Case Presentation Form Assignment

1. Counseling interns name: Luisa F. Zapata

2. Client/Students first name, age, grade, gender, sexual orientation (if known), race/ethnicity,
religion, economic class (free-reduced lunch), first generation, family background (parents?
Siblings?), and/or other basic relevant demographic information.
The students first name is ------
14 years old
Female
We did not touch on sexual orientation
Caucasian
Unknown
Low-socio economic status
Aly lives with mom, dad, and 2 more sisters at home

3. Date session occurred; session number; length of session
The session occurred Tuesday January 15
th
. This was my fourth session with student.
Throughout the time I have seen her, we have talked about different issues regarding past
experiences about being bullied back in middle school and self-esteem. The session
lasted 40 minutes.
4. Use S.O.A.P. (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) notes to capture the presenting
issue:
Subjective:
During my session with student topics of self-esteem and loneliness, and feeling invisible
came up.

Client: There are some counselors that dont help me. Some counselors just want to get
it over with so they can do other stuff to earn moneythey dont care about helping the
person.. you help me. There should be counselors that want to help people that care,
people like feel like killing themselves
Counselors: It seems like throughout your years at school you havent found people that
have been there for you.
Client: I mean... my two sisters have been there for me and one of my friends, but
besides them nobody else. People couldnt care less. They could be more interested
about what s going on in another room besides helping me


Objective
Student was well-groomed during our session. She speaks very clear about her feelings.
She is failing her science class right now which can be attributed to the fact that she is
very shy and does not ask questions in class. She always talks a lot during our sessions.

The assessment
According to this session with student, the roots of the presenting problem are both
psychological and sociological. It is psychological because the student clearly has
serious self-esteem issues due her life experiences. She seems very conflicted in what
she thinks about herself. On one hand she tries to convince herself that she is pretty,
strong, and worthy of living. At other times, she will say the exact opposite. Her issues
are rooted from bullying experiences and feeling ignored because of her looks. She also
believes grown-up people do not care for her, which does not help her self-esteem.
Internally she does not think highly of herself. She does not like to feel vulnerable.

It is also sociological in that she would want to be one of the popular kids at school even
if she says she hates them and she would not want to be like them. Like any other
teenager, her desire is to be accepted by people at her school. She does not want to feel
invisible.

The Plan
Specific: The plan: As mentioned before, student has really low-self esteem. She is angry at
people that are popular and do not care about her. She also has issues with her body image and
who she is in general. She does not believe others care for her and has thought multiple times
how it would be to not be in this world. It is pivotal that self-esteem issues are addressed in every
session. I want her to see the positive qualities that she has and help her internalize them. I also
want to help her improve her communication skills so she can make friends and build the support
system she does not have currently. One of the activities that I want to do with her is to have her
fill out different self -esteem statements that will allow her to remind herself how valuable she is.
Some of the self-esteem statements are:
o I feel good about:
o Im loved by:
o People say I am a good:
o I consider myself a good:
o What I enjoy most is:
o I have been successful at:
o The traits I admire myself for are:
o Goals for my future are:
These statements are an adaptation from www.self-esteem -experts.com


a. Microlevel: I will continue working on a one-on-one basis with student every other
week to assess her progress. When I asked her how she liked talking to me during
this session, she said it was very helpful to have someone to talk to about her
problems. It is important that issues regarding self-esteem are discussed during one-
on-one sessions.
b. Mesolevel: What I want to do at this level involves talking to her teachers about the
importance of talking and interacting with student as much as they can. She feels
that no teacher, except for one, cares about her. I understand that teachers have other
20 or more kids in their classes to worry about, but if they could ask her how she is
doing before or after class and engage her in a little conversation, it could really
make a difference.
c. Macrolevel: I have already talked to the schools Student Advocate about getting
student additional counseling outside of the school. She mentioned she had a
counselor that really cared for her but they could not afford him anymore. This
needs to happen soon, therefore I will continue to advocate for her to get the help
she needs.



5. What multicultural factors are at play? How multicultural factors influence the client-
counselor relationship?
o Although student realizes that I am from a different background, she has never mentioned
anything about it and neither have I. She needs attention and someone that listens to her
regardless of race or background. There are times that I have said something that she did
not understand right away. I blame my accent for it but maybe that could be something
that we can discuss in the future. I certainly would not want her to misunderstand what I
am saying to her.
6. What counseling theories are you using in this session
I decided to start my session with art therapy. I provided the student markers, crayons,
color pencils, and paper and asked her to draw anything she thought symbolized her. I
also gave her the choice of drawing anything that was important to her in her life. I find
that art therapy really helps students feel more comfortable when talking to a someone
they do not really know. In this case she decided to write instead of drawing. I also had
her write a letter to herself the session after this one.
I also wanted to explore her thought process a little better and understand how she sees
her situation.
7. Good things I did:

I used good attending
I carried out a little intervention during the session
I was empathetic and provided feedback

8. Things to work on:
Allowing more silence
Since she is very talkative during our session, I should be more directive
Strategies to help her. I dont know where to even begin helping her