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Biological Treatment: Depression, Hypomania

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Gathering of Information from Treatment Plan
What information would you gather during the assessment and diagnosis process to assist you in formulating a treatment plan for this client? How would you incorporate current research and diagnostic resources used in the counseling profession to develop a treatment plan that effectively addresses this client's presenting symptoms and issues? Describe the links you are making between the assessment process, the diagnosis, and the approach you will take with the client during therapy. Support your choice of therapy approach with references to the professional literature.

Elements of the Treatment Plan
Describe, in a few sentences, what treatment plans are and what their purpose is, and cite a source to support your points. Then under each of the headers below, describe each element and specific examples to illustrate your ideas, using citations to support your points in each header and a minimum of 3 sentences under each header.
Focus of Therapy
Goals for the Client
Goals to Address the Relational Problems
Specific Interventions for Individual Goals
Specific Interventions for Relational Problems

::Client at hand :::
Tim Vasquez is 26 years old a middle-class Hispanic male client from Puerto Rico. Tim has lived in the US since he was 2 years old. He has recently been diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder. Vasquez is a homosexual and a Roman Catholic with no disabilities. Tim expressed some environmental factors such as alcohol, substance abuse, stress, and lack of sleep. Vasquez, a graduate student of law, usually charts his moods and tracks his daily activities. Vasquez suffered from major episodes of depression, and ultimately hypomanic episodes. Vasquez expressed these episodes to be as frequent as monthly, depending on his current life stressors.

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Solution Summary

The solution provides information, assistance and advise in tackling the task (see above) on the topic of biological treatment of abnormality (i.e. depression, hypomania). Resources are listed for further exploration of the topic.

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Client Assessment and Treatment Plan

Subject Overview - 26 year-old Tim Vazquez is a middle-class Hispanic male who has lived in the US from Puerto Rico since he was 2. He is suffering from depression and hypomanic episodes. Highly intelligent, he is a graduate of Law and tracks his moods and daily activities using a chart. He is homosexual and a Catholic and also suffers from alcohol, substance abuse and lack of sleep. Dependent on his stressors, he suffers episodes with monthly frequency. He sees these stressors as tied to his environment.

Assessment

There are a number of approaches to assessing cases like Tim as his symptoms showcase depression and hypomanic episodes. The standard that can be utilized however would be the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS) (Miller, Johnson and Eisner, 2009) because of the comorbidity of depression and hypomania. While there are particular assessments that can be given for depression on its own or hypomania on its own (often of which is similar to the assessment of bipolar disorder), there is heterogeneity displayed. Following Persons and Fresno (1998) who presented that, "Because of this heterogeneity, dozens of measures have been developed for assessing the various aspects of depression. As a result, the assessor cannot simply administer a
Comprehensive battery; s/he must make choices. These choices are best guided by the purpose
of the assessment," especially when there is a hypothesis that appears to be clear on the onset especially in relation to variables alluded to by the patient's profile (i.e. environmental factors, ethnicity, high-stress profession, sexuality, religion, etc.) where treatment interventions must be dependent on alleviating the symptoms brought on by the variables that lead to the subject's varied psychological issues. I believe that in Tim's case, following Persons and Fresno (1998), the assessment procedures must be hypothesis driven and must, "a function of the treatment the clinician expects to carry out--or at least theoretical model underpinning the clinician's thinking about treatment. Thus, assessment and treatment are intertwined."

Intake, Assessment Elements and Treatment Plan

The simple enumeration of the assessment plan can be as follows:
1. Initial intake interview with Tim - setting should be in an environment that is comfortable and one that would make Tim feel secure and safe: it will be informal in terms of discussion where the questions are primarily to explore client information and the client's chief complaint and to form an initial 'alliance' and rapport and to review current functioning of the client. According to Shoai (2014), "In addition to taking stock of ...

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  • MA, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • Certificate, Geva Ulpan (via Universita Tel Aviv)
  • BA, University of the Philippines
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