Case Study of 17-year old student - Chapter 18
Imagine that you are a school counselor in an urban center. A concerned teacher at your school has referred a 17-year-old female student to you because her behavior has become withdrawn and her grades have been consistently dropping over the past few months.
The referring teacher, who leads the school orchestra, had noticed that the student, a second-generation immigrant from a Middle Eastern background, did not attend orchestra practice for 3 consecutive weeks and asked the other students if anyone knew the reason for her absence.
In private, one of her friends disclosed that the young woman has been having family problems because her parents found out that some of her classmates were dating boys from another school and that as a group they had all been spending time together.
Although the girl herself is not in a relationship, after finding out that she was unsupervised in the company of young men, her parents have stopped allowing her to go to extracurricular activities and outings with her friends. They also now drop her off at school and pick her up every day, and they will not let her answer phone calls from her friends. This situation is obviously negatively affecting the student's well-being as well as her school performance.
In the contextual domain, what elements of the broader social setting and the specific school setting do you think are influencing the situation?
In the relational domain, how would you identify who should be part of the counseling process? Should friends, family members, or others be involved? Who should make the decisions regarding whom to include or exclude, and how will these choices affect the sessions?
In the individual domain, what identities, personality attributes, and personal characteristics are pertinent to the situation?