Jose Depression - Case Study

Introduction

Jose seems to be suffering from depression as a mental disorder which appears to cause him a sleepless night. From the patient history since, high school he has been living a solitude life. The patient seems to have had a problem of depression and stress for sometimes now. The source of the patient's depression is based on the cultural, social and familial issues. Form his explanation, and it can be identified that the client showed some signs of depression such as the sleeplessness, having low-self-esteem and not getting any enjoyment in life. Some of these signs are illustrated by his attitude towards specific family gathering and BBQ and less interest in any relationship. Further, the depression comes in due to the fact Jose had made his girlfriend abort and later this was not received well by family members who felt that he was old enough to marry at 35.

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Symptoms, Presentation, and Meaning

Culture-bound syndromes that tend to be exclusive to particular ethnic.The survey has not identified whether culture-bound syndromes are distinct to mental disorders and seems to indicate the effects and symptoms of depression. Some of the signs in Jose's case include: change in sleeping pattern, loneliness, and isolation.

How the Client Has Been Affected By the Culture, Religion, and Ethnicity

Being a Mexican American, Jose falls under the minority group in the American population, and his cultural background must have significantly attributed to his mental illness. Case for Jose shows the diverse impacts of culture and society on his mental health.

This understanding is essential to developing mental health services which will be more responsive to the cultural and social contexts of racial, religion and ethnic composition of Jose. The various diversity issues can give a satisfactory record for minor variations in how the patient can convey his signs and a manner that he is likely to report and respond to the treatment (Amabile, 1982). It is evident that specific elements of social civilization can also root culture-bound syndromes .for instance, some signs are relatively regular one society as compared to the others. Occasionally, culture, religion, and ethnicity significantly contribute to whether an individual seeks for assistance. Firstly, what kind of support they seek, coping strategies and social supports that they possess, and the degree of stigma they link to mental problem. The culture of Jose again impacts on most elements of his mental health, and application of patterns of health care. An essential warning note, however, is that issue on ethnic or racial characteristics of a particular group may contribute towards stereotyping of people regarding their on how they look or affiliation and other diversity such as age, income earnings, and social class. Being that Jose in Mexican American and a mere truck driver, he must have felt less disadvantaged in various ways. Jose was definitely from a minority group and maybe never has been in a position.

Both social and cultural elements contribute to the causation of mental illness (Roysircar, 2004). Mental illness is referred to as the outcome of a complicated interaction among, psychological, biological, social, and cultural elements. The responsibilities of any one of such significant factors can either be robust or weak based on the disorder. Traumatic experiences are specific regular populations, such as the U.S. For instance, surveys show that Hispanic Americans indicate high rates of PTSD in the community. Jose being a Mexican Americas may have his impact significantly influenced by his ethnic group. He probably might hat have felt abused or discriminated against; and thus has few friends and this comprised his trust towards people. He only had a few acquaintances at his job place.

Family Factors

Most characters of family life have significantly relied on mental health. Beginning with etiology shows that family elements can prevent, or attribute to the risk of having depression. For instance, supportive families and effective sibling relationships can prevent an individual against the looming mental issues such as depression and stress. Besides, a family social setting based extreme marital conflict, congested, and social disadvantage can effect on mental illness. Just like in the case of Jose, he lives with so many members of his family.

Style and Coping

Culture connects to how individuals deal with daily challenges and more extreme types of hardship. For instance, most Asian American groups seem not to stay on distress thoughts, feeling that restraint or avoidance is better than an outward expression.

Mistrust

Mistrust is also identified as a significant hindrance to the effective response of mental health therapy by minorities group; and since mistrust is generally regarded as extensive among minorities, Jose must be affected by mistrust and that is why he has no friends or anyone to share his feelings with except his mom.

Nonetheless, he also feels that he can no longer rely on his mum because she has shared her secret of initiating an abortion with the rest of the family members. Jose is from a Christian family, and this has influenced his behaviors and certain actions that he may have taken keep haunting him due to the fact that he grew up in a Christian and church-going family. For instance, his decision to initiate abortion of his girlfriend's pregnancy would always keep him worried thus adding to his stress and depression.

Factors to Consider As the Potential Therapist

As a potential therapist, it will be vital to consider various issues before or during the treatment of the patient. Firstly there is a need to understand the client and also as a therapist one has to be flexible.

Knowing Your Clients

While interacting with the patient, being flexible and receptiveness are some of the fundamental skills a counselor needs to possess. Different mindsets and emotional states demand a specific strategy; as a therapist, there is a requirement to be able to adjust to a client's needs. Again, within a counseling environment, the need may arise for a therapist to cooperate with the patient that may indicate signs of resistance to alterations of certain things. Some patients that may be seeking therapeutic intervention due to enforced demands can dislike the fact that they feel forced into joining the session. Moreover, an individual's behavior can tend to be challenging if he or she feels threatened, belittled, judged, or when the therapist they are consulting with seems to have different goals or desired results.

Flexibility

As a therapist, there is a need to have the capacity to be able to work with various clients under different conditions and circumstances. Regardless of the therapist's specialization, one has to at least have basic knowledge on other areas such as in medication and can recommend a particular prescription to the client; family therapy, working with varied, multicultural counseling, addictions, loss, and grief. And having an understanding of various situations.

Mode of Therapy

Based on Jose assessment and history, I would apply individual therapy to intervene and enhance his treatment. Jose would best fit an individual therapy because of various reasons regarding his assessment such reasons include: he seems to be experiencing a feeling of loneliness and isolation, and also his sleeping pattern is off. Individual therapy would be more effective since it would initiate face to face talk with the client and thus enables a therapist to find in-depth causes of Jose mental issue.

Feelings of Isolation or Loneliness

Jose seems to be experiencing loneliness in his life and just caught up in his work and schooling and lacks someone to talk to. He now seeks a counselor's intervention to share his experience and get to know the validity of his emotions, and thus individual therapy would enhance a sense of comfort and hope in his life.

Sleep Pattern Is Off

From his initial assessment, Jose confirms about having problems with his sleep. This automatically shows that he must be suffering from depression resulting to change in his sleep. And for this reason, it is wise to organize an individual therapy for his to get to find out some of the underlying issues that may be influencing his sleeping pattern.

Law and Ethics - Legal and Ethical Implications for the Case of Jose

As a therapist one bound to obey a specific code of ethics. For instance, it would be unethical to disclose the client's confidentiality to anyone after the session. However, in this case of Jose as a therapist, I must warn on specific issues such as abortion issue because this might have been against the law; and at the same time try and make it very confidential with my client. I would have the duty to warn my client against the legal consequences but at the same time assure him of protecting his confidentiality. This situation causes a relative complications based on the legal and ethical considerations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, therapy is essential for an individual to help him or her cope with the life situation to be able to live a happy life in the future (Sue, 1998). Seeking an early therapeutic intervention like Jose did can help to prevent some of the adverse effects of the depression such as suicidal attempts. In the paper, Jose case has been analyzed based on culture, religion and ethical issues and assessment. And later, mode of therapy is suggested for the client.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of personality and social psychology, 43(5), 997. https://www.researchgate.net/.../232467181_Social_Psychology_of_Creativity_A_Conse.

Roysircar, G. (2004). Cultural self-awareness assessment: Practice examples from psychology training. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 35(6), 658. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-21167-015

Sue, S. (1998). In search of cultural competence in psychotherapy and counseling. American psychologist, 53(4), 440. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-00766-022