Assignment Overview
After reading the assigned chapters for this week, my guess is that you are wondering how a therapist utilizes theory while working with a couple. That is a great question to have, and this assignment will help you to answer that question. In this paper, you are tasked with clearly articulating your clinical and personal assumptions of the couple and their situation based on the information provided. You will demonstrate your understanding of how to structure a couple’s therapy session to include the initial and ongoing assessment of the personal and interactive personality markers that influence relational engagement. You will then offer a case conceptualization in which you identify target behaviors that may be contributing to the challenges presented by the client unit. As a result of the assessment and conceptualization, you will articulate behavioral or integrative interventions (minimum of three) that will benefit the couple. As you share these interventions you will also clearly outline the clinical rationale for the selection of each of the interventions mentioned. You will also identify behavioral or integrative interventions that you believe would not clinically benefit the clients (minimum of two). In your response, make a case for why the selected interventions would not be of benefit to the client unit in question.
Vignette:
Abdul-Khabir and Hadiza come to see you for marital therapy. Abdul-Khabir is 37 years of age and works as a civil engineer. Hadiza is 36 years of age and was a nurse for many years. The couple have been married for 10 years and have two children ages six and three.
In the initial session and after the review of the informed consent and mandated reporting guidelines the couple talk about the presented challenges. Abdul-Khabir shared that after being married for 10 years he is having a tough time remembering how and why he fell in love with Hadiza. Arms folded and eyes full of tears, he slowly articulates how Hadiza has changed. He shared that she used to be energetic, engaging, and full of life. Now she hardly gets on his bed, struggles to help him take care of the kids, refuses to go out with him, the family, or with her friends. Whenever the topic of doing something other than sitting at home comes up it turns into a massive argument, and he is tired of having to argue constantly with his wife.
Hadiza sits patiently in the room as her husband shares his view of the challenges. As she is asked why the couple is here, in a confident and controlled tone she says, life would be much better if Khabir would learn how to relax. She says that earlier on in their marriage they would go out or be around family every weekend. It is the same scene, the same people, the same discussions, the same problems, just a different year and she is tired of it. She shared that her husband is neurotic, and any slight change in his world is made out to be a big earth-shattering problem. She indicates that she has the primary responsibility to care for the children and does not understand her husband’s perspective that she struggles to care for them.
As you author your paper, be sure to address all of the following questions. Do not cut and paste the questions into the text of your paper and do not use bullet points for any section of the paper. Failure to comply will result in a deduction of 10 points.
Paper Format:
Introduction:
Before delving into the main subject matter of your paper, please introduce your work and clearly explain what you plan to discuss in your paper.
Assumptions:
In this section, you are to identify your personal and professional assumptions based on the information shared within the vignette (a minimum of four). Clearly articulate how you reached the assumptions you have made regarding the client unit. It is important to note that personal and professional assumptions influence the way we work with our clients, and it is important that we identify those assumptions to create an accepting and growth-centered therapeutic environment.
Assessment:
After reading the vignette multiple times, address how you plan to structure the couple therapy session. Clearly identify and articulate theory specific assessment-based questions that would help you gather relevant information to help you assist the clients further (a minimum of five). It is important that you share the rationale for each of the questions you have identified. Specifically, share how the answers to the questions you have asked would benefit your understanding of the issues presented by the client unit.
Case Conceptualization:
In this section, you will write out a clinical conceptualization demonstrating your understanding of the presented issues using the language of the theory. For this assignment, you are employing the behavioral or the integrative approach. As a reminder, you should focus on the key factors shared by your client(s) and infer certain unspoken or unshared circumstances. Clearly support your hunches by referring to the information found in the vignette and stay away from simply summarizing the vignette. In addition, be sure to clearly outline structural or interactive nuances that help to maintain the presenting problem in place.
Behavioral or Integrative Interventions:
In this section, you will select one of the theories assigned to this week’s reading and articulate a minimum of three interventions you would use to help the client unit. As you share the specific interventions, please include the rationale for your selection and how the clients would benefit from the selected interventions. To demonstrate your ability to identify relevant interventions given the presence of specific issues and challenges, identify a minimum of two interventions that would not benefit the client unit.
Conclusion:
Summarize what you presented in the previous pages and draw a summative conclusion. In other words, this is where you get to share the highlights of your paper. Focus on the central theme of the paper and express your discoveries along the way.
