Counseling Scenario Janet Just Completed Her Fourth

Counseling Scenario

Janet just completed her fourth divorce. She is in her early 30s. Her personal life is in chaos. She has children by three of her former husbands. Janet has struggled with addiction issues over the years including alcohol and drugs. She came from a very difficult family where her parents were alcoholics and often fought with each other. Janet was sexually abused by her uncle on more than one occasion when he lived with the family during her early teen years. Janet's problems with drugs and alcohol began as a teenager.

Janet has seemingly had a rough early adulthood that was turbulent. Changing her attitudes, belief, and values could be a difficult proposition and will mostly likely time a significant amount of time. It seems reasonable to suspect that Janet's basic human needs are not being met and this could also impact her children's quality of life. Counseling should initially focus on understand Janet's situation as well as treating the substance abuse issues. This paper outlines a proposed plan to help Janet.

1. Personal information

I would want to know first or foremost whether or not Janet's basic needs are being met as well as those of her children. Being a single mother of three can put a lot of pressure on an individual in the role as a parent. Results of one study confirmed relationships between needs and money attitudes; specifically, all of Maslow's needs appear to be strongly related to the money attitudes of evaluation and anxiety and men's and women's needs are highly correlated with obsession, budget, anxiety and particularly evaluation (Oleson, 2004). The pressures of being a parent could be influencing the substance abuse and therefore I would focus on the basic needs.

2. Personal Biases and Limitations

These issues could detract from counseling in many ways. For example, if a counselor had a strong religious perception about the sanctity of marriage, then they might be biased about Janet's four marriages and he character. This would represent a reason in which a referral would be necessary.

3. Goals

I would try to help the client reach sobriety and stability for her and her family. She will first have to create a stable environment and build a network of people that can help her stay the course. This is important to not only Janet, but also her children. Furthermore, her self-steam would undoubtedly benefit from providing good care to her family as well.

4. Theoretical Approach

I believe that genograms would be useful to help sort of the types of relationships that Janet has. Since she has 3 children with different fathers and four previous husbands, her personal life has a sum of complex relationships. I would schedule two sessions monthly as well as recommend the client to a substance abuse expert.

5. Therapeutic Progress and Success