I was able to obtain most of the paperwork from the mother and I was still thinking about the reunification to be done in one extra week. Nonetheless, I was not assessing the
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Maria was aware of the urgency about her case and understood the reasons why it was not normal to be with a 22 year old when she is under age. Also, we discussed about how lawmakers decide on the age of consent based on the advice of developmental psychologists and from child advocacy organizations. Statutory rape law is designed to protect naive youths from the sexual advances of older adults who may use their advanced age to take sexual advantage of youths. The law is designed to curb the passive coercion that is inherent in sexual relationships having a great difference of age. Teenagers are developmentally in a different place than adults and are thus more susceptible to being passively coerced into having sex. Also, I rely some information from the book Interpersonal Process in Therapy by Edward Teyber states “Therapist may also keep in mind that resistance and defense are attempts to manage unwanted feelings of shame, guilt, disempowerment, and anxiety. Although clients may be unaware of it, they often struggle with the worry that, if they continue in treatment or engage more fully with the therapist, the therapist will hurt them as others have in the past” (Teyber, Chapter 3 pg. 82). To summarize, the lectures helped me to understand to put my values aside and to stop doing just my job. I needed to learn to take that extra
Maria was aware of the urgency about her case and understood the reasons why it was not normal to be with a 22 year old when she is under age. Also, we discussed about how lawmakers decide on the age of consent based on the advice of developmental psychologists and from child advocacy organizations. Statutory rape law is designed to protect naive youths from the sexual advances of older adults who may use their advanced age to take sexual advantage of youths. The law is designed to curb the passive coercion that is inherent in sexual relationships having a great difference of age. Teenagers are developmentally in a different place than adults and are thus more susceptible to being passively coerced into having sex. Also, I rely some information from the book Interpersonal Process in Therapy by Edward Teyber states “Therapist may also keep in mind that resistance and defense are attempts to manage unwanted feelings of shame, guilt, disempowerment, and anxiety. Although clients may be unaware of it, they often struggle with the worry that, if they continue in treatment or engage more fully with the therapist, the therapist will hurt them as others have in the past” (Teyber, Chapter 3 pg. 82). To summarize, the lectures helped me to understand to put my values aside and to stop doing just my job. I needed to learn to take that extra