Introduction
The subsequent hypothetical case study aims its attention towards the 79-year-old female. She has applied for help from the agency that provides case management for low-income seniors who live at home and for whom English is a second language because of her recent loss. Sara Anderson is a Caucasian woman of 79 years and recently had moved to Springfield, Massachusetts from Germany. Sara gave birth to two children and is a grandmother of five. Moreover, she barely has any acquaintances or friends in Springfield for the reason that she has only been living in the United States for a little over a year. She is of the Christian faith and tries her best to be present at the spiritual amenities infrequently at the local church. Her spiritual principles are intensely affecting her ways of living. Her primary language is German; she is able to speak English on the basic level that is required for a foreign person for a reasonably comfortable life in the United States.
Her husband, with whom she was married for 60 years passed away from a heart disease recently in Germany. At first, she maintained herself with the help of her pension; moreover, her children tried to send her some money. After a while, they managed to convince Sara to move to the United States, as they had a family business of food delivery there. Her youngest daughter, Julie, had pleaded her to live in the United States since Sara had sent her there to enlarge the family commerce herself.
Her recently passed husband, Dennis, worked as a cashier in a local book shop. He started feeling exhausted at the end of the day and desired to leave this occupation; nonetheless, he thought that he would not leave his wife and himself unemployed. He failed to inform his wife of his fatigue as he was concerned about their financial situation, as they possessed no welfares or health cover and had no relatives left in Germany to support them. Moreover, the financial situation of Sara had not improved in the United States, as she did not get health insurance and had no job. Furthermore, due to her religious beliefs, she blames herself for the death of her husband and that she failed to foresee his bad state of health. Sara had to deal with the estate in Germany and the legal matters connected with the death of her husband alone; as a consequence, when she came to the United States, she was completely lost in her grief.
Analysis
Sara presents herself as a rather agitated woman for her age, wandering continually. Her attention period appears to be very diminutive, and she passes most of her leisure time discussing a restricted amount of subjects in a loud manner. As a method of self-stimulatory performance, she reprises inquiries and replies to the topics from her detached past in Germany. She recurrently tries to involve the workers of the agency in the inquiry and response procedure by requesting them to replicate, word for word, the responses to the requests which she gives in her native language at first. Nonetheless, as there are cultural and linguistic differences, it is hard for her to fulfill her intentions (Neimeyer, 2010). The content of the questions differs and it is contingent on the temper state of Sara.
If she is in an optimistic temperament, she aims her attention on her children and can give away a little laugh when she catches the responses to her queries. When she starts to go into a depressing stage, her attention changes to her dead husband. Her level of nervousness escalates throughout these stages as mirrored by augmented crying, the higher power of speech capacity at the same time as expressing her thoughts and intensification in strong occurrences of violence and self-harmful performance. An attainment plan of the resources will include financial planning: as it was mentioned before, her children will provide their help by the means of the Medicaid. The number of staff will be dependent on the immensity of the state of health of Sara.
The suggestion that the deterioration in her mental health was focusing on the upcoming anniversary of the death of her husband was investigated. The social worker would endorse a practical tactic towards the forthcoming summer; it would offer Sara more intense sessions of grief counseling that could be paid by Medicare coverage of her children who already became the citizens of the United States. It is concluded that she would react best to a particular assignment, which will be the central focus of her therapy (Wilson & Gabriel, 2014). Several potential barriers are expected to create challenges in the plan of care, such as the fact that her husband is buried in Germany and that she does not have any health insurance. On the other hand, her family support is a valuable addition to the therapy and will be effectively utilized. “The goal in grief counseling is not to produce absolute improvement (relative to a control group) that will endure over time, but to accelerate a natural healing process” (Hoyt & Larson, 2010, p. 11).
As a part of grief counseling, Sara can be asked whether she would like to visit the grave of her husband in Germany (Schut, 2010). Not only Sara was questioned whether she needed to do so, but also the reason for this desire, and what she is expecting to attain there. She has to be persuaded that she has an opportunity to refuse this trip and is able to change her decision at any time. “Treatment interventions can effectively diminish complicated grief symptoms. Preventive interventions, on the other hand, do not appear to be effective. Limitations of the meta-analysis and future research options are discussed” (Wittouck & Autreve, 2011, p. 70).
It is imperative to state that Sara’s nervousness and disparaging performance are a fragment of a compound interactive/psychiatric illness that appears to be a consequence of numerous issues. It is, for that reason, unmanageable to be sure that grief counseling will be the reason for the improvement of the health of Sara (Cooper & O’Hara, 2013). On the other hand, it is likely that the danger for a chief depressing incidence will be decreased by the sustenance of the support team and her family around the time of the anniversary of the passing of her husband. “Historically, training, research, and practice in counseling and psychotherapy have been dominated by unitary theoretical models. Although integrative and eclectic positions have been developed as alternatives, these have not been successful in generating research and have resulted in a further proliferation of competing models” (Cooper & McLeod, 2007, p. 137).
The mourning route may impair interactive indicators as proposed by numerous researches: “bereaved individuals are at increased risk of mental and physical disorders, and prevention and treatment of complicated grief are indicated” (Wittouck & Autreve, 2011, p. 69). Clinicians ought to deliberate and investigate damage and sorrow histories at all times while evaluating behavior difficulties. Direction over the mourning process might possess valuable and advantageous effects in decreasing the menace of foremost despair or declining nervousness indications.
References
Cooper, M., & McLeod, J. (2007). A pluralistic framework for counselling and psychotherapy: Implications for research. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research: Linking research with practice, 7(3), 135-143.
Cooper, M., & O’Hara, M. (2013). The handbook of person-centred psychotherapy and counselling. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoyt, W., & Larson, D. (2010). What have we learned from research on grief counselling? Bereavement Care, 29(1), 10-13.
Neimeyer, R. (2010). Grief counselling and therapy. Bereavement Care, 29(2), 13-16.
Schut, H. (2010). Grief counselling efficacy. Bereavement Care, 29(1), 8-9.
Wilson, J., & Gabriel, L. (2014). Observing a client’s grieving process: bringing logical positivism into qualitative grief counselling research. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 42(5), 568-583.
Wittouck, C., & Autreve, S. (2011). The prevention and treatment of complicated grief: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(1), 69-78.