Respond  by offering additional insights or alternative perspectives  on their diagnosis or provide alternate next questions and why you  selected those.

NOTE: (POSITIVE COMMENT)

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In  this video, the practitioner is dealing with a 16-year-old boy. This is  a teenager and an underage. As such, the assessment of this client  might be met with a number of complications such as failure to  cooperate. Notably, counselling teenagers is known to be challenging  especially when normal traditional talk is used because this may be a  barrier to communication between the client and the practitioner (Bennet  et al., 2017). In addition, there are always several ethical and legal  issues owing to the age of a minor that must be put in mind during any  interaction with them in clinical setting. However, the practitioner is  very keen to make sure that he creates an environment that allows them  to talk and discuss his client’s issue in an open manner. He first leads  him into the assessment room and welcomes him to sit down. This is  already a sign of hospitability and it may be effective in reducing any  tension that may have existed on the part of the teenager before he got  into the room. Building a rapport with any client and especially  teenagers is very important in making sure that adolescents that are  disengaged become engaged (Bennet et al., 2017). It is clear from the  video that the teenager appreciated being welcomed into the office.

The  right to privacy and confidentiality applies to any patient. Ideally,  even though this is a teenager where consent for treatment comes from  the parents, he still has the right to privacy and confidentiality. The  practitioner was right to make sure that he knew that whatever shall be  discussed there will not be told to anyone including his parents unless  he is seen to have the potential of harming himself or another person.  There are always competing interests between parents and children when  working with minors and it is always important for the practitioner to  understand how to balance these interests (Sori & Hecker, 2015).

Even  though the practitioner started well, there are a few things that he  needs to improve. For instance, he asked the client why he thinks he is  there, and the client said that his mom made him. The practitioner went  ahead and pointed out that the mother must have had a reason to do that.  This was not a good approach because it appeared like he was already  justifying or proving that the parent was right, and completely  disregarding the feelings that the teenager has about being made to  attend the session. In fact, one can notice how the attitude of the  teenage changed thereafter. He even told the practitioner that he would  have to ask his mother that particular question.

At  this point of the interview, the only compelling concern is that the  practitioner does not want to look at the problem from an objective  perspective. He even makes comments about teenagers not wanting to talk  with their parents. This actually validates his behavior as a teenager  and to some extent, it beats the purpose of the session. The  practitioner should use an approach that tries to build the relationship  between the client and his mother. in any family, a person or a unit  forms a subsystem. The behavior of the subsystem affects the family as a  whole (Ahluwalia, Anand & Suman, 2018). In this case, it is clear  that in the family there are two subsystems and the behavior of the  teenager is affecting the family relationship.

The  next question that should be asked is whether the client actually  thinks he has anger management issue. In the DSM-5 there is no diagnosis  for dysfunctional anger. However, anger management issues come out in  criteria for different other issues and it is likely that this would be a  case of intermittent explosive disorder. In this disorder, there is  aggressive and impulsive reaction to people and property (Rynar &  Coccaro, 2018). It could also be a case of irritability which is a  manifestation of many other mental health issues. Therefore, asking him  this question will be a start to understanding the many other  circumstances surrounding his anger in order to make the right  diagnosis.

References

Ahluwalia,  H., Anand, T., & Suman, L. N. (2018). Marital and family therapy.  Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 60(Suppl 4), S501.

Bennett,  E. D., Le, K., Lindahl, K., Wharton, S., & Weng Mak, T. (2017).  Five out of the box techniques for encouraging teenagers to engage in  counseling. Retrieved from VISTAS Online American Counselling  Association Knowledge Center website: https://www. counseling.  org/docs/default-source/vistas/encouraging-teenagers. pdf

Rynar,  L., & Coccaro, E. F. (2018). Psychosocial impairment in DSM-5  intermittent explosive disorder. Psychiatry research, 264, 91-95

Sori,  C. F., & Hecker, L. L. (2015). Ethical and legal considerations  when counselling children and families. Australian and New Zealand  Journal of Family Therapy, 36(4), 450-464