Counselling Report: Therapies for People with Physical Disabilities

This report focuses on counselling individuals with physical disabilities, particularly addressing the case of a patient named Jackson, who experienced a physical impairment. The report provides background information on disabilities and explores various counselling approaches, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Person-centered Counselling, Solution-focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), and Narrative Therapy. It details the application of these approaches, offering insights into how they can be used to address the psychological and emotional challenges faced by individuals with disabilities, such as depression and social isolation. The report includes a reflection on a counselling interview, highlighting key factors that influenced the counselling process and the importance of active listening and building rapport. The report concludes with a critical analysis of the issues and challenges faced by individuals with physical disabilities, emphasizing the role of the counsellor in providing support and facilitating positive change.

COUNSELLING TO PEOPLE
LIVING WITH A SPECIFIC
DISABILITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Background information about disability...............................................................................1
Overview of counselling approaches......................................................................................1
Brief overview of or reflection on counselling interview......................................................3
Critical analysis and discussion about issues or key points...................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Counselling is a talking therapy which can be life enhancing, promoting positive change.
Disability is a type of condition in which daily routine of an individual is disturbed. It can be
related to intellectual, psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, sensory or physical impairment or a
combination of these factors. It is very important to treat well to the people who is having
disability as it can have a huge negative impact on their mind. Present report will focus on
counseling of patient Jackson which has physical disability. It will also describe about various
counselling approaches and therapies that can be very helpful for disabled person. Also, it will
critically analyze and discuss about all the issues and problems which these people are facing
due to their disability in the society and personally as well.
MAIN BODY
Background information about disability
Physical or monility disability is a condition in which an individual's physical functioning
or action is disturbed. This report is about counselling a patient named Jackson who was a good
football player in his college. He met with an accident and lost his left leg. Now he is suffering
physical disability and due to this accident he went into depression which has affected its
behaviour as well. Jackson is now using a wheelchair to perform his daily activities (Shah,
2016). His life has become so much depended to his family members that he is now feeling low
and dpressed.
Overview of counselling approaches
It is very important to make disabled person to feel happy so that he can feel safe, secure
and confident. There are various approaches which can be applied to Jackson in order to councel
him effectively. These approaches are very helpful in identifying any issues or problems which is
disturbing him as well (Baruth & Manning, 2016). There are various approaches which can be
very useful in the case of Jackson to counsel him, such as, person-centered counselling
approaches, Cognitive Behavioural Counselling, solution-focused therapy, narrative therapy,
which is explained below (Different types of disabilities, 2017):
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
This can be the best option for Jackson to make him deel good about himself. This is a
type of talking therapy in which it helps in enabling or tackling the problems or issues from the
thoughts of the patient. This therapy basically works by combining two different approaches
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together, i.e., cognitive approach (examining his thoughts) with a behavioural approach (the
things he does). Information gathered on the basis of these approaches later can be used to treat
him accordinglty (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2018). Jackson was a very happy person
befor his accident, but after that he became very councious about his apperaance and he started
to cut himself from his social life. He got really scared of due to this accident as he was now not
able to play football anymore according to him. This appraoch will help him in gaining that
confidence back in himself. This therapy can help you manage your problems by changing the
way you think and behave. In this therapy, patient Jackson and therapist will work together in
order to understand his difficulties in terms of the relationship between thoughts, feelings, body
responses and behaviour. The main aim behind this approach is to change the thinking pattern of
Jackson so that he can feel confident (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, 2018).
Person-centered Counselling Approach
This is a type of non-authoritative approach which helps in dealing with the issues and
problems with the patient by perceiving themselves consciously, without interpreting their
unconscious thoughts or ideas by the counseler. This will be very helpful in the case Jackson, to
identify his thoughts and ideas (Person-Centered Therapy, 2017). This process will be very
useful fot him as in this approach therapist will assist in encouraging him to perform ghis duties
and daily routione activity by himself. In this way Jackson will feel better about his physical
disability. It will increase its self confidence, strong sense of identity and it will also boost him to
build a healthy relationship with others. Person-centered therapy, also known as Rogerian
therapy, helps in focusing only on the patient in order to councel him for his better future
(Harvey & and et.al., 2016). This approach aims to achieve personal growth and change within
the individual by providing a confidential space of acceptance, genuineness, understanding and
empathy.
Solution-focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
This therapy basically helps in focusing on patient's present and future perspective and
goals. This approach does not talk about the past eJacksonperience of th eclient, as this makes
them consious and sad. This is a goal oriented therapy which will help Jackson to identiogy their
aims and objectives for his life for better future (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), 2016).
This helps in encouraging Jackson, so that he can make some decision about his life. Various
questions have been asked by Jackson in order to identify his passion or hobbies which he wants
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to continue further in life. Solution-focused Brief Therapy assumes that all patients have some
knowledge of what would make their life better, even though they may need some help to
describe the details of their better life.This can also be a very useful approach which can be
applied to Jackson (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), 2016). All the question that has
been asked by the therapist to Jackson will be very helpful for both in identifying the best option
or him which can improve his future.
Narrative Therapy
This is a type of psycho therapy which helps in identifying the values, skills and
knowledge which a patient has to live his life. This will help in evaluating the problems which
they are facing due to this disability. This will help Jackson to get some distance from the issue
to see how it might actually be helping them, or protecting them, more than it is hurting them
(Narrative Therapy, 2016). This approach will assist in identifying new perspective for him
which will make a huge change in his thought pattern and in behaviour as well. In this approach
therapist aims to adopt a collaborative therapeutic posture rather than just imposing his ideas on
the patient. This therapy uses patient's beliefs, skills, principles and knowledge in order to
resolve their issues. This will help Jackson to evaluate their positive factors of his life (Shah,
2016).
All these approaches are very useful for Jackson in order to solve all the issues and
problems he was faccing due to this physical disability, respectively. These will also assist in
getting him out from depression as well which can boost up his self confidence (Martin Ginis &
et.al., 2016). To deal with such issues, all these therapies were very useful in identifyuing all the
key factors that has a huge impact on his behaviour.
Brief overview of or reflection on counselling interview
All the approaches that has been used on Jackson has helped me in identifying all the key
issues and problems which is bothering Jackson. First when he met me he was very scared and
does not want to talk about his life. But as the times passed, I made him comfortable by asking
just normal questions to start the conversation with him, such as, what is your name, what is your
qualifications, age, etc (Ali & and et.al., 2016). This made easier for me to start his counselling.
Being his counsellor, I identified a lot of key factors which according to me has helped me in
resolving his issues. I found that as he was a football player in his college, and due to this
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accident he was able to play it any more, which is the main reason that is disturbing him to
maximum. Thinking about this has led him in depression as well (Goodley, 2016).
When I first met with Jackson, I identified that he was very depressed with his life. With
this counselling session, I realised that he was feeling very conscious about his appearance and
how others will behave with him. According to Jackson everybody is giving him sympathy on
his situation which he does not want (Alingh & and et.al., 2015). He wants to become
independent again in his life. This counselling session enabled me to gain information when
Jackson brought out the underlying issues including those that I had not thought about. The
active listening session has developed a relationship with Jackson which helped em in
understanding him better. However, throughout the period I kept encouraging him through both
verbal and non-verbal cues (Mackelprang, Salsgiver & Salsgiver, 2016).
I choose not to write down the information I was receiving from him in order to minimize
Jackson distractions that would make the client not be accurate enough in the discussion. In this
counselling of Jackson, I found out that he has lost interest in everything which earlier made him
happy and cheerful which he was (Holland & Nelson, 2018). For Jackson, he used to play
football very much, he interacts with different people, hang out with his friends, etc. But due to
this accident he stopped all these activities. Suddenly stopping every activities in life will
eventually lead to depression only which is the case with Jackson as well (Zeng & and et.al.,
2017).
To deal with such situation he has to feel happy from inside and should meet his friends
as well. His family members and friends should also treat him normally rather than making him
feel like he has some disability issues (Martin Ginis & et.al., 2016). He has to start his daily
routine practices in order to stop overthinking about his accident and its related issues. As this
will help him in building self confidence as well which was lacking due to this. From the
question session, it was clear that Jackson was suffering from lack of confidence. Due to this, he
was not able to socialise with his friends and family.
Jackson is basically creating a challenging environment for himself with his actions and
behaviour, respectively. A few additional strengths that were noted on the peer feed back forms
were how certain questions were phrased which helped me in gathering information about
Jackson without hurting his sentiments (Ingham, 2018). The body language of Jackson was also
not that confident. According to my opinion, there are so many barriers which a disabled person
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or his or her family faces. They have to deal it with very smartly and positively as this will help
them to get a better outcome for them.
Critical analysis and discussion about issues or key points
It is very important for a counsellor, that they understand each and every issues and
problems of their patients and resolve it. All the theories that has been studied in the case of
patient Jackson are, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), person-centered counselling approach,
solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) and narrative therapy, respectively. All these therapies has
a huge importance or role while treating Jackson who was suffering from physical disability
nand was using a wheel chair to perfrom his daily activities or routine (Mackelprang, Salsgiver
& Salsgiver, 2016). Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) helps in understanding or tackling the
problems or issues from the thoughts of Jackson. This therapy works by combining two different
approaches together, i.e., cognitive approach with a behavioural approach. This helped a lot to
me in giving him the right advice or treatment which can be very useful for Jackson in getting his
confidence back (Bryant-Jefferies, 2017).
With the help of person centered approach, it assists me in focusing on his thoughts
which has a huge impact on his thinking pattern that lead him to get depression. For Jackson it is
very crucial to come out drom depression state of mind as this will lead him to disturn his life a
lot (Douglas & and et.al., 2016). Understanding of counselling theory and different practice or
skills for a counsellor is very crucial in maintaining a good relationship with their clients or
patients. Information gathered from these theories has helped me in giving him the right
suggestion which he can include in his lifestyle to make a significant change in his life foe a
better future (Ali & and et.al., 2016).
On the basis of gathered information of patient Jackson, the best suggestion that can help
him is that he can use a prosthetic leg with the help of which he can do or perform his work
efficiently (Baruth & Manning, 2016). He can walk again with the help of that prostahtic leg as
well. This will aid in increasing his self confidence and will encourage him to live his life
happily. Once Jackson starts to feel good about his appearance and life it will be easier for him to
understand the importance and value of life.
Jackson has some issues or problems, such as, he was suffering pfro physical disability as
he lost his left leg, he got depressed due to this as well. He also stopped talking to his family and
friends (Shah, 2016). All these issues were resolved by using these theories or approaches by me
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as a counselloer and it helepd me a lot. Making him feel good with his disability had a huge
impact on his thought pattern which aid him in coming out from depression (Goodley, 2016).
Disability is an experience which is typically misunderstood by many, including counsellors and
professionals who don’t work much with such type of patients (Alingh & and et.al., 2015).
Understanding the importance of these approaches can provide a huge advantage to patients with
disability to get proper counselling.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that counselling can be the best option which
can be used by any disabled person. This practice helps in enhancing or encouraging their self
confidence. There are various therapies as well which a therapist or counsellor can use to treat a
physical disabled person which is explained in this report, such as, cognitive behavioural therapy
(CBT), person-centered counselling approach, solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) and
narrative therapy, respectively. These therapies have helped a lot to counsel any disabled person
and can assist in identifying their issues and problems which is affecting them. Critical analysis
and discussion has been performed in the last section of this report which includes importance of
these approaches in counselling session.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ali, A. & and et.al., (2016). Self-reported stigma and its association with socio-demographic
factors and physical disability in people with intellectual disabilities: results from a cross-
sectional study in England. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. 51(3). 465-
474.
Alingh, R. A. & and et.al., (2015). Protocol of a longitudinal cohort study on physical activity
behaviour in physically disabled patients participating in a rehabilitation counselling
programme: ReSpAct. BMJ open, 5(1), e007591.
Baruth, L. G., & Manning, M. L. (2016). Multicultural counseling and psychotherapy: A
lifespan approach. Routledge.
Bryant-Jefferies, R. (2017). Person-centred counselling supervision: personal and professional.
CRC Press.
Douglas, B. & and et.al., (2016). The handbook of counselling psychology. Sage.
Goodley, D. (2016). Disability studies: An interdisciplinary introduction. Sage.
Harvey, C. & and et.al., (2016). People living with psychosocial disability: Rehabilitation and
recovery-informed service provision within the second Australian national survey of
psychosis. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 50(6). 534-547.
Holland, A. L., & Nelson, R. L. (2018). Counseling in communication disorders: A wellness
perspective. Plural Publishing.
Ingham, E. (2018). The (Physically) Wounded Healer: The Impact of a Physical Disability on
Training and Development as a Counselling Psychologist: A Case Study. The European
Journal of Counselling Psychology. 7(1).
Mackelprang, R. W., Salsgiver, R. O., & Salsgiver, R. (2016). Disability: A diversity model
approach in human service practice. Oxford University Press.
Martin Ginis, K. A. & et.al., (2016). A systematic review of review articles addressing factors
related to physical activity participation among children and adults with physical
disabilities. Health psychology review. 10(4). 478-494.
Shah, S. (2016). Young disabled people: Aspirations, choices and constraints. Routledge.
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Zeng, Y. & and et.al., (2017). Survival, disabilities in activities of daily living, and physical and
cognitive functioning among the oldest-old in China: a cohort study. The Lancet.
389(10079). 1619-1629.
Online
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/therapies/cognitivebehaviouraltherap
y.aspx>
Different types of disabilities. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://services.anu.edu.au/human-resources/respect-inclusion/different-types-of-
disabilities>
Narrative Therapy. 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/therapy-types/narrative-therapy>
Person-Centered Therapy. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/person-centered-therapy>
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). 2016. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/solution-focused-therapy>
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