4.1. Treatment Interventions and Insights

After reading the articles regarding the different treatment approaches and the APA guidelines for practice, what do you think the treatment options have in common? What are some of the key differences? What do you think are the central elements of trauma treatment regardless of the treatment approach?

4.2. The Therapeutic Window

The Therapeutic Window is a key concept when working with emotional processing in trauma therapy. Briere and Scott (2015) outlined some contraindicated issues that may make exploration of traumatic memories detrimental to the therapeutic process, by not being able to remain in the therapeutic window. What are your thoughts on how you would approach clients that could not work in the window? How would you find out if your client was ready for emotional processing? How do you know when you and your client are ready for this type of therapy?

Case Conceptualization – Case

Learning Objectives

create a case conceptualization
develop a counselling plan
discuss initial and ongoing assessment
formulate stabilization and treatment interventions

Purpose

Students are to show their ability to identify and describe their observations and propose appropriate treatment approaches in an original case conceptualization.

Instructions

Students are expected to email their professor for approval of their choice prior to beginning the assignment.

Prepare a formal paper that outlines your case conceptualization on a fictitious character from a movie, book, or TV show, as if they were coming to you as a client suffering from trauma. In your submission, you will outline your observations, case conceptualization and recommended treatment approach for your client. You will also look at self-care strategies that you would implement for yourself while working with this client.
The paper will comprise of three sections: a full case conceptualization, treatment approach recommendations, and counsellor discussion of countertransference.
The case conceptualization section of the paper will include:
1. Introduction of the client, with observations of behaviour;
2. A full assessment of the client (including assessment strategies you would use to assist you – psychometric tests, etc.); and
3. Final overview of your case conceptualization and perceived presenting issue for the client.
The treatment approach section will include:
1. Outline of your selected treatment approach;
2. Rationale for selection of treatment approach; and
3. A treatment plan that includes resourcing, stabilization, pacing, containment, and affect/arousal management, exposure and resolution of traumatic memories within your treatment plan.
Challenges and Countertransference Section will include:
1. Identifies ways to overcome challenges and countertransference
2. Identification of challenges and potential countertransference
You are required to pair up with another student and, using a rough draft of your paper, conduct a case consultation and review of your conceptualization paper.
1. Sign up in Wiki by the beginning of Week 3, and determine the best approach for case consultation. You can use Online Meetings,asynchronous chat, or phone/Skype, whatever works best for both students to collaborate on each other’s conceptualization paper.
2. During Week 4, complete the case consultation with your partner in time to incorporate their feedback into your final submission.
3. Include a reflection of your case consultation (i.e., what was helpful, what was challenging, what insights it brought, and how you think the consultation informed your final paper) as an Appendix to your paper.
Prepare this paper in the most recent APA format; support your approach and conceptualization with references from peer-reviewed journals.
Any sources used to support your paper should, of course, be cited using the correct and most recent APA format. And, although it can be a useful starting place to gather very general information in order to later verify it with more substantial sources, no Wikipedia references will be accepted as primary scholarly resources. Here’s just one reason why: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30699302/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/student-hoaxes-worlds-media-wikipedia/
In addition to the most recent APA format, writing quality (including grammar and spelling) will count toward the final grade. Therefore, proofreading is strongly encouraged.

Structure

Required components: Abstract, Title page, and Reference page
Length of Assignment: The text body of paper (i.e., not including references, title page or abstract) should consist of approximately 2000 words, (i.e., 7 – 8 double-spaced typed pages, Times New Roman font size: 12).
Format: Please, format your assignment in Word (files with extension .doc or .docx), or Rich Text Format (files with extension .rtf).
References: There is no minimum number of current references for this assignment. You must use peer reviewed journal articles in addition to the text book.

Considerations

Your analysis will focus on the main character of a movie, book, or TV show of your choice that identifies a client who suffers from trauma. Movies like “Good Will Hunting” or, more recently, “Manchester by the Sea” can provide great sources for your client profile in this assignment. Please do not feel limited by these choices, students can feel free to choose any film with a character who is displaying symptoms of PTSD.

Resources

Any sources used to support your written narrative should be cited using correct APA format. Although Wikipedia can be a useful starting place to gather very general information no Wikipedia references will be accepted as scholarly citations.

B.: Books, including textbooks, newspaper articles, blogs, vlogs, online videos, opinion pieces, etc. are not categorized as peer-reviewed articles; current references are published within the last 10 years; seminal research that exceeds the 10 years may be included but you must provide current research that further supports the seminal work.

Use the Yorkville University Library and the EBSCO tool for academic search. It is important to select credible sources for assignments. This resource will assist students in determining which sources are credible: https://my.yorkvilleu.ca/ask/credible-source-guide/

Submission Notes

Please do not email your submissions to your professor, either before or after the due date; all coursework should be submitted through the online course (Moodle).

Please review the instructions for Submitting Turnitin Assignments found in Module 2 of the MACP Student Orientation.
Please review the instructions for Reviewing Feedback in Turnitin found in Module 2 of the MACP Student Orientation.

Evaluation

The following rubric indicates areas to focus on in preparing your assignment, and how the professor will weigh these components relative to one another.

Criteria	% of Final Grade
1. Case Conceptualization (25%)
a. Client description/observations	/10
b. Assessment of client	/10
c. Overview and research support	/5
2. Treatment Approach (35%)
a. Treatment approach	/5
b. Support and rationale for treatment approach	/5
c. Treatment plan	/25
3. Challenges and Countertransference (20%)
a. Identifies challenges and countertransference	/10
b.Identifies ways to overcome challenges and countertransference	/10
4. Case Consultation Reflection (10%)
a. Consultation info summary	/5
a. Reflection of consultation experience	/5
5. Writing Style (10%)
a. Clarity, accuracy, consistency	/5
b. APA style	/5
TOTAL	/100