Introduction
The introduction establishes the foundation for thoroughly examining the client’s case presentation. This study centers on Ms. Alston, a 64-year-old lady who is battling sadness after her sister’s unexpected death. The importance of studying client involvement, evaluation procedures, and client-worker relationship dynamics in a scholarly setting is emphasized in the introduction. It expresses the significance of these elements, highlighting their critical function in the complex social work profession. In order to set the stage for the following study, the introduction briefly discusses Ms. Alston’s background, including her age, living environment, and relative dynamics. This part briefly overviews the paper’s goals, lays the groundwork for the next debate concerning academic rigor and its relevance to social work, and invites readers to engage with the material.
Client Engagement
A 64-year-old lady negotiating the complex terrain of life, Ms. Alston’s clinical profile provides a moving glimpse of her experiences and problems. Ms. Alston is a Puerto Rican American residing in New York who tells her story set against the background of her family relationships, living conditions, and age. Ms. Alston’s medical history includes inflammation, neurological issues, numbness in one leg, chronic pain medication, spinal fusion surgery (which left her with a plate on her back), and arthritis. She is seeking help for anxiety, sleeplessness, and anger management, which she directs against her late sister. Before her sadness becomes any worse, she would want to learn how to cope. She brought up her husband’s suggestion that she seek therapy after recently becoming “snappy” during our first session together.
Because of her Puerto Rican ancestry, Ms. Alston considers herself a New York Rican, even though she has lived in the Big Apple her whole life. She lives an hour and a half upstate, although she grew up Catholic in a Baptist church in Brooklyn. I asked her, “Would you like your spiritual/religious beliefs incorporated into counseling?” and she said, “Of course, without God, it ain’t nothing.” Because Johnny Ray Youngblood authored a bible emphasizing daily living, Ms. Alston is adamant that I listen to the preachers she suggests, including one of her favorites. Melvin, a retired Navy officer, is her favorite subject to discuss with me because they have been together for 35 years. All the while, protective child services employed them, and, with a few exceptions, everything was going swimmingly for them (Assessment Forms p.83). Although Ms. Alston did not experience any child abuse throughout her childhood, she did become pregnant at a young age due to her family’s failure to provide her with adequate sexual education.
Assessment of the Client System
I was successful in determining her past pastimes. Painting is her hobby. She distinctly recalls devoting a couple of hours to this task. Soap operas are her current guilty pleasure on TV. This was a great opportunity to connect with her as I am Colombian and Spanish-fluent. Finally, she mentions that she is quite the chef (for both herself and Melvin) and would be open to receiving nutritional recommendations for good food preparation. I saw this as a behavioral/social adaptation to her late-adult life stage, given her advanced age and deteriorating health. After getting to know Ms. Alston better, I realized that solution-focused short therapy would be the most effective approach for her issues with mood disorders, unresolved sorrow, and self-doubt.
A complete psychosocial examination is necessary to analyze her history of trauma, including marital violence and childhood abuse. The analysis necessitates a more detailed explanation of the causes of her concern and grief. Cultural and environmental variables have a tremendous impact on Ms. Alston’s run-ins. Despite her self-described introversion, I think she has a lot to say and may be struggling to cope with the loss of her last family. Given that her mother was a grief counselor and her clinical history began with her father’s death, I am not sure what more to tell her. In response to my question about her anger, she said it was partly due to her sister’s decision to leave her no-contact spouse without a will. Although the depth of their grief is beyond my capacity to empathize, I may be of assistance by easing their burden and encouraging them to keep her legacy in mind as they go forward.
Because of her Puerto Rican ancestry, Ms. Alston considers herself a New York Rican, even though she has lived in the Big Apple her whole life. She lives an hour and a half upstate, although she grew up Catholic in a Baptist church in Brooklyn. I asked her, “Would you like your spiritual/religious beliefs incorporated into counseling?” and she said, “Of course, without God, it ain’t nothing.” Because Johnny Ray Youngblood authored a bible emphasizing daily living, Ms. Alston is adamant that I listen to the preachers she suggests, including one of her favorites. This prior information is required for culturally competent and responsive treatments. This technique, which adheres to the social ecology paradigm, allows for a detailed study of the linked aspects that impact her well-being.
I began by using the bio-psycho-social model at my internship location. When trying to make sense of health, disease, and medical treatment, the biopsychosocial method considers all of these aspects methodically, including the interplay between biological, psychological, and social elements. Through inquiring, I learned more about many facets of her life. She seemed glad to discuss her problems and was receptive to my general inquiries. She grew more sensitive to her surroundings as she grew older, and this model summarized the pressure on her sense of self as a result of her efforts and aging. Suffering from a sense of helplessness may be adding to her sadness. She may have snapped at Melvin because her persistent pain made her physically uncomfortable.
Intersectionality and its Impact
Empathy in Dynamic Relationships is an important part of social work because it helps people comprehend and connect to the feelings of others. When the healthcare provider pays attention to Ms. Alston’s tale, she supports her sentiments and reacts with empathy, emphasizing the usage of empathy. Her capacity to understand the effect of her trauma background displays the practitioner’s compassion and sensitivity, which aids in the development of rapport and trust.
Literature suggests that empathy may influence the lives of persons participating in therapeutic interactions, especially during trauma. Empathetic participation has been shown to improve client well-being, treatment results, and the client-worker relationship. According to trauma-based therapeutic ideas, empathy offers a place where Ms. Alston’s ability to make her feel heard, understood, and supported may help her overcome her mental health challenges. Through the application of empathy, a therapeutic connection may be built in this conversation, facilitating recovery after trauma.
Client-Worker Relationship
A therapeutic connection in trauma treatment requires trust and understanding, which allows practitioners to build ‘an in-depth vision’ of Ms. Alston’s background, providing security and comfort. The therapist used trauma-informed therapy to make Alston feel loved, understood, and heard. Practical examples are used to demonstrate the client-worker interaction. Getting Ms. Alston believes it is critical to show empathy for her cultural history, appreciate her perseverance, and indicate that you support her feelings. These examples show how social work ideas may help Ms. Alston build a therapeutic connection that will make her feel better. In essence, the client and team interactions change to mutual support and recognizing Ms. Alston’s abilities as she controls her rehabilitation.
Understanding and being acquainted with people’s emotions is a basic skill in social work. Creating a therapeutic relationship and encouraging her empathy are critical for Alston’s healing. Recognizing how severely the influence of her history has harmed her mental health is critical in this setting. The social worker credits Ms. Alston’s pain and genuine empathy. When it comes to working with clients, one of the most essential talents social workers need to possess is the capacity to earn their trust, confidence, and respect. This component of the client engagement strategy must be defined early in the relationship since it is crucial. Considering that there is an inherent right and the capacity of the government to remove children from their own homes while continuing to work with families toward greater functioning, stability, and family reunification, this provides a huge challenge for those who work in the field of child welfare. Regrettably, many of our industry’s specialists need assistance establishing relationships with customers. Employees can find themselves “befriending the client” under the rationale of assisting in order to fulfill the client’s requirements.
Empathy in the Dynamic Relationship
Ms. Alston may communicate her experience without fear of being judged because of the practitioner’s caring knowledge. She feels reassured by the practitioner’s empathy-driven answer that she is aware of the various feelings that may follow trauma. Alston understands and respects her. Empathy is critical in therapeutic collaborations, particularly during times of trauma. According to the case study, M. Alston, who may have gone through breakups in the past, needs empathy in order to form a lasting relationship. Empathy is a feature of the therapeutic collaboration, not just words. It represents a profound awareness of the client’s emotional essence beyond simple discussion. Ms. incorporated empathy into the dynamic interaction (Baker et al., 2019). Alston builds strength and speeds up her recuperation by conquering her complicated mental health difficulties.
The capacity to empathize with a patient on an emotional, cognitive, and behavioral level is a crucial communication skill for healthcare providers. This means understanding the patient’s perspective without developing a personal relationship with them. When inducing therapeutic change, highly empathic health workers do better (Moudatsou et al., 2020). Patients can express their feelings and concerns to a compassionate healthcare provider who understands their requirements. Many healthcare providers still need help incorporating an empathic communication model into their daily work despite the obvious relevance of empathy (Moudatsou et al., 2020). The huge volume of patients that professionals must attend to, insufficient time for each patient, the emphasis on treatment within the current academic culture, and the absence of empathy education all work against empathy cultivation (Moudatsou et al., 2020). The foundational goal of health and social care undergraduate curricula and the focus of professionals’ ongoing professional development should be cultivating empathy.
Transference and Countertransference
Transference and countertransference are essential ideas in the therapeutic interactions of the patient and the social worker. The therapeutic use of self is at the heart of Transference, which is the projection of one’s sentiments about another person onto another (in therapy, this refers to a client’s projection of their feelings about another person onto their therapist) (Prasko et al., 2022). In reaction to a client’s Transference, therapists may experience compassion, frustration, sympathy, or even annoyance. Personal history, ideals, and unsolved problems of the therapist may all impact these responses.
Recognizing countertransference is critical for therapists to retain self-awareness and manage their emotional reactions since unchecked countertransference might obstruct the therapeutic process. Therapists may better comprehend the client’s experience and modify their approach to match their requirements by identifying and analyzing their countertransference. It necessitates that the nurse be conscious of his or her thoughts, emotions, and behaviors (Prasko et al., 2022). The therapeutic use of self is founded on self-awareness, which allows the nurse to develop self-knowledge about the kind of person he or she is. This procedure is challenging since the self cannot be found or radically unveiled.
Self-discovery is not always easy since each individual may find aspects of himself that he would prefer to ignore. Nonetheless, time spent developing self-awareness is a worthy investment since a person who does not understand himself cannot be expected to comprehend others (Seidlein et al., 2020). Personal needs may be a barrier to forming significant patient connections for the nurse who lacks self-awareness. In contrast, the nurse who comprehends their own needs and motives is better positioned to focus on the patient’s needs because it is possible to differentiate between each set of needs (Pollock et al., 2020). Clients unintentionally convey their feelings, goals, or judgments to the therapy practitioner throughout the transference process (Dincer & Inangil, 2019). This is a frequent result of previous encounters. The therapist’s emotional reaction to their client, which their unresolved or chronic difficulties may influence, is known as countertransference.
She is concerned and vulnerable. Alston is affected by her horrific history. As a consequence of previous marital violence and abuse, the social worker may be unaware of her sentiments. Among her therapies, which are based on history, the social worker may meet countertransference, a display of strong emotions or preconceptions that might disrupt the therapeutic relationship. When treating, social workers must recognize their prejudices and emotional reactions (Dincer & Inangil, 2019). Learning from and connecting with others may assist you in navigating these complex connections. If the therapist does not follow professional limits, their answers are not jeopardized. Transference and countertransference are discussed in the literature on trauma-informed practice. Understanding the effect of trauma on both clients and practitioners may lead to better therapeutic results. Trauma-informed care focuses on the client’s needs, fostering trust and cooperation (Seidlein et al., 2020). The therapist might regularly analyze their biases, assumptions, and emotional reactions by reflecting on their work (Gibb et al., 2021). The concept was constantly tweaked to accommodate Her. Alston’s growing expectations and the structure of the client-worker relationship result from this thoughtful contemplation.
Use of Self in Practice
Because the therapeutic use of self is at the core of nursing, the nurse must be aware of their thoughts, feelings, and actions to provide safe and effective care. Developing self-awareness is the cornerstone of the therapeutic use of self, enabling the nurse to cultivate self-knowledge about the person they are. This process is very difficult because the self cannot be discovered or revealed in a significant way on its own. According to Gibb et al. (2021), self-discovery is only sometimes an easy undertaking since every person has the potential to uncover elements of themselves that they would rather ignore. Despite this, the time spent cultivating self-awareness is an investment that is well worth making since it is unreasonable to expect a person who needs help understanding himself to grasp and understand others. For a nurse lacking self-awareness, the nurse’s own needs may serve as a barrier to establishing substantial relationships with patients (Morandi et al., 2021). On the other hand, a nurse who is aware of their requirements and reasons for doing so is in a better position to concentrate on the patient’s requirements. This is because it is feasible to discriminate between the various categories of requirements.
The practitioner could comprehend the client’s trauma, which allowed them to expose substantial aspects of the client’s experience (Kallergis, 2019). The objective of her intentional disclosure was to establish his authority and strengthen the therapeutic connection between them. When it comes to trauma-informed treatment, the research on social work provides substantial support for the use of self. According to Baker et al. (2019), professionals in the field recommend that mental health practitioners be genuine and actively disclose personal facts in order to establish a therapeutic atmosphere that is both safe and helpful. It was promised that her privacy would be protected. After doing a literature study, it was determined that her situation was in line with the most effective procedures. Both cultural competence and trauma awareness were improved as a result of this.
Conclusion
This case study demonstrates the effect of trauma, anxiety, and depression on a patient who is 64 years old (Born on 5/31/1958) and lives alone with her husband and pets. Her experiences demonstrate the potency of intersectionality and the significance of trauma-based mental health care. The lecture underlined the need to address systemic racism, sexism, and classism. This example emphasizes the need to be thoroughly aware of clients’ identities and issues in social work. In time, there will be evident ramifications for social work practice and research. Clients’ overlapping difficulties should be addressed in trauma-informed mental health treatment. Research should concentrate on the development of evidence-based ways to provide mental health care for traumatized and varied persons. One example emphasizes the need for education and growth in social work and mental health care.
References
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