'Assessment task 2 Title: Self-appraisal of therapeutic practice Details of task: Students are to organise a minimum of three sessions of counselling with a volunteer client, with no moie than five...

Self-appraisal of Therapeutic Practice
Introduction
The aim of this assignment was to successfully appraise our own performance as a therapist. To do
this we evaluated our effectiveness by analysing the skills that we used as a therapist, the client's
perceived effectiveness and the implementation of our treatment plan.
For the purpose of this assignment, three therapy sessions were conducted on Steve. The objective
of this exercise was to apply therapeutic techniques learnt so far in real life scenarios on a real life
client and thereafter evaluate our performance in the application of the therapy.
In order to effectively judge our performance, we must analyse our skills as therapists and the
effectiveness of our therapy in achieving the therapeutic goals though our implemented treatment
plan.
The effectiveness of our therapy can be evidenced by the positive changes that come about in the
client post therapy. The client is the witness to how his or her life improves as a consequence of
undergoing therapy.
Understanding our areas of improvement is an important part of this assignment. Being aware of
our weaknesses and shortcomings is the first step to becoming a better therapist. By analysing these
areas of improvement we can search for and learn ways to improve ourselves by working on them.
A Description of the Client's Presenting Problem
The client who volunteered to participate in this current exercise is a young adult of age 30. He is a
married man with no children. He is of Singaporean origin and identifies as a Christian. His current
occupation is as a Public Relations Manager.
His major issues and concerns revolve around his marriage. Another source of dissatisfaction for
him his work; his current position as Public Relations Manager.
The client claims to feel dissatisfaction with the current state of his marriage. He also feels a sense
of hopelessness about the future prospects of his marriage. He has been married for two years which
was after five years of courtship with his wife. His perception of his wife is of a cold, self-centred
woman, who does not care about him or his feelings at all. Despite all the problems he perceives in
his marriage with her, he is not interested in separation or divorce, as he feels that they are not a
solution to the problems he faces. Partly, this is because he wishes to find a resolution to his issues
through therapy and partly because he is fearful of never finding another partner. The couple faced
several periods of separation and other problems during their courtship; this likely also contributes
to his current fears and worries about his marriage and its future.
The problems that the client has with his wife are a representation of dysfunctional cognitive beliefs
that the client holds about marriage and interpersonal relationships. Firstly, he has extraordinary
expectations from his wife that, when not met lead to his marital dissatisfaction. Another factor is
his lack of reciprocity is his relationship. He seems to feel entitles to the benefits of a marriage
without making efforts from his side. He also displays various avoidance behaviours and does not
effectively communicate in interpersonal relationships. Overall, he lacks problem-solving abilities
and skills to deal and cope with day to day life hassles.
The client‟s job is also a source of dissatisfaction for him. He has been an average student and had a
number of ups and downs with respect to academics. He did not have a clear direction in terms of
occupational selection. His current position as a Public Relations Manager is the result of pressure
from his father, and his own lack of direction.
The client‟s interpersonal problems could have been influenced by his mother‟s negligence and
permissiveness, which in turn are likely due to her smoking habit and an overall negligent parenting
style. His father was dominating and had an authoritarian parenting style. The combination of these
two parenting styles has left the client incompetent in interpersonal relationships; he seems to be
attention seeking, he is unconcerned about others while being dependant on them, he is dominating
towards those closest to him, and lacks self-esteem and confidence. His academic problems could
have been the result of his father's transferable job that led to frequent changes in schools, and an
inadequate and erratic schooling schedule.
Overview of sessions conducted
The first session was aimed at discovering “what‟s going on” and the client was asked to explain all
the current problems facing him.
The first step for me in this session was to be a good listener by reflecting and paraphrasing
whatever the client shared. The client talked about his problem with his wife and marriage. His
fears about his marriage were further explored. Another area of concern for the client was found to
be his work. Though he did not have problems in his work environment, he was not personally
happy with the nature of his work and the compensation he received for it.
In order to address the nature of his problems with his wife, he was encouraged to explain the
situation from her perspective. It was elicited that he shared a lot of common interest and good
moments with her. His blind spots were his own responsibilities in the marriage and his lack of
understanding of his wife needs and perspective. The focus of the session was shifted to her and her
feelings and ideas. As food for thought, the client was asked to further think about his wife‟s
perspectives and feelings before the next session. He was also asked to list down all the things he
wishes to change in his life. Before ending the session the client was taught Jacobson‟s Progressive
Muscle Relaxation (JPMR) technique and was asked to practice it every day especially when he felt
anxious.
In the second session we continued with the first stage of Egan‟s model and brought it to conclusion.
After that we commenced the second stage of the model. Firstly, the homework given to the client
was reviewed. It was noted that the client had listed his problems in life, rather than the changes that
he would like to see in it as we had discussed he should do. The client was asked to elaborate on
these problems, and as the client talked about them in some more detail, associations were made
relating to his childhood. Then, the client and I collaboratively came to a conclusion of what major
problems should be a focus of the subsequent therapy sessions. The following were decided as the
problem:
 Interpersonal problems leading to marital dissatisfaction and discord.
 Dissatisfaction with current job as Public Relations Manager
As we moved to the second stage, we brainstormed ideals and the ways in which the client would
want his life to be better. The client displayed an external locus of control. Instead of taking
responsibility for his problems, he initially tended to avoid approaching the solutions as something
that were in his control. His solutions were instead primarily focussed on making changes to his
external environment.
By the end of the session, however, the client‟s thoughts had been sufficiently challenged, and he
began to show that he understood his role in his own life and also how his thoughts affect his
feelings and behaviours. The thought-feelings-behaviour cycle was reiterated to facilitate his
process of understanding. The result of this session was that we had collaboratively decided the
goals of the therapy.
The following are the goals that we decided that he must reach:
1. Better marital satisfaction
2. Higher self-esteem and less fear and anxiety
3. More clarity with regard to professional endeavours
The client harboured negative thoughts especially with regard to himself, his wife, the future of his
marriage, as well as his professional future. In order to work on these negative thoughts the client
was taught to use a thought diary and was asked to maintain it and keep a record of all his negative
thoughts until the nest session.
In the third session, after a brief greeting and rapport formation, the client‟s thought diary was
reviewed. The thoughts from his thought diary were used to explain the cognitive errors in the
client‟s thinking. Some of the cognitive errors elicited in his thinking were:
1. Jumping to conclusions: He was of the opinion that is was very unlikely for him to get a
decent job if he left his current one. He also was under the assumption that his relationship
with his wife was likely to fail.
2. Mind reading: He was certain of the way his wife feels about him and perceives him without
any evidence to support his conclusions.
3. Magnification: He would fear and assume that even a small fight could mean that his
marriage was bound to fail and he was bound to be separated.
4. Emotional Reasoning: He was sure that his wife did not care for him, simply because he felt
that she did not care for him.
5. Selective Abstraction: Despite having so many positive experiences, shared interest and
hobbies, sexual satisfaction, his focus was on the negatives while completely discounting
the positives.
6. All or nothing thinking: He felt that...