Child Counseling Case Study: Parental Divorce and Development
This case study examines a five-year-old girl referred for counseling following her parents' separation and the mother's subsequent arrest for substance abuse. The paper documents the intake process, developmental assessment, and therapeutic sessions, applying Piaget's preoperational stage, Erikson's psychosocial theory, and DSM-IV-TR multiaxial diagnosis. The counselor explores the child's emotional understanding, her relationship with her father, and her adjustment to a single-parent household. Key themes include the effects of parental conflict on young children, the role of the father-child relationship in post-divorce adjustment, and the use of play-based therapeutic activities to assess and support the child's emotional development.
- Client Background and Presenting Problem: Introduction of client demographics and referral context
- Intake Session and Family History: Father's account of substance abuse and custody events
- Developmental and Emotional Assessment: Emotion recognition exercise and session observations
- DSM-IV-TR Multiaxial Diagnosis: Formal five-axis diagnostic assessment of the client
- Cognitive and Psychosocial Development: Piaget and Erikson frameworks applied to client behavior
- Therapeutic Sessions and Interventions: Magic key activity and letter-writing therapeutic work
- Conclusion and Ongoing Progress: Client adjustment, father relationship, and counselor rapport
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds real clinical observations in established developmental theories (Piaget, Erikson), giving the case study academic credibility while keeping the narrative accessible.
- The multiaxial DSM-IV-TR diagnosis section demonstrates systematic clinical reasoning, showing how each axis applies — or does not apply — to this particular child.
- Specific session details (the "magic key" activity, the emotion-picture exercise) anchor theoretical claims in observable, concrete behavior, making the analysis persuasive rather than abstract.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper exemplifies theory-to-practice integration: each observed behavior is immediately linked to a specific theoretical framework or cited empirical study. For example, the child's drawing in the "magic key" activity is directly connected to Piaget's preoperational stage characteristics, and the emotion-recognition exercise is interpreted through Covell and Abramovitch's (1987) research findings. This technique shows readers how theoretical knowledge guides clinical interpretation.
Structure breakdown
The paper moves from background and intake (who the client is and why she was referred) through developmental assessment and formal diagnosis, then into applied therapeutic work. It follows a logical clinical workflow: gather history → assess development → assign diagnosis → intervene therapeutically → observe progress. The appendix adds supplementary statistical context about child self-blame in divorce, broadening the paper's implications beyond the individual case.
Client Background and Presenting Problem
The client is a five-year-old Caucasian female currently in kindergarten. She is living with her father and great-grandfather, next door to her paternal grandparents. The client came to live in this arrangement following her parents' separation and divorce. Her father requested that she receive counseling as a result of the parental separation.
In a study discussed by Bryner, researchers Wallerstein and Blakeslee conducted a longitudinal study over ten years, following a total of 116 children from divorced homes. What they found was that divorce was not an isolated event but rather one step in a series of family transitions that affect both the family and the child. Those transitions range from life in the family before divorce, to life in a suddenly single-parent household, to possible future changes in parental relationships (Bryner, 2001).
How fathers maintain a relationship with their child after a divorce may significantly affect the child's adjustment. "Empirical findings suggest a wide array of interrelated, entangled factors that predict father involvement and link father involvement to child adjustment" (Kelly & Emrey, 2003). In this client's situation, she is being raised by her father and their relationship is flourishing. This raises the question of whether her adjustment to the divorce is influenced by that relationship and by the way her father has explained her mother's illness to her.
References
Bryner, C. (2001). Children of divorce. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 14(3), 201–210. Retrieved from
Covell, K., & Abramovitch, R. (1987). Understanding emotion in the family: Children's and parents' attributions of happiness, sadness, and anger. Child Development, 58(4), 985–991.
Davies, P., & Forman, E. (2002). Children's patterns of preserving emotional security in the interpersonal subsystem. Child Development, 73(6), 1880–1903.
DSM-IV-TR. (2000). (4th ed., pp. 27–34). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Kelly, J., & Emrey, R. (2003). Children's adjustment following divorce: Risk and resilience perspectives. Family Relations, 52(4), 352–362.
Snowman, J., McCown, R., & Biehler, R. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching (12th ed., pp. 37–38). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Appendix
Note: The daughter may feel responsible for her parents' divorce, as if she is the one who has to balance them. Research indicates that 66% of children aged 13 and younger blame themselves for their parents' divorce, compared to 33% of those aged 14 to 18.
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