Description
Engagement and Development of the Treatment Relationship
In this assignment you are asked to demonstrate through the use of readings and process recording excerpts how you determined a client’s capacity to engage in the treatment relationship and how you used this information to help the client enter the helping process. You should show how your understanding incorporated relevant data about client needs, motivational readiness to change, and resources available (personal and/or environmental).
A: Introduction
In two to three paragraphs, briefly describe your agency, your function in the agency, who the client is (demographic data), and how the client came to your agency and you. What does the client want from you?
B: What You Brought to the Therapeutic Encounter
Discuss your practice theory and any thoughts and feeling you had about the client before you met with him/her. Based on information you had available, what did you anticipate? How did your experience, the available client information, and your practice theory inform your thinking and help you plan for the initial helping encounters? Be specific. Share your precise thoughts about the client. State what your practice theory suggested about clients in this particular circumstance.
C: The Helping-Therapeutic Encounter
Using up to twelve (12) process-recording excerpts present a section of your initial encounter with the client. The encounter you select should illustrate salient aspects of the client’s response to your efforts to engage him/her. It should also include examples of the data (e.g., client verbal and non-verbal responses) that you used to assess the client’s capacity to engage in the client-worker relationship and a therapeutic helping process.
Following each response by you include in parentheses a sentence, or two, that explains what you were thinking and why you responded as you did. For example, what were you trying to accomplish? What were you feeling?
D: Initial Formulations
Include the following in your evaluation of the client’s capacity to engage in the treatment relationship. Will the client have difficulty working with you toward the identified change outcome? How so? What leads you to this conclusion? What client strengths and resources are available to assist you and the client? Provide literature citations and examples from the initial phase of the helping encounter to support your conclusions. If you anticipate no difficulties on the client’s part, explain how you reached this conclusion.
How do you explain the client’s difficulty in engaging in the treatment relationship? What interventions can you identify that may guide your efforts in strengthening the treatment relationship?
Indicate the next steps you will take to enhance the client-practitioner (treatment) relationship. Be specific. Provide a range of options if necessary. Explain the rationale behind these steps.The assignment must be typed and double-spaced. Maximum length: 12 pages. Please use APA style for citations and references. The professional literature should be cited and infused throughout this mid-term assignment.
