Please see role play script attached and add more about the client in the context of her family. For example, now being unemployed, living at home with her parents, her child, and how her father’s addition/illness influenced the family. In Latino culture, family is more important that the individual.
For the family interventions, maybe helping the family with resolving conflict? I think that in doing so, they can be of support to Anna. Are there any other benefits that can help this family?
Perhaps, we can also explain motivational interviewing, and give an example on how to utilize it in this case?
Anna’s Case Study:
Case Study: “Anna”
Anna is a 27-year-old woman who was born in New York and self-identifies as Puerto Rican. She has a 12th-grade education, is unemployed, and lives with her parents, her 4-year-old daughter, and a nephew. Anna is separated from her partner, who is also her daughter’s father. She entered treatment as a result of feeling depressed ever since her partner physically assaulted her because she refused to use heroin (the event that sparked their separation). She states, “I want to be clean and take care of my family.” At intake, she had just undergone detoxification and had stopped using alcohol, crack cocaine, and heroin.
Anna states that she feels guilty about her drug use and the way it caused her to neglect her family. She has been having serious problems with her mother, who is critical of her substance use, but believes that her mother is important in her recovery because of the structure she provides at home. She describes her father as a very important figure with whom she enjoys spending time. Her father had stopped drinking 9 years before and is very supportive of her abstinence. He is willing to help in any way he can but has been very sick lately and was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Her father had never received treatment for his drinking problem, and her mother believes that Anna should be able to stop just like her father did. As she describes her situation in treatment, Anna’s vergüenza (shame) and sense of hopelessness is very evident. She fears her father’s death and her mother’s subsequent rejection of her for not helping out.
