Child Psychology: Analyzing Jessica's Development Case Study

This case study examines the psychological development of Jessica, a 14-year-old girl, following the traumatic death of her father. The analysis explores the disruption of her psychosocial development, focusing on the impact of grief, loss, and emotional dysregulation. The study delves into the symptoms presented by Jessica, including social isolation, anger issues, mood swings, and sleep disturbances, considering Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development to understand the challenges she faces. Potential diagnoses, such as separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder, are discussed, highlighting the interplay of psychological, sociocultural, and psychosocial factors. The case underscores the importance of recognizing the impact of trauma and the need for appropriate interventions to support adolescent mental health.

Running Head: CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors Note

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Jessica is 14 years old and she has a history of normal childhood development and
was happy till 12 years old and it is highly critical to understand that the various aspects of
the childhood development as in the mental health and sociocultural as well as the
psychosocial parameters was healthy and normal until and unless the traumatic event of her
father’s death disrupted the whole developmental process of Jessica (Hamblen & Barnett,
2016). Jessica lives with her family and it is highly critical to be understood that the various
aspects of the psychosocial disruption that is currently happening in her life, can be attributed
to the feelings of detachment and loss that has embarked from death of her father. She lives
with her single mother whose name is Mary and her brother whose name is Jonathan who is
younger in age than her. The major key problems as well as the factors that are being
involved in the presentation of mental condition symptoms in Jessica can be attributed to the
premature death of her father, previous or prior to which she has been doing really well in her
life and showed normal level of all round cognitive and mental development (Wang et al.,
2017). Coping, as identified is a critical area of problem or rather ‘negative coping’ can be
considered as the major issue that is involved in the disruption process of Jessica and more
importantly, it can said as elucidated or pointed out by the mother of the subject that while
Jonathan coped well with the death of their father, the same causes a great distortion in the
mental health dynamics of Jessica leading to various other problems (Bandelow, Michaelis &
Wedekind, 2017). It has to be understood that the subject of the case study who is Jessica is
suffering from a lot of intrinsic and extrinsic problems that is causing her symptoms to dilate
and being put into a never ending loop of problems. Firstly, the first major problem is social
isolation and anger issues. It can be rather said that she has deep seated emotional issues and
that she is not being able to control her anger and is having constant outburst of emotions
towards her family, at her friends in the school and at the teachers in the school as well. It is
very important and interesting to note that she is aware that she is not being able to control

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her emotions and it is becoming more difficult for control her mood as well. She locks herself
in her room and hardly finds it very easy to communicate her feelings to her parent or her
brother or to her friends in the school as well. She has got a best friend or rather say a close
friend though whose name is Tom and it is to be noted that even with him, she has
demonstrated emotional issues as well. In the words of Tom, she is either very optimistic or
energetic with her life as if she is ‘too much happy’ or very low and depressed with her life as
if she is suffering from a very low mood (Cook et al., 2017). This can be attributed to the fact
that she is having misbalance of emotions and the arousal of her negative emotions is
happening at a very high rate certainly. The other aspect of the emotional conflict can be
recognised from the fact that she used to be a very jovial and caring person, playing with
other children, very extrovert and happy with life and post the death of her father – the
situation with her mental condition has turned upside down and she is unable to control her
emotions such as happiness or especially the negative ones such as anger and the sadness,
depression that is leading to the causation of the major problems such as mood swings, social
isolation, emotional outbursts and also low self-esteem and shifting self-image problems
being triggered by the psychosocial development age she is in 13-21 years in addition to the
major loss of parental support resulting from the death of her father. Expanding or analysing
the problems further, it can be said that the psychosocial development that is integral of all
human beings and Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development provides the major key
to the understanding to the development of Jessica’s symptoms. In the childhood, from the
period of 5 to 13 years the conflict which is predominant, is industry to inferiority and the
competency that is developed is competency and till this stage, Jessica was fine enough, with
cognitive development and the development of her psyche that can be considered normal in
DSM-5 parameters and it can be said that she came out of the psychosocial developementary
stage as a competent person as she reciprocated social feelings with others and had positive

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interactions with her friends and family as well. Since the death of her father, the event that
tool place when she was just 12 years old – traumatized her psyche and mentality to a great
extent. She developed a negative psyche or mindset and a negative attitude for the world and
the sadness that was never transformed or reconciled caused her cope in a more negative way
following the death of her father. Analysing further, it can be said that according to Erik
Eriksson’s stages of psychosocial development – from the period of 13 to 21 years the
conflict is more built around the development of an identity or a confusion resulting from the
non-development of a proper identity and this is where the shifting self-identity and self-
concept begins. Thus it is critical to consider the virtue that is ought to be developed in this
psychosocial stage and the name of the virtue is loyalty. This is the central problem that has
affected the case of Jessica who finds it very difficult to control her anger and aggression for
the social surrounding irrespective of whether they are family members that she lives with
every day or whether they are teachers or friends she has in school. The central problem is
that she had a major role to play as a daughter to her parent and when her father died
suddenly that she was not expecting, this hurt her severely and she started to feel confused
about her role or identity as a daughter to her father and this identity loss affected her
complete identity as a person, in a very substantial manner indeed (Panella, 2016). The more
critical problem is that despite having a family that is caring and affectionate towards her, she
is falling short of reciprocating the positive feelings that is surrounding her. She is losing
control but feeling bad as well that she is not being able to care for anyone like before and
she is dipping into more sadness and negative feelings with self-guilt that she is hurting
others unreasonably enough. She is also aware that she lacks judgement in most of the time
of when or how to react to things and she is not in control of herself as well. She had a good
relationship with her father and this has caused a more complex relationship issue or crisis
when her father died. She use to visit the music classes and take up the swimming classes

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where her father used to help her out and it is critical that the problem has to be considered to
be started when her father died, when she felt the absence of her father and dipped into
relationship in addition to the problem of relationship crisis. She felt detached and
disconnected from her surroundings that is the social environment, to which she formerly
connected through her father and the loss of her father resulted in her entering a whole new
dimension of complex and vicious loop of depression and disruptive emotions. Another
factor that could have affected the scenario entirely might be the fact that the mother of the
subject, Mary revealed the fact that although nobody in the family had a mental health
disorder but she has heard of an aunt who was a manic. As in the case study, it is mentioned
that the great aunt has a sufferer of manic symptoms, it is highly possible the same has been
transferred down to Jessica that has been triggered by the case or severe traumatic event of
her father’s death. More importantly, in addition to all these above mentioned symptoms and
signs in Jessica that is indicative of a post-traumatic stress disorder or depressive disorder in
addition to sociocultural and psychosocial disruptions, it is to be considered that the subject
has medical condition of restlessness, fatigue and insomnia as well. The subject named
Jessica has severe sleep issues as well and disturbed plus decreased hours of sleep has
resulted in feelings of tiredness when she gets up in the morning. She has esteem,
relationship, separation, neuropsychological, mood and anger problems that are presented in
signs and symptoms of the case as well. Most importantly, the stress and anxiety caused as a
reaction to her own anger results in disruption of sleep and in order to balance the less
sleeping hours, Jessica shifts to more than normal hours of sleep at times (Weathers et al.,
2018). She sleeps too much and she is again an associated symptom of feelings of loneliness
and social isolation resulting from emotional exhaustion. As she is suffering from a lot of
issues such as psychotic outbursts, emotional problems, depressive symptoms, post-traumatic
stress disorder and loneliness due to the death of her father who was really close to her –

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based on these signs and symptoms that has been presented in Jessica – the preliminary
diagnosis can be many separation anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to the DSM – 5, any child in early or middle childhood especially when comes in
experience with the unnatural death of a related person results in the development stress and
anxiety following the death of the person. As the parent of Jessica, died in a road traffic
accident, which is an unnatural cause of death, might have led to causation of post-traumatic
stress disorder in the child. As the subject is a girl in the early teen age, the Premenstrual
Dysphoric Disorder is another condition that can be subsequently occurring in this case as she
has hypersomnia or insomnia, marked affective liability, high rate of interpersonal conflicts,
high rate of mood swings that is in resulting more conflicts with his family and friends and
even with the teachers in the school environment (Grant et al., 2016). She also has feelings of
hopelessness that is pessimism, marked level of depressed mood, lethargy leading to the
causation of exhaustion, hypersomnia and episodes of hypersomnia and as a matter of fact
Jessica also has marked school activities interferences and inferences with relationship
building and relationship keeping with teachers, friends, relatives and neighbors and of
course with the members of the family as well (Gajwani et al., 2019). As all these symptoms
are present in Jessica, it is critical that the Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder is also taken into
consideration while making the preliminary or differential diagnoses. More importantly, it is
to be considered that the subject is unable to control her own emotions that is resulting in the
emotional outbursts in terms of angers and conflicts that is again leading to relationship crisis
in her life. She wants to not hurt anyone and especially her good friend Tom but she is
hurting him in spite of the fact that she does not wants to hurt him is a indicative of the fact
that she is unable to control her emotions, behaviors, outburst and aggression towards her
teachers, friends and family as well. Analyzing the symptoms more closely and carefully it is
possible that she might have mixed mania that has affected her moods and behaviors as well

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(Gerson et al., 2019). Mixed mania is a state of under mania where the subject is affected
with affected state of both high and low mood, ecstasy and depression, going hand in hand, at
some other point of the time and it is critical that the genetic component is also analyzed
properly as the great aunt of the subject, as the mother of the subject Mary revealed, that she
too had some affection with mania which would have transmitted to the next generation from
her and Jessica might have inherited it somehow, thus leading to presentation of mixed mania
disorder. Hence, the four differential or preliminary diagnoses that are possible that mixed
mania disorder, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and
separation anxiety disorder and it is to be considered that these are the major conditions that
has affected the mental health of Jessica and the trauma, indeed has played a critical role in
the presentation of these diseases (Johnson et al., 2016).
There were certain challenges indeed that were faced while making the preliminary
diagnoses and it is that the symptoms are overlapping and more so as she is in the stage of
menarche, that complicates the matter even so further. The neurohormonal effects are many
and they have certainly played a very critical role in the presentation of these symptoms.
Hence the neuropsychological parameters and her teen age in relation to the trauma and loss
of her father, provided the challenges further.
There are certain predisposing, precipitating, maintaining and protective factors that
are present with case study. The central predisposing factors are family history of her great
aunt having mania or manic symptoms, secondly she is in her menarche phase, she is female
and the precipitating factors more than anything can be identified from the fact that her father
died in a road traffic accident which is an unnatural cause of death and very unexpected to
her as well. Thus, it trauma received by the death or passing away of her father resulted in
accumulation of negative emotions in her that precipitated and maintained the psychological
and psychosocial problems in her. Hence the stress and anxiety caused due to the various

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emotional and cognitive derangements in her especially in the areas of emotional
management and intelligence, social interaction and behavioural parameters acted as
maintaining factors for her to be a state of mood swings and depressive mania symptoms. Her
age that she is fourteen years old also acted as a very strong continuous trigger and stimuli for
her to be present in a state of mania and mood swings as well as emotional and behavioural
problems. The more important fact it that the Erik Erikson’s stage of psychosocial
development, that she is in right now is the age group of 13 to 21 years and in this stage, the
role confusion versus identity is playing a critical factor in the maintenance of her psychotic
and manic problems. The shifting self-image and the shifting self-concept in addition to the
shifting self-identity is common is these years of early adolescence and this is where, the
trauma that is provided by the death of her father also played a critical role in the
maintenance of her manic and psychotic depressive symptoms. Moreover, the fact that her
mother is the single parent and she lacks the support of her parent, the father who is an
important member in each and every family – has also led to distortion of her self-concept
further and the age related situation has acted as a very critical maintaining factor in the
presentation of her mental health symptoms, for almost two years since the death of her father
in an unexpected road traffic accident. The protective factors in this case are many as well.
Firstly, the mother of the subject is actually and protective about her and she wants her to get
well as soon as possible and it is highly critical that the various aspects of the symptoms that
is presented by Jessica is addressed critically and she actually desires to get help for her
daughter. Next, the friend of Jessica whose name is Tom and with whom she has a really
good bond with – is another protective factor that can be used as a motivational manner and
exclusive way of socials support while she will be going through the interventions. The third
protective factor is that the subject is still in her growing years and the cognitive patterns has
not become rigid and finally developed yet. Hence, cognitive flexibility can be seen as a

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protective factor. The local Child and Adolescent Mental
Health Service (CAMHS) where the child has been referred to, with all its professionals and
knowledge health empowering resources can be considered as another protective factor.
There are various interventions that can be delivered to Jessica and this is important
that the cognitive behavioural therapy which is a majorly used psychotherapeutic procedure
globally, is used to full effect to mend the disorted cognitive patterns of Jessica. As she is still
suffering from trauma and she is having trouble segregating her emotions one from the other,
schema therapy can be used segregated the issues one by one and then solve all of them.
More than anything, it is highly critical as the person has sleep problems and mood issues
that is directly proportional to esteem problems as well – motivation techniques in addition to
sleep and relaxation is promoted in the subject as well and this forms an important aspect of
the intervention. Guided imagery, positive environment, progressive relaxation exercises can
be used to develop mindfulness and relaxation with stress reduction in the subject with mania
and mood disorders. Catharsis is a powerful technique to help the subject get rid of their
trauma received in past and to counter the fears and the anxieties in a very unique and
powerful manner as well and in order to manage the case of Jessica, who according to her
mother, has negative coped with the unnatural death of her father, should be administered
with therapeutic interventions of catharsis in order to develop and reach the positive clinical
outcomes. It is highly critical that the social interferences that she has along with the social
relationship, disruptions can be addressed with the intervention of interpersonal therapy.
Moreover, family counselling and teaching the parent of the subject as to how to deal with
issues, is a helpful action. Moreover, for pharmacological management of the symptoms, a
psychiatrist must consulted with.

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