Assignment 3: Applying Counseling Skills to a Case Study
In this assignment, complete the following tasks:Read the following fictitious case study and summarize the issue that brought the client to counseling.
Identify the client’s behaviors, emotions, and thinking patterns. In addition, identify how you would apply your encouraging, paraphrasing, and summarizing skills.Demonstrate how you can reflect the client’s feelings.Finally, using empathy, try to understand your client’s perspective.Note: All aspects of this case study are completely fictional and any resemblance to a real person is coincidental.Gary is a 45-year-old sport surgeon. He has come for counseling because he’s been feeling depressed lately. Gary is gay and has been in a committed relationship with his partner Sam for 15 years. Most of the surgeries he does are for elite athletes who are injured and need joint repair. Gary is an avid golfer, has been a vegetarian for 20 years, and he also enjoys jogging and gardening. Sam, his partner, is a business manager. Their relationship is happy, monogamous, and mutually supportive. Gary’s biological family live in the Seattle area. His father is 80 and is a retired heart surgeon who still teaches part time at a medical university. His mother is 75 and does not work outside the home.
He has two adult sisters with whom he is fairly close. His family knows he is gay and is supportive, as well.Gary has a history of depression dating back to undergraduate school.“I’ve always known I was gay.
When I was about 19, I came out to my family, a couple of friends, and to the golf team at school. This caused conflict with my dad for a couple of months, and my golf team acted weird and distant for a couple of weeks. So, during that time I was really down, sad, and couldn’t sleep or eat. I lost weight, worried about things, kept it all in, and couldn’t concentrate. But then things worked out, and all these relationships were okay over time.”Regarding the second time he was depressed, he stated the following:“I was about 30, and I met my partner.
We moved from Seattle to Arizona. My whole support system was pretty much gone. I felt alone, isolated, sad, and numb. I lost interest in my golf game and put myself on Prozac from samples I took from the cabinet at my clinic.”Once Gary got situated in Arizona, he got a great job at a local hospital, made new friends, felt better, took himself off the Prozac, and was back to himself again.Gary’s current problem started about three weeks ago.“I left the local hospital job after 10 years and went to work at a
world-famous hospital. I’ve always wanted to work there. The money is fabulous, my office is huge and very plush, the equipment is state of the art, but I think I might have made a mistake. Every time I make big changes, I get depressed. It just brings back all those old feelings of change, and I feel shaky all over again.
And I feel so guilty that I should be enjoying this dream job, and I’m just too frozen to celebrate all this success. I’m embarrassed as a doctor that I am feeling sad and depressed again. I should rise above this. After all, I am a doctor.
”After three weeks at the world-famous hospital, he has not told any of his current coworkers or support staff that he is gay. Gary says he is worried that they will find out and not like him.
His sleep is not of great quality. He is not finishing his meals, concentrates okay, and has only played golf once in three weeks even though he actually has more time to play.
He states he is too tired after work to do his gardening. He calls himself a health nut, so he does not drink or smoke, has never tried drugs, and states he is not homicidal or suicidal.For the skills listed below, create a two-column table with the client’s comments or situation on the left and your skill response on the right. Give exact quotes you would use with Gary.
EncouragingParaphrasingSummarizingReflect the client’s feelingsAccurately empathize to understand your client’s perspectiveSummarize the overall icture of the client’s story in narrative format.
Your final response should include a two-column table that is two to four pages in length and a one-page summary of the client’s story. Your document should, therefore, not exceed six pages.
All written assignments and responses should follow APA rules for attributing sources.
Present your response in Microsoft Word. Name the file SP6104_M6_A3_lastname_firstinitial.doc. Submit it to the by the due date assigned to the Submissions Area.Assignment 3 Grading Criteria Maximum PointsAccurately identified and summarized the issues that brought the client to counseling.
8Clearly demonstrated the use of encouraging, paraphrasing, and summarizing skills and accurately provided supporting quotes in the response.
16Accurately identified the client’s behaviors, emotions, and thinking patterns and assessed how you would apply your encouraging, paraphrasing, and summarizing skills.
8Clearly demonstrated the ability to reflect the client’s feelings and provided a supporting quote in the response.
8Demonstrated the use of empathizing skill to understand the client’s perspective and provided a supporting quote in the response.
8Clearly and logically applied empathy to explain your client’s perspective.
8Logically collated the overall picture of the client’s story in narrative format.
8Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources, displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
8Total:72
