Assessment and Treatment Plan

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To help Margarita achieve her goals it is important to use the right approach. Due to Margarita’s situation one post-modern approach that could be successful when working with her is solution focused brief therapy. Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a “postmodern therapy,” which uses empowerment to create a positive environment, separates the client from the problem or diagnosis and helps clients develop goals and solutions. SFBT emphasizes strengths and resiliencies of people by focusing on exceptions to their problems and their conceptualized solutions. (Corey, 2013). Margarita has identified her goals and now it is time to put in a plan of action to achieve these particular set of goals. The particular intervention that I would use with Margarita would be the use of exception questions. As Margarita’s therapist I would ask her questions that focused on times in her life where she was happy rather than the negative or obvious issues that she was dealing with. Exception questions could focus on times in Margarita’s life when she felt happy or confident about herself rather than focusing on the negative feelings she is currently feeling and how to deal with them. This intervention could be used in regards to her marriage as well. Margarita wants to work on repairing the damages that she feels has been done to her and her husband’s relationship. Rather than focusing on the negatives, as a therapist I would have Margarita go back to a time when her and her husband were happy. As Margarita’s therapist, I would also discuss with her about the possibility of her and her husband seeking marriage counseling. Due to the fact that, Margarita has been receiving individual therapy from myself as a counselor, I would make a referral to another counselor so neither Margarita nor her husband would feel that the sessions were biased due to the knowledge I have gained during the therapy sessions with Margarita.

In order for Margarita and her husband to benefit from the use of therapy to work on the issues in their relationship, it is important as a counselor to ensure that when providing a referral, you include necessary information that can assist the new therapist with establishing a good rapport with the couple. One particular thing as a counselor that may be important to mention is the ethic difference of the couple, the age difference and, if proper consent is given from Margarita in regards to her sessions, information in regards to past history of violence and the issues in regards to her husband acting as an enabler.

In regards to Margarita’s last goal of letting go of the guilt she feels in regards to her best friends’ death, this one is more challenging. We all deal with guilt and grieve in different ways. One approach that could work in regards to this particular goal is Narrative therapy. Narrative therapy involves investigating the stories that people tell themselves. Our reality is shaped by the stories that we live our lives according too. We live by our problem-saturated stories and can get stuck in a rut. (Corey, 2013) As Margarita’s counselor I would try to encourage Margarita to remember good times her and her best friend spent together. One intervention that would work well in regards to Margarita’s issues with her best friends’ death is the use of alternative stories and re-authoring. While using alternative stories and re-authoring, a narrative therapist would ask the client for unpredicted outcomes in their dominant problem-saturated story (Corey, 2013). For example, Margarita has mentioned how she should have been the one that died in the car crash. As Margarita’s counselor we could discuss this scenario and how her best friend would react. Another way that this intervention could work would be to discuss with Margarita how she would want her friend to deal with her death if the scenario was reversed.

The ultimate goal is for Margarita to realize that her best friends’ death is not her fault and that she should focus on the good times rather than living in the moment of tragedy. Margarita has been incapable of processing the death of her friend. The grief process consists of five stages; 1. denial, numbness and shock, 2. Bargaining, 3. Depression, 4. Anger and 5. Acceptance. (Joseph Goldberg, 2016) It could be possible that a lot of Margarita’s mental health problems, relationship problems, anger issues and social anxiety issues could be stemming from her inability to process the death of her friend. As Margarita’s counselor it is important to help her go through the grief process because it appears that she is stuck with the guilt of the incident, the anger over the situation and it is ruining her ability to live a normal, healthy and happy life. The use of various forms of post-modern therapy would be the greatest asset to both Margarita and the counselor. By using post-modern therapy, it opens up doors and new techniques that could potentially not only help Margarita achieve her goals but completely change the way she views herself, her marriage and life in general.

References

Joseph Goldberg, M. (2016). Coping with Grief. Web MD.

Quinn, A. (2013). A Person-Centered Approach to Multicultural Counseling Competence. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Volume 53, Issue 2.

Sue, D. &. (2013). Counseling the Culturally diverse: Theory and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Capella (n.d.) Theories in action: Solution Focused Therapy [DVD].

Capella (n.d.) Theories in action: Narrative Therapy [DVD].

Corey, G. (2013), Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy (9th ed,), Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole

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