understand, differentiate, and critically evaluate the central approaches to counseling and psychotherapy: Counselling Essay, SUSS, Singapore

Assessment task link to unit learning outcomes:

1. understand, differentiate, and critically evaluate the central approaches to counseling and psychotherapy

2.understand the dynamics and diversity of individual, couple and group counseling and apply their skills accordingly

3.cultivate sensitivity to other people’s cultural and personal ways and preferences

Details of case study:

Your agency offers couples, family and group counselling.

Matt phones your services and wants to know what sorts of counselling services are available to help his family and how it might help them.

Matt (52) and Joy (37) are a re-married couple with their first baby who is 9 months old. They have been married for 4 years. Matt has been previously married with two children Tom (15) and Sarah (13) who both visit every second weekend.  Their mother Sandy is dating and looks forward to having these child-free weekends. Joy divorced from her first marriage in her 20’s without children from that relationship.

The baby has settled well into a routine, and Joy would like to return to her part time job. Joy’s mother Penny (68) has recently come over from Malaysia and is planning on living with them for 12 months as she is grieving the loss of her husband who died a year ago. Joy is really pleased that her mother can help out with the care of the baby and help facilitate her return to work but Matt is not keen on it. Matt’s family reside in the UK.

Tom is having learning problems at school and was in trouble for stealing some money from his mother, Sandy. As a result Sandy feels that Tom should stay with his father every weekend, to allow them to have  more time together doing “male bonding” activities.  Sarah is quite precocious and spends a lot of time communicating on social media. Joy feels that Sarah’s dress is quite “tarty” and that she is too interested in her looks and appearance and not spending much time on her studies. Matt thinks that Joy is too uptight and needs to take things more easily with Tom and Sarah.

Matt and Joy find themselves getting into heated arguments recently, due to all of these issues. When arguments occur, Matt usually withdraws into his study and nothing seems to get resolved. During COVID-19 Matt was working from home and Joy noticed that Matt was spending an increasing amount of time watching sports and engaging in sports betting.  Joy wants Matt to step up and be more involved in his children’s lives. Penny, Matt’s mother-in-law, has noticed Matt escapes into his study as the tension and conflict escalates in the home and she is worried about the impact this is having on her daughter.

ASSESSMENT 2 QUESTIONS                                                                                                                                                   

Respond to the following assessment questions in relation to the case study above:

1.Present an evidence base for each (couples, family and group) approach that might be helpful for developing different goals for the presenting issues. Outline the benefits, limitations and possible risks of each approach. [15 marks]

2.Draw a genogram for the family representing who is in it and use symbols to represent their different relationships, including their (emotional relationship).

3.Discuss who you might include for the different modalities and discuss reasons for your decisions, the similarities and differences in establishing therapeutic relationships in couples, family and group counselling.  How would you go about engaging more than one person in counselling?

How would you engage children or teenagers who might be reluctant to attend family counselling?

Choose FIVE skills from the list below and give five examples of how you would use these skills for the case study with ONE of the modalities

(couples, family and group counselling). Give a brief definition of the skills, and apply it to the family case study and identify which modality you are working in:

probing questions

advanced empathy

exception questions

scaling questions

challenging

externalization

circular questions

4. Briefly describe why tailoring therapy is critical to therapeutic outcomes. Pick one of the modalities and discuss how you would tailor your

5. counselling approach to address clients’ preferences, cultural and diversity differences (for this case study).

It has been several months since the family has stopped receiving counselling at your agency. Joy’s mother Penny has noticed that Tom seems to be sharing photos of Sarah in revealing attire on his phone. Joy phones your agency and asks for help with this issue. Discuss how you would work therapeutically with any potential ethical issues using one or more of the modalities (couples, groups, families).