Intimate Partner Trauma Case Study

Working with victims of domestic violence can be an extremely rewarding and fulfilling endeavor. One of the most crucial aspects for a paralegal working with victim of domestic violence is adequately engaging in the task of educating oneself to understand the commonalities of such victims and the ordeals that they have been through. Such clients are drastically different from other individuals who have suffered other physical and violent crimes. Understanding the background of someone who has lived through domestic violence is absolutely central to being able to provide adequate and sensitive legal care. Most victims of domestic violence are women (95%) though domestic violence can have an impact on ever age, class, race, ethnic, cultural or religious group (purplerainfoundation, 2012). "In the United States, nearly one in three adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood (American Psychological Association, Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family 1996 Report)" (purplerainfoundation, 2012). These women are often terrified of their partner's temper, apologize when they are abused and often in the most extremely controlling and isolated environment where the abusive partner will control who the partner sees and where the partner goes outside of the home, jealous of outside relationships (purplerainfoundation, 2012). In these abusive relationships the women are hit,

For a psychoeducational group on aging, a comfortable and light rapport should exist between the co-leaders (Corey, 2010). This will not only put the members at ease, but will make for a more successful session for the co-leaders as they can bounce the concerns and ideas they may have off of each other before and after each session. Additionally, it would likely be easier for members to trust and confide in

Throughout this process, I will use several strategies such as role playing to enhance their experience and explore their feelings in the here-and-now process. Also, every group we will begin by discussing unresolved issues from previous group sessions. After unresolved issues, we will focus on the content

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can result from any form of trauma a person may experience throughout their life, such as war or combat, physical or sexual assault, natural disasters, mental abuse, ect. It is also something that effects more people than commonly thought, “7.8 percent of Americans will experience PTSD at some point in their lives”. If not treated, the symptoms of PTSD can follow an individual their entire life, this potentially includes “reliving” traumatic memories in addition to many other emotional issues. Although it may be helpful, PTSD treatment can be very difficult for an individual to participate in. In order for someone to work through a traumatic experience, it is necessary that the individual reflects on many

In completing this essay, an opportunity was provided to select a case study and determine whether individual, group, or both kinds of services would be most effective treatment for a client. The essay will be based on the case study of Working with Survivors of Domestic Violence: The case of Charo. The issue the client is facing will be discussed, along with my recommended intervention. The essay will conclude with identifying the best delivery method for an intervention with supporting resources to validate my decision.

Women who are being abused and controlled by their partners are generally not allowed to engage in the kind of open dialogue that counseling promotes. In fact, a woman who does speak openly to a social worker in the presence of an abusive partner may, in reality, be in serious danger when she returns home. (Golden, 1994) The fear that is created through the abuse makes it difficult for the victim to admit they are being mistreated.

Session Objective: Address the member’s efforts to overpower thoughts and feelings pertaining to the trauma. As well, address indicator behaviors that include avoiding, conversations about the trauma or related topics, activities, places, or people that bring up trauma memories. The creative arts activity is find what specific symptom is most distressing for the specific group member and to draw out how they have managed when this symptom arises.

Domestic violence is a very important social problem that we must educate ourselves on because it has such a profound and negative effect on the individual(s) being abused. They are affected mentally, emotionally, physically, and I know from experience that the scars can run very deep. Being in an abusive relationship for three years was devastating to my self-image as a teenager, and because of these feelings of inadequacy, my decreasing esteem allowed me to stay in such a dangerous scenario. Healing from the negative effects of that relationship has been a difficult journey for me, and I can only imagine how much more difficult it must be for women abused for years on end. To this day, I struggle greatly with the ability to let go of my own "control"

Catherine, I respect the type of group that you would like to form. It is not easy to work with traumatic clients especially those that are young. I agree that it is critical to offer support to those struggling with trauma as early as possible. I wonder how you would deal with those not wanting to discuss their issue? I would assume that it would be especially difficult for young girls to speak about the trauma. Perhaps some of the girls are confused to what happened and do not have the words to describe it. As you mentioned Peterson, Park, Pole, D'andrea & Seligman, 2008) demonstrated that resiliency is shown in all aspects of our lives at one point. Therefore, for the group leader to point out resiliency especially with those struggling

In the United States, approximately 1.5 million women report some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) each year and of those an estimated 324,000 are pregnant (Deshpande & Lewis-O'Connor, 2013). According to Deshpande and Lewis-O’Connor (2013), IPV is defined as abuse that may be actual or threatened by an intimate partner that can be physical, sexual, psychological, or emotional in nature. It is important for health care providers to realize IPV does not only include physical or sexual abuse but also includes name calling, financial control, constant criticism, and isolating women away from their families and friends (Deshpande & Lewis-O'Connor, 2013; Smith, 2008). There are 3 phases of abuse tension building

Dr. Yalom explains how to begin an initial session. He spends first 16 to 17 minutes to introduce group members, explain why did they come to the therapy (major issue), other therapies that they had or other group that they belonged to. In addition, couple people talk about how awkward was talk in front of people. Also, he builds group's norms such as supportive, encourager, making group safer and helping members to interact with one another. He mentions to an important norm that how members take responsibility about their own functions. He asks members to switch their judgments (e.g. first impression) and how do they feel about each other, which is a significant step. This step helps members to build their relationships and sharing feedbacks.

In the study, it discusses how women with PTSD have experienced child abuse before exposure to other traumatic experiences. It also explains how they may not do well in therapy that is focused around treating trauma. This happens because the women have experienced severe detachment upon their exposure to trauma. Therefore, the researchers took the research further and looked at the possibility of three treatments to see if they would help regulate the emotions of the women tested in the study.

The literature presents some debate about the specific number of participants to include in a PTSD therapy group. For CPT groups, Resick and Schnicke recommend including four to nine participants. The majority of the group treatment studies we reviewed are consistent with this recommendation; they tended to include six to eight participants per group” (p. 691). Sloan, Bovin, & Schnurr (2012), further explain, “However, there are some notable exceptions with somewhat smaller (e.g., 2 members) and larger (e.g., 10–11 members) groups represented in the literature. The type of group that is being conducted should be the primary factor in deciding the number of group members to allow” (p.

Abuse inflicted by an intimate partner is the source of a great deal of psychological distress for many women. Yet, some manage to survive and emerge from abusive relationships with fewer negative outcomes than others. This points to the need for investigations addressing coping strategies utilized by battered women that preserve their psychological functioning and their physical well-being during and after battering relationships.

This paper examines online publications on narrative theory and therapy with domestic violence victims. It explores the history of narrative theory as well as what assumptions are made about individual and family clients when using the theory. The paper reviews the techniques that are used in narrative theory and then applies these techniques to a case study involving a victim of domestic abuse. The purpose of applying the use of narrative theory to a case is to examine how it is utilized in practice and how it can be used to empower a specific population.