Emma Pedersen

SOWK 312

Psychosocial Assessment
Client Identifying Information

This interview was held on February 25th, 2022 with client Jennifer McArdle. Jennifer is a 27

year old graduate student pursuing her Masters of Social Work at the University of South

Carolina. She self identifies as a nontraditional student. She is a white female residing in

Northeast Columbia in a one bed one bath apartment near some sort of military base or station as

she indicated majority of the people living in her apartment complex are military families. She is

divorced of two years and is not currently seeing anyone. Jennifer is a voluntary client who

found out about the counseling through the University’s mental health services.

Background

Jennifer is originally from Rockport, Maryland, but recently relocated to South Carolina to

pursue higher education. She has never lived outside of Maryland before and all of her family

and friends still live in there. Jennifer got her undergraduate degree in psychology and used to

work at residential inpatient facility with adolescents who had a dual diagnosis of mental illness

and substance use disorder. Jennifer began to feel burnt out and her career was no longer going

in the direction she wanted- so she decided to pursue her Masters. About a year before she

relocated, Jennifer and her husband of four years got divorced. She says it was an amicable

divorce after they realized that their lives were moving in opposite directions. She saw a therapist

for about six to eight weeks in Maryland leading up to filing for the divorce but has not seen one

since. They have been divorced almost two years and still talk occasionally. Jennifer used to be

fairly active at a Catholic church back home in Maryland. She also spoke about how she used to

live a healthy lifestyle- with eating healthy and exercising being a big part of her life. While

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going through the divorces two years ago, Jennifer experienced low self-esteem due to weight

gain, but was able to overcome that without seeing a therapist.

Current Situation

Since moving to South Carolina, Jennifer has found it really hard to adjust. She speaks about

feelings of isolation and not knowing where she fits in. She says she has not made any friends or

any social connections here reasoning that she doesn’t have anything in common with her

classmates and lives in an apartment complex full of military families. Currently, she is in her

second semester of her Master of Social Work program. She says she is managing, but not doing

as well as she wants to. She is particularly struggling with her group assignments as she does not

want to go to in person meetings or do anything social. She feels embarrassed by her

performance at school since she is older than her classmates “but still can’t figure out how to

manage.” Jennifer has never lived away from home before, and since deciding not to go home

and visit over break, her feelings of isolation and feeling “down” have increased. She also

expressed how she gets distracted more easily now and that she hasn’t been able to sleep well.

She doesn’t have an interest in doing hobbies she used to enjoy such as going to the farmers

market or working out, not she normally just hangs out at home. She says part of this is due to

her decrease in self-esteem having lost about 20 to 24 pounds since moving to South Carolina.

She says her appetite is low and most days she doesn’t have the energy to cook a good meal for

herself after class. Jennifer also expressed how she used to be active at a Catholic church back

home in Maryland, but hasn’t found a church down here that she feels is the right fit for her, but

she does miss the community it brought.

Client Strengths, Capacities, and Resources

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Jennifer has many strengths and resources to help her along this journey, even though she may

not see them right now. For starters, she has great self-awareness. She recognizes what’s going

on in her life and that it is different than how it used to be and she gives some reasoning as to

why that might be. Jennifer also has a desire to improve her situation which is a huge strength in

developing a good therapeutic relationship with your client and in them making progress

themselves. Another strength is that Jennifer is not new to therapy. She has already been to

therapy before and says that it improved her life. Finally, a huge strength that Jennifer has is her

spiritual beliefs. Although she said she hasn’t found one down here yet, she has indicated that

she is looking and she said she used to be really involved back home. Spirituality and religion

can be really beneficial to clients who believe in them as they can offer hope, guidance, and

community and support. A resource that Jennifer has is the support of her family and friends.

Although she is expressing feelings of isolation here, she can still lean on them for support from

afar through phone calls or visits to help get her through. Another resource Jennifer has is her

good financial situation. She mentioned how finances were not of concern to her right now, but

they could be of benefit to help her have access to the best resources to help her.

Impressions, Assessment, and Recommendations

Although the client, Jennifer, talked about many areas of concern in her life currently-as her

therapist, I would want to focus on her self-esteem and self-confidence first. She talked about

how these feelings have been negatively affecting her life and sometimes make her avoid social

situations which only further solidifies her feelings that she is alone and isolated here in South

Carolina. The change-oriented approach I will be using is cognitive restructuring. Cognitive

restructuring takes negative thoughts and thought patterns we have and helps to reframe them in

different, more positive ways of thinking. Through this approach, we can create goals that

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address both her internal feelings and external isolated feelings- in the hopes of improving her

self-esteem and building social support. I chose this approach because the client has a lot of

negative self-talk and internalized feelings that are creating negative perceptions and feelings

about the outside world. Cognitive restructuring can help her recognize, reframe, and free her

from these negative thoughts so that she can begin to socialize and regain interest in old hobbies

again.

This proposed intervention plan will have two goals for Jennifer. The first goal is: "I want to

improve my self-esteem by regaining interest in old hobbies." Following the SMART (specific,

measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals format, I will have the following

specific objectives to help accomplish this goal. For S, specific: every week I will do one thing

that used to bring me joy such as going to the gym or the farmer's market. For M, measurable: I

will write about my experience and how it made me feel each week to hold me accountable. For

A, achievable: even though I am busy, I can set aside one hour each week to focus on my mental

health. For R, relevant: rediscovering my old hobbies and passions can improve my overall mood

and self-esteem by releasing serotonin and giving me my confidence back. It can also potentially

increase my social circle. For T, time-bound: I will start this week and do one activity for one

hour a week for two months after which I will reassess my interest in these old hobbies and how

they have affected my overall mood.

The second goal for Jennifer could be: "I want to find social support in my new state through my

religion." Using the same SMART goal format as I used with goal one, the following specific

objectives will help Jennifer successfully accomplish this goal. For S, specific: I will attend other

Catholic churches in my area. For M, measurable: I will write down at least 4 churches that I am

interested in attending and write down the pros/cons of my experience and feelings to track my

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progress and see which one is the best fit for me. For A, achievable: this is not a big time

commitment and I used to make time for it when I regularly attended back in Maryland. For R,

relevant: spirituality is an important part of my life which not only offers comfort and hope but

has also always been a big part of my social support and community- which is important to me.

For T, time-bound: I will attend four churches in my area over the next four weeks for one hour

each Sunday.

I believe that this proposed intervention plan, with specific outcome criteria and completion

dates, would be really beneficial for Jennifer in conjunction with cognitive restructuring. Upon

successful completion of these goals, the hope would be that Jennifer feels less isolated and more

confident here in South Carolina.