Precious Case Study

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Therapeutic Process Goals Precious needs long-term individual counseling and psychotherapy with the main goal of helping her develop true self and whole self. Precious’ mother did not provide a healthy relationship, therefore she relied on her father to provide her sense of self. As a result, she is searching for her sense of self in her relationships with men. In addition, she idealizes men because her father was more consistent than her mother, and it was him who, paradoxically, gave her the best thing in her life – her son Abdul. The goal of the treatment is to boost Precious’ self-esteem, to change her perception of her racial status, to change the way she idealizes men, and to decrease the negative effect of HIV stigma by encouraging …show more content…

In case of Precious, corrective emotional experience would include helping her to express her negative feelings during therapy. In order to help her repair her unmet developmental needs and improve her sense of self and others, she will need optimal responsiveness, mirroring, empathetic attunement, and holding environment – especially safe haven where she can freely express her feelings. She will also need good enough caregiver – a person she can trust. After her core conflicts: false self and idealization of men are addressed, I can work with her on developing her true self. I would provide twinship relationship to Precious by emphasizing that in the collaborative therapeutic process we will reach our goal of helping her to solve her core conflicts. Positive and growth-fostering relationship will also promote her individual …show more content…

I will need to continually respond to her feelings, so she no longer will have to be alone with shame, anxiety, anger, guilt, or other form of distress and will gain the ability to connect meaningfully with another person and develop relationships characterized by trust. The study has also shown that “childhood sexual abuse was related to interpersonal conflicts indirectly through the emotion of shame” (Kim, Talbot, & Cicchetti, 2009, p. 362). Shame was described as “a highly aversive, debilitating affective experience associated with a profound negative evaluation of the self” (Kim, Talbot, & Cicchetti, 2009, p.

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