Describe the client and client’s history. Protect the confidentiality of the client by changing any client identifiers to maintain client confidentiality. Do not copy and paste information contained in the client’s case file at the practicum site. The description of the client and client’s history should be no longer than 3-4 paragraphs. In your own words, include the following areas of information:
Client’s age
Race or ethnicity
Cultural background
Gender identity
Educational background
Employment history
Financial issues, if any
Family history and currently living situation
Legal issues, if any
Previous counseling experience. If any, briefly describe those experience, including any hospitalization, other mental health services, and references for community resources.
Socioeconomic status
Any other information that may be pertinent
Client’s Presenting Issues and Concerns
Briefly describe the client’s presenting issues and concerns that the client has stated has brought him/her/they/them to counselling at this time. All symptoms are to be clearly identified and organized. Describe your understanding of the main issues and concerns using clear and concise terminology.
Assessment Processes
Identify and describe the processes used to complete a comprehensive assessment of the client. Discuss how the assessments were selected (rationale) and how the client’s cultural background was considered in the selection of assessment instruments. If formal testing was conducted, provide the name(s) of any formal tests that were administered with dates, results, recommendations, and relevance of those assessment tools. If informal tools were used to gather client information, clearly identify the informal tools (e.g., review of records, interviews, observations, etc.). Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Theoretical Foundation
Engage in a literature review that supports and provides a rationale for selecting one counselling theoretical orientation. The literature review must be specific to the client’s presenting concerns, culture, and fit for the client. For example, what does the literature state about the most effective types of counselling approaches used with clients who are similar in background and presenting issues as your selected client? Prediction of client change will be considered through the lens of research evidence and specific to the client.
Consider the following points as you engage in the literature review and in your decision-making process for selecting the counselling theory:
What population/problem was it created to address? What are the underlying philosophies?
What propositions/ideas are at the foundation of the theory?
How does the theory describe a person’s distress?
How does the theory describe how a person moves from psychopathology to health?
What does the counsellor hope to accomplish with their work using this theoretical approach?
How does the counsellor facilitate the client’s movement toward psychological health?
Following the literature review, provide an understanding of a variety of approaches and theories related to the client and clinical issues. Identify and describe one selected counselling theory (such as Psychodynamic, Cognitive-Behavioral Theory, Humanistic, etc.) that provides the theoretical foundation for the treatment plan for counselling the client. Summarize the rationale for the selected counselling theory, incorporating the theory’s philosophy and constructs that will provide the foundation in the construction of the treatment plan for the client (to be addressed later in the paper).
Depending on the theoretical orientation, include varied ways to understand the health and well-being of the client, including but not limited to such factors as: medical/health matters or diagnosis, critical events, relationships, work/school, spirituality, psychometric testing, meaningful activities, and capacity in daily living.
Consider incorporating some of the following points that facilitated your decision-making process to select the counselling theory for your client:
What population/problem was the theory created to address? What are the underlying philosophies?
What propositions/ideas are at the foundation of the theory?
How does the theory describe a person’s distress?
How does the theory describe how a person moves from psychopathology to health?
What does the counsellor hope to accomplish with their work using this theoretical approach?
How does the counsellor facilitate the client’s movement toward psychological health?
Given the theory you have described, how do you as the counsellor understand the client’s distress?
Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Cultural Considerations
Describe the complexity of the client’s culture in relation to its history, values, politics, communication styles, economy, or beliefs and practices. Provide evidence of adjustment in your own attitudes and beliefs because of working within and learning from diversity of communities and cultures. Assess the impact of assumptions, judgments, and/or biases related to other cultures. Describe how you incorporate diverse and multiple perspectives when working with others. Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Ethical Considerations
Identify potential ethical issues that may arise in your work with the client at your practicum site. Describe the ethical implications of these issues. Identify and apply ethical perspectives/concepts and to address them, making connections with professional codes of ethics with literature support. Refer to the specific regulations and ethical standards in your discussion. Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Treatment Plan
In this section, students will present and describe the formulation of the client’s treatment plan to address the client’s presenting issues and concerns? Include a description of how the treatment goals were discussed with the client.
Identify and describe the structure of the client’s treatment plan. Explain how the components of the treatment plan align with the theoretical foundation (i.e., counselling theory)? Include the frequency of counselling sessions and provide a rationale for the selection of frequency of treatment.
Include in the description of the structure of the client’s treatment plan identification of the long-term goals for the client. Identify 1-2 long term goals, only. What makes these goals feasible and sufficient to address the client’s presenting issues and concerns? Discuss how the treatment goals were discussed with the client. Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Interventions
Identify the interventions utilized in counselling sessions with the client that align with the selected counselling theory and the long-term treatment goals. How are these interventions appropriate and specific to the client, at this time? Provide empirical or professional literature support for the selection of the interventions. Support the discussion with empirical or professional literature.
Given the theory’s mechanism of change, goal of psychotherapy, and therapist role, what occurred during the sessions that helped the patient move toward psychological health?
Assignment Requirements:
Type and Type Font: Times New Roman, 12-point font size.
Length of Paper: 10-15 double-spaced typed pages, not including the title and references page. Do not exceed the maximum page count.
Save Document Format: Please, save your assignment in Microsoft Word (files with extension .doc or .docx), or Rich Text Format (files with extension .rtf)
APA formatting: No table of contents; no abstract. Formatting in most current APA style, APA 7th edition. Please use headings throughout your paper that are consistent with the assignment’s grading rubric (that way you ensure adequately addressing all required areas).
References: A minimum of five (5) scholarly reference sources. Aim to cite scholarly references sources (i.e., text and journal articles) published within the past five years, unless citing a class work. Any sources used to support your assignment paper should be cited using correct APA formatting (7th ed.).
