Mental Health and Counseling: Grief Therapy Case Study Analysis

This case study focuses on Diana, a 15-year-old American-African girl experiencing complicated grief due to the deaths of her mother and grandmother, compounded by her mother's lifestyle and the absence of her father. The case study outlines a treatment plan involving the aunt and healthcare providers. The plan emphasizes understanding the client's pain, differentiating between normal and complicated grieving, and providing culturally sensitive care. Interventions include using a commemorative book, showing compassion, and referring Diana to Complicated Grief Treatment if needed. The second part of the plan focuses on the nurses' role, emphasizing the need to avoid suppressing the client's sorrow and developing effective care methodologies. The case study highlights the importance of cultural sensitivity in assessing and addressing grief, with the goal of helping Diana develop a positive attitude towards therapy and successfully navigate her bereavement.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH AND COUNSELING GRIEF THERAPY 1
Mental Health and Counseling Grief Therapy
Name
Institutional

MENTAL HEALTH AND COUNSELING GRIEF THERAPY 2
Mental Health and Counseling Grief Therapy
A Case Study of a Culturally Diverse Client Experiencing Culturally Normal Bereavement
Diana, an American-African lady, is 15 years of age who currently resides with her aunt
after the death of her maternal grandmother. Diana has been experiencing academic
underachievement and behavioral issues after the death of her granny, and this affects not only
her but also her aunt. Diana is not only grieving the death of her aunt but also the death of her
mother who had died of HIV/AIDS three years ago. Diana is not aware of his father’s
whereabouts since she was born. Her mother was a drug addict before she passed away and this
affected Diana in her studies due to her mother’s behavior.
Although an evaluation on Diana reports a vast capacity for intellectual thought, she is
also undergoing through convoluted grief because of her mother s lifestyle and consequent death.
A report of a therapist that she had visited says that she is deeply affected by the past lifestyle
she had been living with her mother. Diana confessed about how she accompanied her mother to
different hotels to meet with various men where they would have sex in front of her while being
forced to sleep with such men. Diana’s behaviour has affected her family and teachers which
made teachers to report her to school.
Treatment Plan
Goal #1
Diana’s aunt should take her to a hospital where they will understand her pains and
sadness without trying to judge
Objectives:
Diana’s aunt should ensure that Diana’s case is not unusual and explain to her the
differences between complicated and normal grieving (Stroebe, Schut, & Van den Bout, 2013).

MENTAL HEALTH AND COUNSELING GRIEF THERAPY 3
Interventions:
Diana’s aunt will use a commemorative book to help her see that many people have
recovered from the grieving procedure and that it is possible. Finally, she will show compassion,
understanding and also listen to her without judging to encourage her to express and identify her
emotions (Doughty Horn, Crews, & Harrawood, 2013). If Diana’s symptoms of grief last, then
she will help her get referred to CGT (Complicated Grief Treatment) which deals with patients
suffering from complicated bereavement (Hinton et al. 2013).
Progress:
In the first week of taking her to the hospital they had already attained their objectives
and Diana was able to express her feelings entirely. Diana’s behavior also changed both at home
and in school.
Goal 2:
The nurses should develop a plan where they should not work to abolish her heartfelt
sorrow and pains since it can obstruct the process of grieving leading to Diana having a positive
attitude toward the treatment (Parkes & Prigerson, 2013).
Objectives:
Providers must have an effective way to implement and consider care of the grieving
patients. In Diana’s case, she is affected by familial experiences and cultures. As a segment of
the procedure of providing culturally delicate health care, the nurses must be skillful in
evaluating the cultural languages of grief and use the knowledge to progress effective care
approaches (Bertman, 2018).
Interventions:

MENTAL HEALTH AND COUNSELING GRIEF THERAPY 4
The nurses will adopt a process of intervening and assessing Diana before she gets worse.
The nurses should also get a good counselor who is essential in helping the patients to achieve
the grief perseverance (Jordan & Litz, 2014).
Progress:
In the second week, Diana started to show a positive attitude toward the therapy and
began to follow the counselor’s advice. The providers also attained the first objective and
developed an effective methodology to implement care towards Diana.

MENTAL HEALTH AND COUNSELING GRIEF THERAPY 5
References
Bertman, S. L. (2018). Grief and the healing arts: Creativity as therapy. Routledge.
Doughty Horn, E. A., Crews, J. A., & Harrawood, L. K. (2013). Grief and loss education:
Recommendations for curricular inclusion. Counselor Education and Supervision, 52(1),
70-80.
Hinton, D. E., Peou, S., Joshi, S., Nickerson, A., & Simon, N. M. (2013). Normal grief and
complicated bereavement among traumatized Cambodian refugees: Cultural context and
the central role of dreams of the dead. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 37(3), 427-464.
Jordan, A. H., & Litz, B. T. (2014). Prolonged grief disorder: Diagnostic, assessment, and
treatment considerations. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 45(3), 180.
Parkes, C. M., & Prigerson, H. G. (2013). Bereavement: Studies of grief in adult life. Routledge.
Stroebe, M., Schut, H., & Van den Bout, J. (Eds.). (2013). Complicated grief: Scientific
foundations for health care professionals. Routledge.