COU1201: Jess 30 and Ben 35 Present for Therapy Jess has been Threatening to leave the Relationship: Therapeutic Practice with Families and Couples Assignment, ECU, Singapore

Case Study: For Assignment.
Jess 30 and Ben 35 present for therapy. Jess has been threatening to leave the relationship, she says that Ben is never there for her emotionally and she has had enough. They have two young children 5-year-old Madison and 2-year-old Mason. Jess explains to you that Madison was born early at 28 weeks and spent a month in hospital in neonatal intensive care.

She complains that Ben was not there for her enough during that time, he was doing a big project at work back then and had pressure on him to go back to the North as he works FIFO. Just after baby Madison came home from the hospital he went back North, and she felt all alone with a new baby. Madison has some speech delay and sleep issues and gets very upset when the couple argues. As Jess had a C- section and hoped for a normal vaginal delivery she felt quite disappointed and feels that Ben had the attitude of “just get over it” and she felt bereft. She was later diagnosed with postnatal depression and anxiety and had medication to assist her recovery.

Mason is two and he is lively and happy, he sleeps well and loves his big sister. Jess tells you she feels guilty because she feels closer to him than she does to Madison. She worries a lot about this. Ben thinks that this is silly and that she needs to get over this. Ben has some engineering qualifications and is finishing his degree as a mature-aged student.

His father and grandfather were engineers. They are practically minded and quite cool with emotions tending to focus on problem-solving and staying in their heads rather than expressing emotions. This is challenging for Jess who comes from a family that was very emotionally expressive.

In arguments, Jess gets very angry and shouts and Ben withdraws, and matters do not seem to get resolved. Jess feels left and Ben feels attacked. Their conflict has been escalating of late and Jess has been threatening to leave. Ben agreed to attend therapy.

Ben is close to his mother and sees her every day that he is down from FIFO and Jess complains arguing that he spends too much time with her. Mary is 64 and has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and she has her own hairdressing and beauty business, she was a stay-at-home mother before Ben and siblings Pete, 37, and Sue and Sally both 33, went to high school. Ben, says his childhood was stable. His father was an engineer and he recalls being close to him although he described him as aloof sometimes. He said his parents did not argue.

His parents had a traditional relationship. His brother is an insurance salesman and his two sisters are both childcare workers. He says he is close to all of them and loves to spend time with them all. Jess says she thinks he has not left home. Ben and Jess frequently argue about how much time he spends with them. Jess is fearful of Ben losing his job as he has been laid off once before. She is a nurse. She stopped working when Mason was born, and her registration has expired so she would have to retrain if she wanted to go back to work. She is still breastfeeding Mason and Ben is annoyed at this.

He also complains that their sexual relationship has diminished. Jess misses her work and feels quite confined being at home with the children. Madison is starting preprimary this year and she is hoping this will give her a bit more time for herself. She is worried about how Madison will manage at school due to her speech and Madison still has speech therapy.

Jess witnessed her father physically abusing her mother, he is 60 and called Eron, it seems that he has a diagnosis of schizophrenia and lives alone. Jess feels obliged to provide him with some support but finds he is not always compliant with medications and this can be a problem. Her mother is 59 and called Arlene. The couple separated when Jess was four and after her sister, Julie was born. Julie is a high achiever in the family and has started to work as a lawyer, she has no interest in her father and never sees him. Jess feels angry with her sister.

Her mother remarried Jack 62 but he was an alcoholic and Jess does not have good memories of him or his family. She recalls being physically attacked by him when he was drunk one time. Jack was unable to hold a job down and her mother worked all hours as a nurse to keep the family afloat financially. Jess recalls an early childhood of being in childcare and going to after-school care which she hated. She was sexually abused by her paternal uncle aged 58.

In meeting with this family you realize that it is a complex presentation and you develop a genogram to help you to picture the family and the dynamics between them, it occurs to you that strengths are important to consider as well as deficits. When you have completed the genogram you think about doing a formulation to assist you in finding ways forward with the family.

Using the provided Family Case Study write an essay critically reviewing one of the schools of family therapy: Bowen, Structural, Strategic, Milan, Narrative, Object Relations, etc. Describe how you might apply the principles of your chosen family therapy school to assist your understanding of this case study family’s functioning. You are expected to critique the approach, that is to state its limitations.