Effects of Trauma

Part 1

How have you demonstrated professional behavior in compliance with the NASW Code of Ethics and the professions history, mission, and responsibilities in relation to clinical social work?

Social workers should respect the clients right to privacy when interacting with them (NASW Code of Ethics, 2017). To gain clients trust, we should ensure they are comfortable with us, and they can share sensitive information when ready knowing that we will not disclose such information. Due to the sensitive nature of social work, we are at times forced to seek private information from the client. However, the information we seek should be what we need to accomplish our professional responsibilities. My client was a 15-year-old boy referred to the clinic with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Additionally, Liam had started cutting himself. Liam informed me he was gay and struggled with it due to his worry about what would happen if his parents found out. The referral came from school because the school administrator had noticed Liam was withdrawn and did not want to participate in sporting activities as he had done before. Liam willingly shared the information about being gay, and he was not ready to let his parents, peers, or teachers know of his sexual orientation because he feared being victimized.

The school administrator has requested a report on Liams condition so they can understand how to assist him in school. The challenge was how to disclose the information without breaching Liams privacy since he was not ready to let the world know of his sexual orientation. Liam has the right to determine what information can be shared regarding their sexual orientation, behavioral challenges, religious beliefs, and political ideology. Therefore, I did not have any right to disclose any information he did not want. As Liams social worker, I have to disclose information that poses threats to Liams health and safety. I had to disclose his cutting behavior to the school administrator and parents. However, I did not disclose information about his sexual orientation.

Part 2

Shock and anger are the emotions that got stirred up in me. It makes you wonder why African Americans are treated differently from whites in America, yet there is no difference between the two races. Also, we have made race an issue where it should not have been, and we see others based solely on skin color. Without understanding why a person has a different skin color, we make assumptions about the person. One gets angry because they have to work twice as hard to achieve what others achieve quickly. African Americans are seen differently in terms of being criminals, lazy, or educationally challenged, making it hard for them to get jobs or opportunities. Skin color determines how others will treat a person or how they will react when the person approaches them. For example, in the movie, we can see how Noah admits that there is an advantage to being white, which is true in real life. White people are treated differently from African Americans who are black. Noah confirms that being white accords one some privilege that being black doesnt (California Newsreel, 2003). Noah states that when he tries to assist a woman on the street, he is not given a weird glance like he is trying to steal or harm the woman. However, if he had been African American, even if his intentions were good, the woman would first assume he was trying to steal from her.

There is always something new to learn every day, and this transcript offered new content regarding who we are and how similar we are to others we do not share skin color with. One knows they are closely related to other Africans with African American roots, and they would expect the same. Interestingly, it can be shocking that they share similarities with some African and not all Africans, showing that we are innately different even though we share skin color or origins. Being an African American, aspects of the movie shape and offer further information regarding my view on myself. The reality is that it has been well known that one is treated differently, and they have to work harder to attain things that white people take for granted. It is nice to know that we are not as different as we are treated, and there is nothing genetically significant about my skin color to justify how we are treated. From the transcript information, one can change their perception about their race and skin color and have some confidence that it does not matter how one looks because we are all identical and we all came from the same race in Africa. Therefore, being African American only means that we migrated later than others, so we have yet to fully acclimatize and mutate in terms of skin color. Others view African Americans as lazy, thieves, or criminals. However, some people see a person for whom they are and not their skin color. You can never be sure about how a person views you, and sometimes we might make assumptions that others will see differently, yet there is no proof.

There are instances when a person I was trying to assist assumed I had ill intentions. It was in high school when I tried to help a lost girl find her way home. The girl did not have an issue, but a stranger approached as I gave her directions and assumed I was bothering the girl. The stranger came to me strong and assumed I was misdirecting the girl and even blocked me from interacting with her. I did not protest, and I let them listen to the girl. After the little girl informed them about what I was doing, they looked at me and realized I had no ill intentions. They then started apologizing profusely, demonstrating societys view on people of color. The population that will be difficult to work with is white people. They will see me as someone who cannot assist them due to my race. Being African American, white people will judge you first before they accept assistance from you, making it hard to reach them and offer services. Race plays a vital role in society, and African Americans are viewed as lowly like they are the ones to receive and not offer support.

Part 3

Share an experience when you learned about, observed, or experienced disproportionality or disparity in systems, communities, schools, and families. Share your ideas of what you as a social worker can do to impact change within the systems you will be working in.

There is a widespread disparity in the American education system. Public schools do not receive equal funding, forcing some schools to lack the necessary resources vital for the education of students. I visited a low-income community and noticed how dilapidated the buildings were, and the area looked so unkept, making me wonder why the neglect. Low-income areas are inhabited by criminals, drug lords, and drug users trying to escape the reality of life. However, with proper structures and systems,...…high public health costs, and a high risk of death. Therefore, there are endeavors to create prevention programs like media literacy and psychoeducation. The prevalence of anorexia nervosa is 0.9%, bulimia nervosa is 1.5%, and 3.5 for binge eating disorders among women (Clus et al., 2018). These rates are based on DSM-4 and would be higher if DSM-5 is applied. The article is a literature review that aims to identify the impact of virtual reality on managing patients with eating disorders. Clus et al. (2018) searched numerous libraries seeking studies that have focused on the use of virtual reality and eating disorders. Their search generated 311 articles, and 149 were removed as duplicates. Clus et al. (2018) settled for 26 unique studies that met their inclusion criteria.

The reviewed studies comprised eight randomized controlled trials, 13 nonrandomized studies, and five clinical trials with 1 participant. Nineteen studies focused on clinical populations, and the remaining 7 were case-control studies. Twenty-four studies had women as the majority sample size, and only 2 had mixed samples. Sixteen of the studies used visual immersive equipment, fifteen of which had a head-mounted display. The others used some form of audio-visual projection of a virtual environment.

Clus et al. (2018) discovered an increased interest in the use of virtual reality technology for the treatment and management of eating disorders. They noted an increase of 12 articles since they performed the last literature review on the same topic. With increased access to virtual reality equipment in the medical field, we can use this tool for different methods, including diagnosing, preventing, and treating mental health disorders. The use of virtual reality combined with CBT demonstrated greater efficacy when compared to the use of CBT alone. Therefore, we can see that by combining the two treatment methodologies, we can assist patients in managing their eating disorders. Considering that CBT is the recommended method for treating bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, we can combine the two methodologies and effectively assist the client in overcoming their eating disorder.

Clus et al. (2018) noted that there is a possibility to use virtual reality to enable patients to update their negative body image with sensory-motor and proprioceptive inputs in real-time. It is posited that patients with eating disorders have blocked the updating of their negative body image, and the view they have of themselves is forever negative, making them hate their bodies. Therefore, using virtual reality, we might be able to unblock the transmission of sensory motors to reflect the actual image of the patients body.

While the studies demonstrated greater efficacy in using virtual reality, there are limitations in the methodologies used to conduct the studies. The authors have noted the use of undersized samples in most of the studies due to recruitment difficulties of subjects. Also, the low frequency of the disorders reduced the number of sample sizes, and the results cannot be generalizable for all populations. Patients with anorexia nervosa have been noted as having a low engagement rate with care, which explains the low number of patients with the disorder in the studies reviewed. The focus of the study was on women due to the prevalence of eating disorders in women. The evaluation tools used for some of the studies had low scientific validity, putting these studies results to question. The results of those studies should be interpreted cautiously. There was a lack of randomized controlled studies focused on virtual reality, making the authors cautious when interpreting the reviw results (Clus et al., 2018). Future studies should focus on randomized controlled…