Date: 28 September, 11
Class: PSY/120

Case Study #2

Michael is a 40-year-old airline pilot who has recently begun to experience chest pains. The chest pains began when Michael signed his final divorce papers, ending his 15-year marriage. He fought for joint custody of his two children, ages 12 and 10, but although he wants to be with them more frequently, he only sees them every two weeks. This schedule is, in great part, a result of his employer's announcement that budget constraints would result in layoffs. Michael worries that without his job he will be unable to support his children and lose the new townhouse that he purchased. Michael's chest pains are becoming more frequent and he fears that he may be dying.

What are the causes of stress in Michael’s life? How is stress affecting Michael’s health? Michael has stress coming from a lot of different sources. To start he is an airline pilot. Flying a jet is stressful all on its on without having to worry about the extra stress put on him after the terrorist attacks. He is flying an airline jet, which most likely transports over 100 people. Also his job is at risk after his employers announced budget constraints, which means layoffs. So he is stressed over losing his job as well. Michael is also recovering from a recent divorce from his wife of 15 years which all on its on is an emotional and extremely stressful event. Not to mention the stress coming from not being able to see his kids as much as he wanted after the divorce. Each and every one of those services can and will cause stress. Michael is going through a lot at this time of his life with work and his family as the main factors of stress. This is stress that Michael can’t really get away from and try to ignore. He is just going to have to learn how to cope with his stress factors and try to make better of them all. *
How are these stressors affecting Michael’s self-concept and self-esteem? With the divorce Michael is going through I think it will make any mans self-esteem go down. He may have little to no confidence in himself as a husband. The same goes for his predicament with his kids, and how he can’t see them that much. Again his confidence level will probably be low in being a good father for his children. As I said in the last question he is stressed about losing his job, which shows he isn’t confident in his work methods and about his career retain ability. If you add all of that together you can see that is self-concept may not be so high. He lost his family and may lose his job and everything isn’t going so well for him at the time. So he feels like he just isn’t doing anything correct and that he may be a failure. I’m not saying he thinks he is a failure. But, it may something that we can factor in. *
How might Michael’s situation illustrate adjustment? How might this situation become an opportunity for personal growth? Michael situation illustrates adjustment through his divorce and family separation as well as job security. Going through a divorce is not something that he goes through everyday of his life. So it’s an adjustment in his life that he is going to have to get over and learn to benefit from. He can use this divorce as a personal growth by finding someone better than his ex-wife or just learning that he can be happier single. Another adjustment in his life is him being away from his children. He is use to waking up and going to sleep everyday knowing that they are just a step away. So being able to only see them every 2 weeks is an adjustment in his life that doesn’t make his stress level any better. He can use the time away from his children as a personal growth tool by using those weeks to better himself as a father figure so when he does get to see them he can make it the best time together they ever had. He can also use that time to do research and find ways to gain full custody rights of his children. His job has faced Michael with another adjustment in his life by announcing budget constraints. Knowing that his job is cutting back on jobs and that he might get laid off should cause personal growth for Michael. Because knowing early that he could possibly get laid off can help him find another employer or even get thinking about taking classes to find a less stressful job. Maybe he will get laid off and maybe he won’t, but during his search for jobs he can possibly find a job that he would rather do than flying. *
What defensive coping methods is Michael using? What active coping methods might be healthier for Michael to use? Explain why you would recommend these methods. After thoroughly reading Michael’s case I cannot seem to find any defensive coping methods that he is currently using. One method that he possibly could be using is withdrawal. But, I can’t for sure say that without knowing more about his divorce, and if it was his decision or hers. He feels pain in his chest and instead of trying to cope with it in a positive way, He is having irrational beliefs in his pain by saying that he is scared that he may dye. That statement is irrational and by far jumping the gun. Michael can use a cognitive method to change his irrational belief about him dying. Michael can also go to the doctor and receive some accurate information about his chest pains, which can also help to lower his stress by knowing exactly what is going on. Some active coping methods Michael can use can be expressing his feelings and to turn his stressful thoughts into stress busting thoughts. Everyone needs to get stuff out in the air and off of their chest. So expressing his feelings toward everything that’s going can help Michael release some of his stress. Also by expressing his feelings, others may be able to relate and lend a helping hand in some way. Michael has a lot of stressful thoughts on his mind, and if he just turned those stressful thoughts into stress busting thoughts his stress will minimize much more. For example he is stressing over his job and is worried about getting laid off. What he should do is use that as an opportunity to find a less stressful job that pleases him. * *
Select one theory of personality and use this theory to tell Michael how this theory explains his or her situation. The theory of personality that I chose for Michael is individual psychology. Michael is going through a lot of tough situations in his life that really aren’t going in his favor. He lost his wife, he is upset that he can’t spend as much time with his children as he would prefer and he is scared of losing his job. These are all obstacles in his life that he needs to strive to overcome. The situations he’s placed in can make him feel a sense of inferiority. Again this is another situation where I need to acquire more information from Michael so I can further explain to him why I chose this personality for him. But, with the information we have I can see Michael having inferiority problems because his wife won the custody battle with the children and he’s afraid he will get laid off which means he’s not that high up at work. *
In what stage of development is Michael and what factors about this stage might be affecting his perspective of this situation? I’m going to label Michaels stage if development as middle adult hood. From reading is situation it seems that he is in stage called the catch thirties. Even though Michael is 40 I feel that he is still a catch thirtie prospect. because he has aged out of the thirties yes but he is now at the point of his life where he needs to play catch up on all the things that have been going on. The catch thirties is where people his age seem to reassess where they are headed and try to catch up with their life story. Michael’s life has had a lot of negative action going on in it during the last months, and catching up to it all and overcoming the downfalls is Michaels next step in his life. He chose a life path when he was younger and now is realizing that it is not going according to plan. Which is another trait that comes from be in the stage of middle adult hood and in his catch thirties. The midlife crisis has hit Michael’s life as it normally does for most people in their middle adult hood. He lost his wife, he sees his kids less than he pleases, his job announced lay offs will be happening and he has started to feel chess pains. *
What relationship factors or considerations might be influencing Michael’s problems? Michael is on the brake of losing his entire family. His wife and him have just gone through a divorce and he is losing a great amount of time with his children because of that. I’m no doctor but I’m relating his heart pains with all of his stress that he is going through at this time of his life. The General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) is the name for the sequence of changes that happen to your body during stress. After reading up on GAS I found out the stress can cause many physical problems including heart problems. If we can help Michael to lower his stress we might be able to stop or at least help stop his chest pains. Michaels job may be also contributing to his chest pains. Not only from the stress of flying but aircrafts become pressurized while in the air. And the pressurization may be affecting his chest. I’m no airplane guru so I will need to do more research about his job and find out the facts and statistics.

Reference:

Harder, f. Arlene (2009), “The Development Stage of Erik Erikson”, Learning place online, http://www.learningplaceonline.com/stages/organize/Erikson.htm

Phoenix University, Psychology and Challenges of Life. Retrieved from Phoenix University 28 September, 11, From University of Phoenix course materials.