Case Study_using Egan’s Model Essay, Research Paper

REPORT ON SESSION 1 ASSIGNMENT 1 The client that you will see in this video, has been a presenter for ******** (for the past 18 months. As the Eastern Area Coordinator for this organization, part of my work, is that I hold monthly support groups for my presenters. This is an extremely important part of my work, as all of the presenters, have personally experienced mental illness, which in fact is what makes our presentations so special. I will also see presenters on a one-to-one basis as is needed and at present there are two presenters that I have been counseling on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. Sally is a 39-year-old woman, who is the mother to twin girls Sue and Jill aged 6. Sally is currently working part time as an accountant and also works for when she has time. Sally is a single parent by choice and leads a very busy and full life. Approximately 4 years ago Sally was diagnosed as having severe depression and anxiety and today continues to take medication for these conditions. Approximately six months ago, during one of our group sessions, Sally communicated to the group that her mother was a monster and that she was furious with the way that her mother was criticizing and badgering her in front of other people and her two daughters. Sally then broke down in tears and after this particular session, she asked if I would see her privately. To mention any more than the very relevant points covered in the last six months would take up the word limit of this report, so vast and deep are the issues between Sally and her mother. Also it is important to add that Sally also visits her psychiatrist on a monthly basis and her family doctor also seems very supportive and well liked by Sandra.During some of our earlier sessions, I learnt that Sally s mother was an attentive grandmother, doting on her granddaughters and always happy to have them stay over on the weekends. Unfortunately her relationship with her own daughter was very different. Sally was devastated by her mother s ability to cut her up into little pieces as she put it, at the most embarrassing moments. Sally stated that her mother criticized everything, from the way she was raising and caring for her daughters, to the way she dressed, her choice of friends, work, lifestyle and so on and so on. Nearly all of my sessions with Sally have been focused on these issues. Also what has recently come to be a devastating issue for Sally, was that her mother, over the past two months has been sending Sally obscene and quite bizarre letters. These letters have had a major impact on Sally, in that Sally has had to make some choices. Choices concerning issues on whether her mother should have access to the girls and in particular that the access be restricted to set days and times. In this session I heard for the first time that Sally s mother had also been picking and choosing when she would see her granddaughters. This unstable situation had finally brought Sally to make some tough decisions. When marking this session please understand that I finished off the session fairly quickly, this was for the benefit of the video. Quite unexpectantly a situation had arisen on the particular morning that Sally was to be taped, so I had agreed that we would talk about these issues off camera , as requested by the client. As you will see the issue of Sally s mother and her behaviour was our main focus in this particular session. Sally you will see has no trouble in communicating and I have found that what works best with her is to let her talk for a long time and then I ll come in after about 10 to 15 minutes. So when I tried to use a bit more of the Egan Model I think it threw her a bit, even though we discussed this prior to the video. I think this was a positive experience not only for the client but for me as well. I found that I was able to challenge her allot more than I normally would and this in turn, led the client to look at some issues that she had been reluctant to do so in the past.

I look back now to the first residential school and think about some of the triads and diads that I participated in. I felt that I had so much to learn, so many of the microskills just weren t making sense to me. Some of these are open-ended questioning, paraphrasing, self-disclosure and immediacy. There were also a few that I felt comfortable and familiar with, I may not be as skilled as I should be in these areas but at least I understand them enough to use them with confidence. These skills are probing, attending SOLER, basic empathy. I found it hard to process the mass of information coming in from this particular client and to pick out one or two things that might be an important area to work further on. Which was the right path to travel down? I m sure for a skilled counselor this is second nature, but for a novice like myself I felt overwhelmed at times. I found that I wanted to be there at all times, for the client but trying to keep Egan Stage 1 and all that entails was hard for me. I found that the session flowed well, the client was able to tell her story, and at the same time I feel that I was able to pick out two issues, that the client was able to explore further. One being a blind spot , which was, the issue of control, not only her mothers control, but also the client becoming a controlling person herself. I felt good about this aspect of the session. After taping ended we discussed what we would talk about in our next session and the client wants to dig deeper as she puts it on the issues of control. What did I do reasonably well? I felt that my use of SOLER was fairly good, I felt that I displayed clearly that I respected this client. My body language and posture was relaxed and open (with consideration that we were videotaping), my eye contact was good, facial expressions were appropriate. On the day there was a lot of drilling and hammering going on in the next house, I chose to ignore these totally, in turn this reflected back on to the client in a positive way, she knew that I was totally focusing on her and her story. Basic empathy and at times the use of Advanced empathy were performed reasonably well throughout the session. I felt that I was able to enter into the clients world, that I really understood what she was telling me, what she was feeling etc, and that I was able to let her know this, by not only my attending skills, but by my verbal communication as well. I was able to reflect back and mirror effectively several times throughout the session This formed trust and respect and as result helped to build an effective therapeutic relationship. Immediacy and when to use it in this session. I think that I did once, maybe twice with some skill. Otherwise this is an area I feel I need to work on, over and over again. I need allot more practice here and I look forward to the residential school in April so that I can discuss this with some of my peers and practice all of my microskills. When it came to open-ended questioning and paraphrasing, I was already a little worried about these two skills and how competent I would be in these areas. I think there were a couple of open-ended questions, which worked really well in the session. As for the rest I m cringing as I type, I look and sound so unprofessional it s a joke! Yet again I need practice here, I don t know how I could get so lost. Another thing that only became apparent after I reviewed the tape several times was that I have a whole lot of missed opportunities. The client quite clearly made several comments, great things that I should have leapt on, or at least acknowledged what a waste!! Overall I think that the session went fairly well. I traveled down several roads with the client, helped her to look at a blind spot or two, challenged, probed and was respectful and open to her, letting her know that she had my full attendance at all times. The client was able to tell her story and I was able to subtly, on most occasions drive this story using Egan as my vehicle of choice.