Personal history and experiences gained throughout childhood and adolescence can significantly influence one’s personality, behaviors, and tendencies in developing relationships with other people. This paper analyzes the client’s results of the FIRO-B assessment instrument and links the findings to the events that occurred throughout her life until today. Death of a close family member and separation from a brother became the most traumatic losses in the client’s life. The analysis shows that from low to medium levels of inclusion, control and affection take their roots in the client’s background. The paper provides recommendations for future therapy, including family sessions.
An individual’s history and background can outline many personal characteristics and features, including potential behaviors and attitudes. This client’s name is Julia, and she is currently 25 years old. She grew up in a family with an average income and had a lovely childhood. She was brought up with her elder brother, who left their parents’ home when Julia was 15. It is hard to identify any stressful events during the woman’s life with her family, but one.
When Julia was in her senior year at high school, her grandmother from the mother’s side died from cancer. The young woman was extremely attached to her granny, and her loss became a dramatic event in Julia’s life, which shaped her character and influenced decisions in the nearest future. The purpose of this piece of work is to provide a client’s assessment, based on personal history, individual characteristics, and results withdrawn from evaluation instruments.
It is possible to say that various past experiences, both positive and negative, portray a stressful situation for an individual and might shape their social behaviors. Goswami (2014) suggests that there is a correlation between personality and social well-being and states that “experiencing high levels of positive moods might induce greater sociability” (p. 136). Concerning the client, it is possible to say that her childhood was full of happy moments, which might imply high social activity. Julia was a cheerful child and teenager, but her brother’s departure and her grandmother’s death had a significant influence on the woman’s behavior and perceptions.
Consequently, today, a young woman is not closed from the external world, but she has inner barriers from getting close to people. The fear of loss induced by losses during teenage years affected Julia’s view on relationships and friendship.
The next crucial step is to observe the results of the FIRO-B assessment. The FIRO-B instrument evaluates an individual’s need for inclusion, control, and affection, and portrays how which impact those factors can have on one’s sociability and interpersonal relations (Bharti, 2018). The findings of the client’s evaluation show that Julia holds a neutral position when it comes to spending time with others. As mentioned in the paragraph above, it can also be explained by personal history and experiences. The features like calm school life without bullying, good family, attentive parents, close relationships with the relatives were the key characteristics of the woman’s background. However, the inability to have closeness and revive trust in positive outcomes due to dramatic events in Julia’s life led to a state of neutral inclusion and medium affection.
It is also essential to look at the need for control in the case of the client. The results of the assessment tool reveal that Julia prefers to be in situations with minimum regulations and structure. The issue is that when she was a little kid, her parents were strict when it came to studying, spending time with friends, or doing the chores. As a result, after experiencing losses and moving to college, Julia decided to be the only one to determine her actions and set the rules. Consequently, Julia does not appreciate being controlled, but, at the same time, can handle the limitations when she believes they are relevant.
The FIRO-B outcomes also show the medium need for affection. As discussed earlier in the assessment, the young woman does not tend to develop warm and close relationships with people. She still keeps in touch with her brother, visits her parents very often, and their interactions are respectful and kind. Nevertheless, Julia is not very open with her family members, as she used to be with her grandmother. The young woman keeps all the sorrows in herself, which creates severe pressure on her nervous system.
The inability to portray her feelings with others and a certain level of closeness from the surrounding people and relationships makes Julia depressed deep down in her soul. Although she is having good communication with her classmates in college, has friendly relationships at work, she prefers to keep everything the bothers her inside, without sharing with anyone.
One should note that Julia’s efforts to seek professional help symbolize her desire to change something and become more open to society and family. The point is that the young woman still did not manage to overcome her loss, which influences her journey since then. A possible recommendation for Julia would be to develop a closer attachment with her family members. According to Kissane and Parnes (2014), family therapy can help relatives hear each other, “correct misconceptions and create a coherent narrative” (p. 144).
Julia needs to understand her trauma entirely and realize that her family members are also going through the occurred loss. Family sessions can help the young woman develop an understanding of her grief and create closer bonds with her parents and brother. An initial step in building proximity with family members can open Julia for the potential development of sincerer and more open relationships with others in the future.
It is possible to state that feelings of abandonment by close people and experience of traumatic events had an impact on the client’s personality, behaviors, relationships, and expectations. Personal background and current circumstances might decrease the young woman’s need for control, affection, and inclusion and influence her perceptions. Systematic therapy, continuous self-assessment techniques, and involvement of her family in the process can offer benefits to her social and personal life.
References
Bharti, T. (2018). People need people: A study of instrument FIRO-B. In M. Yadav, S. Kumar Trivedi, A. Kumar, & S. Rangnekar (Eds.), Harnessing human capital analytics for competitive advantage (pp. 144–170). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
Goswami, H. (2014). Children’s subjective well-being: Socio-demographic characteristics and personality. Child Indicators Research, 7(1), 119-140.
Kissane, D. W., & Parnes, F. (2014). Bereavement care for families. New York, NY: Routledge.