Treatment Plan and Intervention in Depressive Disorder and Social Phobia

Discussion of treatment options, drawing on relevant literature and providing a sound rationale for your chosen treatment

The client is suffering from the major depressive disorder and social phobia. The major depressive disorders is a clinical depression that mainly manifests in the form of mood disorders as the client persistently feels depressed, sad, and lacks interest in a lot of things. For example, Greg has intimated that he loses interest in social interaction, does blot participate actively in team meetings. He has also stated that he really wants to be in a long-term relationship but the thought of dating is "really stressful - I wouldn't know where to start."

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Cognitive behavioral therapy will focus on how the client thinks about his situation and the effect that the negative thinking affects his feelings and behaviors (Kivlighan, Hill, Gelso & Baumann, 2016). His negative emotions would be addressed because these are the feelings that lead to isolation, anxiety, and depressions. The cognitive behavioral therapy would effectively address the defeatists thigh process through positive reinforcement (Huang, Qian & Wang, 2015). The retraining process would help the brain think differently about his sexual orientation, career outlook and social interactions and in the end; the client would change his future behaviors.

His Social anxiety disorder can also be addressed by encouraging him to meet people and accept his limitations. The social phobia is mainly characterized by the fears of being judged by others so he refrains from going on dates or engaging in social activities to reduce anxiety levels which is just a short-term reward that has long-term consequences (Hiltunen, Kocys & Perrin-Wallqvist, 2013). He needs to be encouraged t identify the negative thinking patterns and challenge those patterns and behaviors that lead to isolation. Cognitive behavioral therapy will effectively address negative reinforcement but not avoiding the stress causing situations.

The graded exposure would help him unlearn the thought patterns that contribute to the anxiety disorders and phobias. If he can gradually confront anything that scares him and understanding that nothing bad can happen, his brain would be retrained not to fear social functions, dates and office meetings.

Drugs such as psychostimulants and antidepressants are relatively efficient but their effectiveness is short-term in nature. The client can be addressed to take antidepressants for his mood swings and the anti-anxiety medication for the anxiety related disorders, but this alone would not be effective for his phobic disorders

Discussion of a treatment plan for therapy, including specific techniques and interventions that could be used with this case Cognitive behavioral therapy for building self-esteem

The treatment options should therefore not only address the short-term lack of interest but also his low self-esteem. For one, low self can be corrected by preventing dysfunctional thinking. He should be encouraged to thinking positively about his abilities and to have confidence in his abilities (Bryant-Bedell & Waite, 2010). Pervasive poor self-esteem is significantly correlated with depressions (Saxon, Henriksson, Kvarnstrom & Hiltunen, 2017). Through cognitive restructuring, the client would be helped in recognizing the dysfunctional thinking patterns and replace them with effective thinking patterns (Eriksson, 2013). The cognitive restructuring would help the client identify any negating though and negative self-talk and focus on positive personal attributes that can motivate him to achieve his desires.

Behavioral activation is also another option that can be used to help the client overcome low self-esteem. The client would be helped to face the activities and situation that he fears to fail in. he would increase the opportunities for rewarding experiences by facing the problems or negative ideations thereby overcoming depression (Bryant-Bedell & Waite, 2010). The option should help him to re-engage with life, date more often and meet more people that have potential rewarding experiences.

Assertive training

The client is suffering from depression that arises as a result of poor self-esteem. Assertiveness training can help the client learn how to get what they desire effectively and skillfully and not sacrifice his relationship with others be they dates or colleagues (van Dessel et al., 2014). The client has not accepted the fact that he is gay and lack of understanding self and identity and poor self-concept makes him cowers from dating or getting out of the closet and this prevents him from meeting new gay friends in his area (Aslam, Irfan & Naeem, 1969).

Consideration of how you will evaluate the effectiveness of your chosen treatment approach

Poor self-concept and the fact that he is ashamed to be gay makes him stressed and more vulnerable to depression. He has intimated his readiness and desire to change and accept himself as a gay person first before other accept him. He needs to talk to others in the office that is also the reason for the implementation of the social skills training to help him interact more with colleagues, join dating sites and make new friends. Social skills training would help the client engage in more positive and rewarding social behaviors.

References

Aslam, M., Irfan, M., & Naeem, F. (1969). Brief culturally adapted cognitive behavior therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A pilot study. Pakistan Journal Of Medical Sciences, 31(4). doi: 10.12669/pjms.314.7385

Bryant-Bedell, K., & Waite, R. (2010). Understanding major depressive disorder among middle-aged African American men. Journal Of Advanced Nursing, 22(13), no-no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05345.x

Eriksson, E. (2013). Cognitive behavioral therapy for treatment-resistant depression. The Lancet, 381(9880), 1814. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(13)61118-6

Hiltunen, A., Kocys, E., & Perrin-Wallqvist, R. (2013). The effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy: An evaluation of therapies provided by trainees at a university psychotherapy training center. Psych Journal, 2(2), 101-112. doi: 10.1002/pchj.23

Huang, F., Qian, Q., & Wang, Y. (2015). Cognitive behavioral therapy for adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 16(1). doi: 10.1186/s13063-015-0686-1

Kivlighan, D., Hill, C., Gelso, C., & Baumann, E. (2016). Working alliance, real relationship, session quality, and client improvement in psychodynamic psychotherapy: A longitudinal actor-partner interdependence model. Journal Of Counseling Psychology, 63(2), 149-161. doi: 10.1037/cou0000134

Saxon, L., Henriksson, S., Kvarnstrom, A., & Hiltunen, A. (2017). Affective Changes During Cognitive Behavioural Therapy-As Measured by PANAS. Clinical Practice & Epidemiology In Mental Health, 13(1), 115-124. doi: 10.2174/1745017901713010115

van Dessel, N., den Boeft, M., van der Wouden, J., Kleinstauber, M., Leone, S., & Terluin, B. et al. (2014). Non-pharmacological interventions for somatoform disorders and medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) in adults. Cochrane Database Of Systematic Reviews. doi: 10.1002/14651858.cd011142.pub2