This is the final written assignment in this course. Throughout the course, you should work to infuse information about your couple and identified patient (Jasmine) in each section. This template is

UNIT ASSIGNMENT 2.2

I chose to work with a non-traditional couple because I want to further my understanding and education in working with couples being that I will be opening up my own private practice one day and will probably be working with a lot of couples. Jasmine comes from a low socioeconomic background where Dilan comes from a suburban middle-class family with ties in the community. I conducted a joint session followed by individual interviews. The couple received a questionnaire and then detailed feedback was given about their relationship. Then we decided on the duration and frequency of the sessions, which will be (4) mock sessions 1.5 hours for each. The dates of service will be August 24, 2020, which is the initial session and informed consent to treat was discussed and signed and they agreed to fully participate. The upcoming session are scheduled as follows: September 09, 2020 @ 3pm; September 28, 2020 @3pm; and October 12, 2020 @ 4:30pm.

The therapeutic interventions to be focused on are friendship, conflict management, and creation of shared meaning. I will be working from Gottman’s Marriage Preparations Workbook II. The purpose of this approach is to get Jasmine and Dilan to learn skills to replace negative conflict patterns with positive interactions and to repair past hurts. This will allow for increase closeness and intimacy that can be utilized to improve friendship, deepen emotional connection, and create changes which will enhance their shared goals (The Gottman Method, n.d.).

Presenting Issues

Jasmine is a 30-year-old black female who is seeking therapy for pre-martial counseling. She is currently employed at Holiday Inn Hotel here in Beaumont Texas. Jasmine reports that she has good family support and has no problems getting along with family and friends. Jasmine presented problems with non-communication in her currently relationship with her fiancé. Jasmine also reports that she is unsure about marriage because the trust has been broken in the relationship. Jasmine reports that she is motivated and willingly to fix issues in the relationship, but not sure her partner is at this moment. Jasmine reports that she has feelings of restlessness and is always on edge worrying about her future with her partner. She reports that she is constantly irritable and has trouble controlling her feelings of worry. She states that the on again off again relationship she has with her partner has drained her and that she is not optimistic about their future. Jasmine meets the DSM-V criteria for Generalized Anxiety (F41.0) as evident by her constant irritability, feelings of restlessness, and trouble controlling feelings of worry (this diagnosis is necessary for billing of insurance purposes when treating couples, there has to be a DSM-V diagnosis from one or both or they will have to pay out of pocket, however if diagnosis can’t be identified it would be unethical to create one for billing purposes).

Jasmine and Counselor established goals for therapy and Jasmine states that she wants to work on effective communication with her partner, learn how to effectively communicate her personal feelings in a manner that it would not be destructive and harmful to the relationship. Jasmine also expressed her strong desire for her partner to hopefully participate in therapy individually without her so that he could address his own personal issues. Therapeutic techniques used were CBT to examine how her negative thoughts or cognitions has contributed to her anxiety and how she behaves and reacts to situations that trigger her anxiety such as her overreaction to partner not sticking to plans for family vacation, which resulted in verbal altercation and left feeling irritable and discontent during family vacation.

I challenged Jasmine to look at her negative thinking patterns that have contributed to her anxiety and replacing them with more positive and realistic thoughts by having her to identify those thinking errors and coming up with more rational interpretations.

Dilan is a 23-year black male also seeking couples therapy with hopes at strengthening his relationship with Jasmine according to what he reports. Dilan reports that he loves Jasmine and hopefully one day will marry her. Dilan reports that his only hesitation right now is the fact that Jasmine has an explosive temper and this concerns him.

Dilan also reports that they often get into petty fights and that this triggers his early childhood memories of his parents arguing and his mother’s family not wanting his mother to be with his father. Dilan reports that his parents do not want him to be with Jasmine simply because they feel Jasmine is not right or good enough for him and he is often caught in between his parents’ wishes and his personal desire to be with Jasmine. He reports that he is still living with his parents and has a desire to be independent, but have not made any attempts at doing so.

Theory of Operation

The theory of operation that I will be using with Jasmine and Dilan is John Gottman’s sound relationship house and discussing the seven principles that are connected to each level or floor of the sound relationship house. I met with the couple and it appears that they do not have a foundation for their relationship and unfamiliar with each other’s desires and wants in a relationship as evident by them being unaware when asked “what are your goals for the relationship and what was your relationship built on for example trust, lies, loyalty?” they could not answer and looked at each other and seemed to be baffled by the question. I chose this approach simply because initially they talked about getting married and wanted the sessions to focus more on pre-martial counseling. As the therapist I acted as the coach and suggested that they put marriage on the back burner for now and have them to work on building a solid foundation for their dream home (marriage), they agreed and stated that they were willing to try anything at this point.

I found an article that will address these vary issues that Jasmine and Dilan are facing. In the article it states that many couples that have relationship issues settled on individualized therapy often as one’s apprehension about couples’ therapy. I picked up on Dilan not being as interested, but willingly to participate in therapy. The article goes on to say these are obstacles that couples face seeking conjoint treatment where men and women often disagree on topics to address while in therapy. I could see this when I met with Dilan and Jasmine. Jasmine wanted to focus on things they needed to do to get ready for marriage, while Dilan wanted to focus more on individual issues that is causing problems in the relationship (Gehart, 2016).

Reference:

Carlson & Dermer,. (2017). Journal of Couples and Relationship Therapy. In Appendix B Resource

Guide PDF. Retrieved from https://learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-

xythos.s3.amazonaws.com/5c082f78d4ba4/7307988?response-cache-

control=private%2C%20max-age%3D21600&response-content-

disposition=inline%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%2

Gehart, D. (2016). Theory and Treatment Planning Family Therapy. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Parnell, K. J., Scheel, M. J., Davis, C. K., & Black, W. W. (2018). An Investigation of Couples’ Help-Seeking:

A Multiple Case Study. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal, 40(1), 110–117. https://doi-org.libproxy.lamar.edu/10.1007/s10591-017-9427-9

The Gottman Method (n.d.). The Gottman Institute. Retrieved from

https://www.gottman.com/about/the-gottman-method/