User talk:Mariah Richards

This discussion page is for Mariah Richards and Sasha Santini. We are students working on an assignment for the Florida Virtual School Psychology course.

05.06 Therapy: How can we help you?

Therapist: Mariah Richards Patient: Sasha Santini

Pre-Discussion
Here is our discussion of how we choose to complete the assignment:

Date of Mock Therapy Session: July 28, 2011 Partners: Mariah Richards and Sasha Santini

Mariah: Sasha we need to pick a disorder that we want to work with. Since we have decided over the phone that you will be playing the role of the patient, you may choose the disorder we use.

Sasha: I think we should do Paranoia, if that's okay with you.

Mariah: That sounds like a good idea! Now we just need to decide what the best method of therapy would be to help a patient with a Paranoia disorder.

Sasha: I think we should use Psychoanalytical Therapy to help the patient.

Mariah: I was thinking that as well. When helping Paranoia patients, we need to listen to them and earn their trust. We need to be on their side about things. Doing this will allow the patient to talk more deeply and will give us an understanding of how this patient became so untrusting and suspicious.

Sasha: Yes otherwise they will not be open and want to talk during the session.

Mariah: Exactly. So do you have any ideas of the situation that the patient will be in? Why is the patient coming in for a session? Maybe they want to stay in a relationship but they do not trust their mate? Soemthing like that...

Sasha: Actually I was just thinking that. Me being the patient| In High School I was in a relationship and it ended because the person cheated on me with my best friend. Then again in college I was in a serious relationship and later found out that who I thought was my soulmate had been cheating on me the entire time. (Except I will not tell you, the therapist, this until you gain my trust) Okay If you agree with this then lets get started with the session!

Mariah: That is definetely a great idea. I'm going to create a new section where the session will start. You will come in and I will ask you a few questions. Be hesitant to answer at first, but when you realize that I will only listen, then tell me a little bit more and be full with your answers.

Sasha: With this type of therapy method, the patient would usually attend sessions for several years. So should we reflect that on our session?

Mariah: Nice that you caught that. Yeah we will figure it out. Lets get started.

Mock Therapy Session
Patient: Sasha Santini with Paranoia Disorder Therapist: Mariah Richards using the Psychoanalytic Therapy method

Therapist: Sasha, you have been meeting with me for several weeks now. Do you feel like we have accomplished anything?

Patient: Yeah. I get it, I have trust issues but that's okay because I have been working on it.

Therapist: Could you say... That you trust me a little more than you did 6 weeks ago?

Patient: I guess so. You haven't lied to me. And you let me talk without being mean to me.

Therapist: Well lets come over here and I want you to lie down again.

Patient: Okay. What are we talking about today?

Therapist: Whatever you would like to talk about.

Patient: You want me to talk about my boyfriend don't you?

Therapist: That seems like a good idea. What is he like?

Patient: I think I need to break up with him though.

Therapist: Why? Did he do something wrong?

Patient: Well I'm sure he did. I think.

Therapist: (silent)

Patient: Okay maybe I don't know for sure. But he might be doing something wrong that I dont know about.

Therapist: What do you think he may be doing?

Patient: Well. Cheating. He might be cheating and I would never know just like before!

Therapist: Has he cheated before?

Patient: I dont know. I didn't mean to say it like that.

Therapist: So maybe you do not trust him because you had a boyfriend in the past that cheated?

Patient: *sigh In high school I was dating a boy. I liked him alot and after 10 months, I found out that he cheated on me with my best friend. Then in college, the same thing happened but I was in love.

Therapist: And you think that your boyfriend is cheating now?

Patient: I have a strong feeling he is.

Therapist: I was with a boy who I thought for sure was the one for me. I was 17 years old. He cheated on me as well. He was immature and mean. I thought that all males were like that until I met a man when I was 22. He was sweet and I fell in love with him. He proved that not all guys are the same. We have been married for 19 years and he has never cheated.

Patient: How do I know that my boyfriend won't cheat?

Therapist: You will never know if you don't give him a chance. He may be the one.

Patient: But I'm still worried. And he seems suspicious soemtimes.

Therapist: Think about ways that you can distract yourself from thinking about what he may be doing. Instead of worrying about who he is with, have some girlfriends over and have a good time. Take your mind off of what could go wrong.

Reflection Questions
Just so we can see eachother's responses, I thought we could do our reflection questions here :) Grading_Rubric

Mariah Richards: 1. In my opinion, this assignment was very hard to complete. It was difficult to find a partner and when I thought I did a few times, they never replied. Sasha and I had to exchange phone numbers in order to work on the assignment at the same time. However, once we got started I realized that I had a working partner and we got the assignment finished.

2. I feel like Sasha and I did the same ammount of work and we both agreed on what we did. Sasha provided some great ideas that we decided to use.

3. I definetly like how we can just write everything in the wiki and make it very professional looking. It was difficult at first to figure out but we got it. If one of us made a mistake it was easy to go back and fix it. Also, I think a wiki is easier and faster to use.

4. When people have paranoid disorders, it is important for the therapist to gain trust of the patient. The therapy method used is the best choice because the therapist makes the patient decide for themselves what their problem is and how they can fix it. The therapist does not agree with everything the patient says but does not push the patient into talking. The therapist gains trust and eventually the patient will open up to find the root of their problem.

Sasha Santini 1. I think that this assignment was very difficult to understand at first, but once we got started I feel it went very smootly. The hardest part of this whole assignment though was finding a day we would both be available to do the project, but we worked it out and finished it in one day.

2. I feel we both did the same ammount of work and both had input in every decision that needed to be made. We also were very comfortable with throwing ideas out and making little suggestions here and there.

3. I did enjoy the fact that everything was pretty hard to figure out, but Mariah explained everything to me and then I understood. I liked using Wiki because it was fairly simple and both Mariah and I could work on it simultaneously. I will deffinantly use Wiki again if I have to.

4. This type of therapy is the best for paranoid people because it allows the paranoid person to slowly begin to trust you. Even though the person could be in therapy for several years they eventually open up and tell you everything. This therapy also allows the person to see you are there to listen and not to force them to talk. The paranoid person will be allowed to detemine things that they need to do to help themself and to get tips and hints on what they could do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ssantiin3 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 29 July 2011 (UTC)