Case Studies

Susan Rodgers

PSY/210

Axia College

Case Study:

Jennifer is a 29 year old administrative assistant married to Antonio, and Italian engineer, whom Jennifer met four years earlier on a business trip for her marketing company. The couple now lives in Nebraska, where Antonio works for the county’s transportation department and Jennifer commutes an hour each way to her marketing office. They have been trying to start a family for over a year. Eight months ago, Jennifer miscarried in her second month of pregnancy. Antonio’s parents love Jennifer and often ask if she is expecting again, hoping to encourage her to focus on her next baby. Jennifer’s mother passed away two years ago and her father’s health is rapidly deteriorating. Jennifer faces the probability of placing her father in a skilled nursing care facility with the next few months, against his wishes.

At work, Jennifer runs a tight ship. She is organized and prepares lists to assure that everything is done according to schedule. Everyone counts on Jennifer and she takes pride in never letting people down.

Jennifer has visited her physician numerous times in the last six months, complaining of

headaches, backaches, and indigestion. Jennifer insists that she is happy and is not feeling

stressed, yet she finds herself making more mistakes at work, unable to keep up with housework,

and feeling tired and overwhelmed; she has begun to question her effectiveness as an employee,

wife, daughter, and potential mother. Her pains seem to be increasing, but her doctor cannot find

a physical cause for her discomfort. (Axia College, 2011)

1. What are the causes of stress in Michael’s or Jennifer’s life? How is stress affecting Michael’s or Jennifer’s health?

Jennifer’s stress level is high even though she may think otherwise. Her stress level has been building for at least a minimum of two years, starting with the death of her mother and her responsibility to start taking care of her father. Whom she may have to put into a nursing facility for proper health care, even though she may have to do it against his will. She is felling stress from her parent-in-laws to try again for a baby, even though it has only been eight months since her miscarriage.

As an administrative assistant, she is responsible for keeping the employees and her boss organized and on time. Since she has failed a couple of times, she has been hard on herself about it. Finally, she has to commute an hour each way every day to work; dealing with the traffic, noise, and pollution on the highway can cause Jennifer additional stress.

Jennifer is showing signs of a high stress level, such as fatigue, headaches, chronic heartburn, and the feeling of being overwhelmed. She needs to find and apply positive coping skills, such as meditation (Nevid & Rathus, 2005). This would help her to regain her focus on her home, family, and work. If learning coping skills is not enough, should also think about counseling.

2. How are these stressors affecting Michael’s or Jennifer’s self-concept and self-esteem?

Both Jennifer’s self-esteem and self-concept are being affected. She is reinforcing negative self-images due to her feelings of incompetency. She doubts if she will be a good mother and her ability to be a goods wife to Antonio, because she is fatigued and her housework has gotten behind. She is starting to see herself as helpless and incompetent. Jennifer’s self-image has suffered due to her miscarriage; her mistakes at work; getting behind on her chores at home; and pressures about her father’s health care. She has taken outside circumstances and converted them to produce a negative self-image. She has begun to think others opinions of her is she is an unfit wife, daughter, and worker. This is also causing her to doubt herself about becoming a mother. She is forgetting all the accomplishments she has done at work and at home. She needs to develop positive reinforcement techniques and to accept positive compliments without examining it.

3. How might Michael’s or Jennifer’s situation illustrate adjustment? How might this situation become an opportunity for personal growth?

So far Jennifer has not adjusted to the stressors in her life positively. She needs to take each situation individually and find a positive aspect of each to begin adjusting positively. For example, she can look at finding a place for her father as positive. Instead of focusing on the situation as going against her father’s wishes, making her a bad daughter; she should focus on the better care she wants for him as her being a good daughter looking after the well fair of her ailing father. Also, Jennifer needs to communicate with her mother-in-law and father-in-law to let them know it is still too early for her to try to focus on another pregnancy even though she still wants to have children with their son. Finally, she needs to understand and accept her mistakes as a way to grow a wife, daughter, mother, and professional.

4. What defensive coping methods are Michael or Jennifer using? What active coping

methods might be healthier for Michael or Jennifer to use? Explain why you would

recommend these methods.

Jennifer’s defensive coping mechanism is to be fatigued and ill. This can be seen by her increasing health problems. Since, she says she does not feel stressed and the doctor cannot find any reason for her health conditions, she needs to focus more on her mental awareness of her stressors. She could turn her situation around by using positive coping mechanisms. She needs to locate new ways to reduce and or manage her existing stress to enable her to turn all of the situations around in the long run. Once she learned these skills she will be able to identify stressor in the future and be able to manager in a more positive way. She could try meditation, or exercise to start lowering her stress levels as a coping method. This will improve and maintain her physical health as well. This would even allow her to clear her mind that way she could exert her focus on what has to be done at the home or work.

5. Select one theory of personality and use this theory to tell Michael or Jennifer how this

theory explains his or her situation.

I think the Humanistic Theory of personality is the most adapt at defining Jennifer’s situation. The Humanistic Theory argues that individuals can reach self-actualization as a means of reaching their highest potential (Nevid and Rathus, 2005). Nevid and Rathus said, “it is through self-actualization that we find ways to fulfill each of our needs, from the most primitive needs for physiological sustenance to the need for safety and our more complex needs for intimacy and emotional support” (2005). Also, to raise her self-esteem she can use self-actualization. Jennifer cannot self-actualize while she is fixed in a state of worry over everything going in her life. She needs to find or form a support system with her husband, family, and friends. Until she can find a way to get past the feelings of inadequacy as a wife, daughter, and professional she will not increase her self-esteem or self-image. She needs to realize she is very good at her job and a couple of mistakes do not make her a bad employee. By staying fixed in this state of mind, she will not be able to overcome her need to move toward self-actualization.

6. In what stage of development is Michael or Jennifer and what factors about this stage might be affecting his or her perspective of this situation?

Jennifer is currently in the middle adulthood stage called the Age-30 transition. Although now is the time when she wants to start a family, and she has been trying for a year, she is still in mourning for the child she lost eight months ago due to a miscarriage. She is also having a problem with managing her household right now. She is only seeing how she has disappointed herself, her husband, and her co-workers. She needs to readjust her attitude so she will be able to rise above the negative thoughts. She needs to continue to try to have the family she and Antonio have been trying for. She has to begin to approach her life in a way that will allow her to see the enhancements to herself instead of just seeing what she has failed to accomplish. Finally, she needs to find a balance between her home life and work life to gain stable ground to enable her to reach her dreams of being a better wife, daughter, and potential mother. Once she does that she will also begin to excel at work once more.

7. What relationship factors or considerations might be influencing Michael’s or Jennifer’s problems?

I think the miscarriage has a lot to do with the way Jennifer feels about herself. Right now she probably thinking she is a failure because she lost the child that Antonio wanted as much as she did. Once she realizes that there was nothing she could have done to stop the miscarriage she will be able to raise her confidence in being a mother. Also, she is not able to personally care for her father’s health problems, which could lead to think she is a failure as a daughter. When she has found a facility that she likes and has confidence they will give her father the best medical care she can afford her confidence as a daughter will rise. After she has worked through these issues her work will improve to the excellence it was before or better.

Reference

Nevid, J. S. & Rathus, S. A. (2005). Psychology and the challenges of life: Adjustment in the new

millennium (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.