Student Report Form

Client: Samantha A.
Date: 4/28/14

Session #: 1-5

Grade: 11th Counselor: Lade Akande

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Presenting Concern? What does the student verbalize as his/her problem

and what does the person referring the student express as concern?
Samantha verbalizes her anger issues, academic struggles in school, career goals of
becoming a massage therapist, and strained relationships with friends and family
members. She was referred for individual counseling by the PSC at the school
because she could use another adult female to talk to regularly. Samantha also sees
a therapist outside of school. Her younger brother attends the same high school but
they do not have a very good relationship. According to Samantha, her brother
smokes a lot of pot and it causes arguments between her family members.
Samantha has mentioned that she is taking Prozac and that the majority of the
sessions with her therapist focus on her anger issues, which she claims have
improved. She describes her parents as people who struggle with alcoholism, and
reflects on times where she has had to carry her father to bed, not knowing where
her mother was.
Samantha often reflects on a damaged friendship with a girl she describes as being
too fast, and addicted to drugs and alcohol. Samantha described herself as a
mentor to this former friend, and would reflect on times that her friends mother
would call her and ask where she was and Samantha would be the only one who
could help. Apparently there was an incident with her former friend and a former
boyfriend of Samanthas and that was one of the final incidences that occurred
before Samantha decided that she could no longer stay in the toxic friendship.
Samantha does have other friends at school, but she keeps her circle pretty tight
and her friends are also known by the PSC to have their own set of issues in and
outside of school.
Samantha comes from a diverse background. Her father is from the Philippines and
in the military and Samantha was born in Japan. She grew up in Louisiana but had to
evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina when she was in third grade. She
remembers this incident pretty vividly, and reflects on her experience in the
sessions and while brainstorming ideas for a college admission and scholarship
essay topic. Her career goal is to become a massage therapist because she wants
to help people relax. This was mostly influenced by her personal experiences with
change, anxiety and anger.

Educational Impact: How does the students issue or concern impact his or
her ability to learn?
Samanthas grades are not very impressive. She talks about switching medications
frequently which could be making an impact on her concentration and ability level
in school. She has also been suspended from school for acting out with other
classmates and getting into fights and physical altercations. This is a result of her
anger issues, which she claims are improving. Since we have been meeting,
Samantha has not been in trouble for bad behavior in school. Also, it doesnt seem
as though Samantha has a constructive learning environment at home. Based on
her descriptions of home-life, Samanthas parents often have parties and invite
friends from the neighborhood over, which could be very distracting to Samantha
when trying to do homework or study outside of class.
Impressions and Understandings: What is the student like? Attitude,
degree of concern, willingness to work on problem, etc.)
Sometimes, the student is really hyper and eager to speak with me. Her eyes get
really big when she is talking, and she is smiling a lot. Other times, the student is
pretty spaced out and it seems like her mind is wandering throughout our sessions.
It could be that her medication is impacting her moods. She almost always seeks
me out during advisory period and always has something very important to talk
about, although most of the time she just talks about her friends and typical
teenager things. She is most concerned with her friends and her relationships, even
though her grades are really suffering and she may have to be in high school for an
extra year. Even though her grades are suffering, she gets very excited about
pursuing post-secondary education options such as massage therapy school. To add
an academic focus to our sessions, the client agreed to collaborate on an essay that
she could use for admission to colleges or institutions and for scholarship
consideration. We decided to focus the essay on her cultural identity and personal
experiences.

Strategies Implemented During Session: What did you do? What areas
were explored?
We used a lot of REBT during our sessions, particularly when she was reflecting on
her former friendship with the girl that was described as a party animal. For
instance, Samantha would often put a lot of pressure on herself to be a big sister
figure to her friend and would constantly be trying to give advice and look after her
and would just end up being stressed out by her friends choices. We talked about
the things that Samantha could control and not control, as well as restructuring her
belief systems. Why did she feel that she needed to look after her friend? What are
some of the statements that she would tell herself that made her believe that it was
her responsibility to make sure her friend was making good choices? Once

Samantha would verbalize these statements, I would ask her what else she could
say to replace the statements so that they are still true, but more relevant to her
personal well-being. We also discussed the lessons she learned from the
experiences she had with her former friend, and we would incorporate those lessons
into the new belief statements that Samantha would form.
We also spent an entire session writing her essay for scholarships. Samantha talked
about her childhood experience of realizing racial barriers, coping with being a
refugee and learning tough lessons in high school that have better prepared her for
life after graduation. At the end of the session, we had a very insightful essay that
only needed some minor tweaking that she could use for multiple career and
educational opportunities.

Strategies for Future Sessions: What do you plan to do next?

The following session I plan to finalize Samanthas essay, and start to close our
counseling relationship. I will only meet with Samantha two or three more times
before the end of the year, so I will touch base with her on prom, and also get a
game plan for things she can do this summer that will help enhance her resume and
keep her engaged. I will ask her to reflect on our time together, and what, if
anything, she was able to gain from our relationship.

Strengths/Areas Needing Improvement: Self-critique

Samantha is a talker; so there were plenty of times that I could have stopped her
after one of her thoughts and allowed her to expand more, or focus on a particular
topic instead of all over the place, which is what she liked to do. I could have also
spent some time actually researching massage therapy schools with her and looking
at admission requirements and locations, although this is something that Samantha
had begun to do on her own. I could have taken more opportunities to use other
counseling techniques, such as CBT, or creating SMART goals. By writing down some
reconstructed statements or goals, Samantha could have had something more
tangible to take with her and reference when she was researching post-secondary
options or reflecting on her relationships. Mostly, I think Samantha just enjoyed
having someone to talk to that was not so much like her therapist, but more like a
mentor. She was very timid with me at first, but it didnt take long for her to warm
up and start to actively seek me out so that we could spend the entire advisory
period talking about whatever she felt was important at the time.