Treatment Summary
Background and presenting problem
The client, a 33 year old Caucasian female, received treatment at an outpatient Psychology Training clinic over the course of 5 months. Developmentally, the client was from a low SES family of 6 and her parents were separated when she was very young. The client described a pattern of inconsistent employment throughout adulthood. At the time of treatment, the client had recently enrolled in a performance arts graduate program and was employed as a graduate assistant.
The clients stated reasons for seeking treatment included difficulties with attention and concentration, and depressed mood. Specifically, she reported intermittent depressed mood for approximately 10 years and a life-long history …show more content…
Motivational interviewing techniques and psychoeducation were employed to develop rapport, elicit a collaborative therapeutic environment, explain the case conceptualization, and present the implications of the clinical diagnoses to the client. A treatment planned was developed to address the functional impairments stemming from ADHD symptoms and depressed mood.. The treatment plan involved cognitive behavioral techniques to address ADHD related impairment, experiential, and cognitive behavioral techniques to address depressed mood. Cognitive behavioral techniques were initially implemented to help the client develop behavioral schedules to manage daily, weekly, and monthly tasks; and to teach the client how to prioritize tasks based on importance and urgency, break the larger tasks to smaller chunks, sequence tasks, identify and reduce the environmental distracters at home and at work through space management, develop a self-reward schedule contingent upon timely completion of tasks, and identify long-term reinforcers to increase the desirability of distant rewards. Mindfulness techniques were utilized to increase the client’s awareness of self-critical cognitions. Cognitive restructuring techniques were employed to address. Behavioral activation was used to increase the frequency of pleasant events in the …show more content…
She was able to apply time management, space management, and task management skills at school and at work successfully. She learned to develop a self-reward scheme which reinforced her sense of self-efficacy and facilitated the application of new skills that targeted ADHD related functional impairments. She was able to identify self-critical thinking and used cognitive reappraisal to counter these thoughts. She was able to acknowledge the contribution of her attentional problems to perceived failures during her adult life. The client’s grades at school improved, so did her functioning at work. She started to incorporate a new sense of self-efficacy, fostered by improved academic and occupational performance, into her self-concept, which became progressively more positive. Through behavioral activation, the client started allocating more time to pleasurable activities, which helped to improve her depressed