Unit 5 Discussion 1
Using strategies suggested by Egan and Reese in Chapter 10, help your client start to move out of confusion by identifying possibilities for the future. Explain your method, and list some questions you might ask to help the client.
Construct a dialogue between yourself as the therapist and your client that shows how you might help the client explore possibilities, develop choices (goals), and evaluate the goals to be sure they are appropriate for her or him.
Finding Possibilities Through Divergent Thinking
This study provides the discussion topic for the matching discussion in this unit. You will post your responses in the discussion activity.
Note: This study activity contains the first discussion topic for your group discussions this week.
In Chapter 10, Egan and Reese discusses how divergent thinking can expand the possibilities for solving a problem. Often, clients develop “tunnel vision” when trying to resolve difficulties in their lives, and therapy can help to open up their field of vision. For this discussion, you will choose one of the following cases for your initial post:
Bill is a 42-year-old Caucasian male who has recently become unemployed. He has worked for 12 years as a therapist, then as a supervisor of a mental health facility, and now feels he is seen as too old to be hired again in this kind of position. Bills feels stuck and fairly pessimistic about his future. He cannot afford to retire yet but is very unsure as to what he should do next. Bill is not married and does not have any children.
Solution Preview
Based on the information which has been presented in the case study, the main problem which is being perceived by the forty-two-year-old client, Bill, is confusion about what he will do next. The case study offers information that Bill is now unemployed and is of the belief that he is too old to be hired as a supervisor in a mental health facility. His thoughts have led him to have a pessimistic attitude when it comes to his future, yet he does not wish to retire but instead feels confused about what should be done next.
(1,075 words)