Using this case

Case of Grace Grace is a 37-year-old single woman. She is currently balancing a demanding full-time job and being a full-time graduate student working on her Ph.D. Both of her parents are engineering professors, and they expected she would become an engineer as well. Instead, she chose to become a psychologist. Her parents see her entry into this field as frivolous and taking "the easy way" to earn a Ph.D. They minimize the difficulty of her program and the time she has to spend studying. When she talks to them about her stress, they dismiss her and talk about how complex their degree programs were and how they were "real" degrees. When they make these comments, Grace reports she feels hurt and withdraws from them. Since beginning graduate school, Grace has reported problems with sleeping, racing thoughts, hair loss, and significant weight loss. She states she lives on coffee and granola bars because she does not have time to cook. Socially, she reports she does not have time for friends as she is either working or studying. Going out with friends would take away the time she needs to study as she plans to graduate with the highest honors as she has done with her previous degrees. Her mantra is "nothing but an A." At work, Grace is well-liked, and she is in a management position. She has always received stellar reviews until the most recent one. With this review, her boss noted she was late on a critical report and that a few of her team members complained about her snapping at them when they asked questions. The poor review is something she has never experienced in her life, and she continues to think about it all the time. She fears she will lose her job and then be unable to continue her degree. Because her friends stopped asking her to go out, and her parents are unsupportive of her degree and the pressure she feels, she says she has no one to talk to about her feeling

Instructions

• Briefly describe the client case and presenting problem in concise clinical terminology (do not restate the case study word for word - this is a summarized presentation of the client)
• Discuss and apply theoretical assumptions, principles, and foundations of the humanistic theory to develop the case conceptualization. A case conceptualization, which is informed by the therapy's theoretical foundation, includes what has contributed to a client's symptoms, problems in living, maladaptive relational interactions, and what appears to maintain symptoms despite a client's efforts to move beyond them. In their book, Case Conceptualization: Mastering this Competency with Ease and Confidence, Sperry and Sperry (2020) outline three components of case conceptualization, including predispositions, protective factors, and perpetuants (pp.41-42).
• Evaluate at least 2 interventions or techniques associated with this theory that could be appropriately applied to the client case. Compose a short example of how these interventions could be applied in session. An example of an intervention, from a relational cyclical patterns approach (CCRT) would be assisting the client to identify problematic themes and patterns in interpersonal interactions across settings. Another would be helping to identify the wishes, needs and intentions they have in interactions with others.
• Report possible limitations of using this theory from a multicultural perspective.
• Appraise your personal alignment with the selected theory (i.e., how do you align with the theory's assumptions, principles, or foundational beliefs?). Students can use the first-person writing style in this section.

Structure