How My thinks on Psychology, Mental Illness, & DNA

Once the clinician has collected as much information as possible, his or her second step in the case conceptualization process is to begin organizing the various client data. By studying the clients past, relatives, patterns, and incidents from youth to adulthood we can get enough information to put together a profile of the client's behavior and abnormal actions. According to Schwitzer & Rubin, (2014), “conceptual skills to weave together the different pieces of information about the client’s adjustment, development, distress, or dysfunction into logical groupings that elucidate the person’s larger clinical concerns, the problematic themes underlying the person’s difficulties with life situations or life roles, or critical problems found in the person’s intrapsychic or interpersonal approach to his or her world,” (p. 31).

For example, a woman brings in a son (Alex) who has a psychotic break, upon maing a genogram of their family we find out that her brother, sister, dad, and grandmother have all had depression, suicide, and schizophenria diagnoses in the past, It turns out Ms. Costello was familiar with the painful and tragic consequences of mental illness long before Alex’s troubles began.(Mackinnon, (2012). Her son is DNA connected to this illness and now we have information to apply to the treatment plan.

One method to help us new counselors is known as Inverted Pyramid Method of Case Conceptualization

• Taken together, a start-to-finish case conceptualization begins with learning about the client’s concerns
• moves on to meaningfully organizing this information into patterns and themes
• and finishes by explaining the patterns and themes using our choice of theory or theories, (Schwitzer & Rubin, (2014).

References

Mackinnon D. F. (2012). A family tree filled with mental illness: review: a lethal inheritance: a mother uncovers the science behind three generations of mental illness by victoria costello. Cerebrum : the Dana forum on brain science, 2012, 5.

Schwitzer, A. M., & Rubin, L. C. (2014). Diagnosis and treatment planning skills: A popular culture approach (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications. ISBN-13: 9781483349763 Retrieved from https://in.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/44297_3.pdf

Reply from Classmate:

Re: Topic 3 DQ 1 (Obj. 3.1 and 3.2)

Hi Crystal,

You made some interesting points in your post. I appreciate the example you gave about Alex and exploring his mother's family history. The genetic component of mental illness cannot be ignored during the diagnostic phase of treatment. Sometimes that genetic component makes treatment planning a little easier. The clinician has some foundation, to begin with. It can be very challenging when a client comes to treatment and reports having no family with a history of mental illness. Whether or not this is true, it still leaves the clinician needing to figure out appropriate treatment planning.

Thank you,

Reply back to Classmate: 

I truly think that DNA patterns will show us in the future much more on how we are wired. For example "Diseases like the Black Death have the ability to powerfully shape human demography and human biology," (Pappas, (2014). This is exciting to me because the people that are descendants today still have a DNA change that makes their immune system resistant to certain diseases. My theory is if this can happen to the body, then how much can happen through the brain in a DNA pattern that can cause mental illness. 

The article can be found here if your interested. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/black-death-survivors-and-their-descendants-went-on-to-live-longer/

I thank you for your reply. 

Reference

Pappas, S. (2014). Live Science. Black Death Survivors and Their Descendants Went On to Live Longer. 

Reply from Professor:

Crystal, thanks for sharing the article with us. It is interesting and your theory is as well! I do believe in the biopsychosocial diathesis stress model in that we are all predisposed to something and the stressors in the environment, including prenatal teratogens, bring out physical and mental disorders in us. Thanks again for your take on this!