7-3 Final Project Submission: Client History and Therapy Plan
PSY 315 Final Project Guidelines and RubricOverview
The final project for this course is the creation of a therapy plan. Students will select a case study and design a therapy plan using one of the theoretical orientations covered in the course. The final product represents an authentic demonstration competency because students will be able to apply their counseling knowledge in a real-world manner. The project is divided in to two milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Three and Five. The final product will be submitted in Module Seven.
Objectives
To successfully complete this project, you will be expected to apply what you have learned in this course and should include several of the following course objectives:
- Explain the theory, process, and techniques of helping
- Apply knowledge about the personality theory; the APA ethical code; and social and ethical issues/concerns related to the field of counseling
- Practice effective attending skills and helping responses
- Express the core conditions for effective helping: empathy, positive regard, and genuineness
- Apply theory and learned techniques in role-played helping situations
- Demonstrate critical, analytical, and self-assessment skills
Main Elements
For this assignment, you will choose one of the following theoretical orientations as well as corresponding concepts to treat the case study:
- Psychoanalytic Therapy using concepts such as structure of personality, the unconscious, role of anxiety and ego-defense mechanisms, and stage of development. Include the role of transference and countertransference in the therapy process. Some techniques that can be included are free association, interpretation, dream analysis, and analysis and interpretation of resistance and transference.
- Adlerian Therapy using concepts such as social interest, birth order, subjective view of reality, unity of personality. Include the lifestyle assessment as well as the role of the family constellation and early recollections in a lifestyle assessment. Also, include the four phases of the therapeutic process.
- Existential Therapy using concepts such as self-awareness, freedom and responsibility, intimacy and isolation, meaning in life, death anxiety, and authenticity.
- Person-Centered Therapy using concepts such as acceptance, self-actualization, openness to experience, clarification, self-trust, reflection, internal locus of evaluation, congruence, growth-promoting climate, incongruence, actualizing tendency, genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and here-and-now experiences.
- Gestalt Therapy using concepts such as here-and-now, awareness, dealing with unfinished business, contact and resistance to contact, body language, and the role of experiments in therapy the dialogue experiment, playing the projection, “why” questions, reversal technique, the rehearsal experiment, staying with the feeling, empty chair technique, introjection, integration of polarities, projection, blocks to energy, catastrophic expectations, impasse or “stuck point,” here-and-now experiencing, projection screen, figure-formation process, boundary disturbance, and language that denies power.
- Behavior Therapy using concepts such as systematic desensitization, behavior modification, biofeedback, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, cognitive trend/processes, target behaviors, self-management, reinforcement techniques, self-directed behavior, homework, observational learning, behavioral diary, imitation, self-contracting, goal setting, contingency contracting, relaxation training, social reinforcement, social learning, behavior rehearsal, exposure therapy, modeling, assertion training, feedback, in vivo desensitization, flooding, eye movement desensitization and stress inoculation reprocessing (EMDR), extinction, functional assessment, positive punishment, and negative punishment.
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy using concepts such as internal dialogue, irrational beliefs, coping-skills program, cognitions, stress inoculation, unconditional “shoulds,” absolutistic “musts,” self-observation, faulty assumptions, automatic thinking, self-evaluating, self-sustaining, simple preferences, schema restructuring, emotional disturbance, cognitive distortions/errors, autosuggestion, schema, self-repetition, “family schemata,” blame, arbitrary inferences, anxiety, A-B-C theory, cognitive triad, Socratic questioning, full acceptance or tolerance, cognitive homework, therapeutic collaboration, disputing irrational beliefs, overgeneralization, changing one’s language, magnification and minimization, rational-emotive imagery, personalization, role playing, labeling and mislabeling, shame-attacking exercises, polarized thinking, alternative interpretations, and self-instructional therapy.
In the paper, you will address all of the following:
- Identify a case study that you would like to design a therapy plan for.
- Discuss how this case study would be addressed in therapy according to your chosen theoretical orientation. Be sure to include specific concepts related to your chosen theory. Avoid broad, general concepts that are not related to a specific theory.
- Identify possible goals and interventions appropriate for the chosen orientation.
Format
Milestone One: Submit Case Study and Theoretical OrientationIn 3-3, you will submit a general description of patient and their issue, as well as the theoretical orientation chosen to address the issue. The description of your patient should be brief and contain only information that is most pertinent to the case. Your description can be informed by one of the case studies in the textbook, a person from your life, or be completely fictional. The format should be 1-2 pages and will not be graded separately; use the Final Project Rubric to structure feedback.
Milestone Two: Submit Outline of Final ProjectIn 5-3, you will submit an outline for the Final Paper. Your outline should create a framework for your Final Project, and include more specific detail on the patient, issue, and a rationale for your choice of theoretical orientation than what you included in your general description. Refer to the resource provided in the Module Five Resources area for more information on writing an outline. The format should be 1-2 pages and will not be graded separately; use the Final Project Rubric to structure feedback.
Final Submission: Client History and Therapy PlanIn 7-3, you will submit the Final Paper: Client History and Therapy Plan. Your Final Paper should be a culmination of the details of your description and outline and should reflect the incorporation of feedback gained throughout the course. The paper should be a complete, polished artifact that demonstrates how you would apply your counseling knowledge in a real-world manner. This submission will be graded using the Final Project Rubric (below).
What to Submit
Written components of projects must follow these formatting guidelines when applicable: double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, 6-8 pages, and discipline-appropriate citations.
