Description

Discussion 1: Modifying Theoretical Interventions for Clients Experiencing Life Transition and Developmental Issues

In all likelihood, developmental and life transition issues will form the core of your work as a couple and family practitioner. These issues are those that couples and families typically encounter through common day-to-day living and may include being newly married, having a child, or sending a youngest child off into his or her own adulthood. They also may include common stressors, such as divorce, job loss, or death of a family member, just to name a few. Individuals across all cultures experience developmental and life transition issues in one way or another, and you will likely find yourself sitting across from a couple or family experiencing a similar life event to one you have encountered in your own life.

Despite the universality of many developmental and life transition issues, you should still keep in mind that there is no one way to experience a divorce, death, or job loss, nor is there one way to clinically encounter and assist a couple or family experiencing such issues. Different theoretical orientations may suggest different ways for addressing various scenarios, and you may have to modify your chosen theoretical orientation to work effectively in your professional practice.

For this Discussion, choose one life transition or developmental issue, and consider how you might modify your theoretical orientation and/or infuse interventions from other theories in order to address this issue.

BY DAY 3

Post a brief description of the life transition or developmental issue you selected and your chosen theoretical orientation. Then, explain how you might modify the theory-based interventions of your chosen theoretical orientation to work effectively with client(s) experiencing the issue you selected. Finally, explain the significant aspects of the life transition or developmental issue that influence how you would modify the application of your chosen theoretical orientation.

Be sure to support your postings and responses with specific references to the resources.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ postings.

BY DAY 5

Respond to at least one of your colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways:

• Ask a probing question.
• Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
• Offer and support an opinion.
• Make a suggestion.
• Expand on your colleague’s posting.

Colleague 1: Jessica

The life transition that I selected for this week is having a child. Parenthood is a major life event that often requires the family to update their structure to accommodate a new baby. According to Ventura & Boss, a couple who communicates effectively and are committed to parenting identified a crisis to be moderate. Different people have different coping mechanisms to deal with the stress of new parenting. For instance, some parents found it helpful to learn a new skill, while others used other coping mechanisms of, going to the gym, having friends that are also new parents. (Ventura & Boss, 1983)

The theoretical orientation that I selected for parents with a new baby is Baby Triple P positive parenting program. This psychological parenting intervention is focused on preparing new parents for a positive transition to parenthood by teaching them new skills of parenting their baby, looking after their own mental health, as well focusing on a positive relationship with their partner. What makes this program unique is its self-regulatory framework and active skills to enhance their self-image and encourage parents to generalize their learned skills to when their child is older or to other aspects of their lives (Mihelic et al.,2018).

Modifications

The only modifications that I might add is helping the couple with focusing on maintaining individuality and family stability, developing social supports, developing reliance and self-esteem, because these are coping techniques that are considered helpful with dealing with the stress of new parenting (Ventura & Boss, 1983)

Mihelic, M., Morawska, A., & Filus, A. (2018). Preparing parents for parenthood: protocol for a randomized controlled trial of a preventative parenting intervention for expectant parents. BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, 18(1), N.PAG.

Ventura, J. N., & Boss, P. G. (1983). The Family Coping Inventory Applied to Parents with New Babies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45(4), 867–875.