Group Therapy Sessions
Name
Institution
Date
Group Therapy Sessions
Patient 2
Date of group therapy: Nov 2020
Group type: The subject of today’s group therapy was distress tolerance. The group members were encouraged to share their feelings and possible reactions when they were in distress. They were also encouraged to share methods that they would use to regulate their emotions to tolerate distress.
Patient Description
Patient’s Name: Jared
Age: 8 years’ old
After concerns by the parents on his severe temper outbursts, Jared came into the group therapy that would go on for more than a year and a half. The parents had taken him to a hospital when the outbursts turned into physical aggression on people and property. The therapist had put Jared on Risperidone for controlling his irritability. Today, when Jared came into therapy, he was in his usual angry mood. Most of the other group members, although young, seem to understand this and therefore rarely disturb Jared. When one group member attempted to speak over Jared, he became angrier and had a temper outburst. However, this time it only lasted for about three minutes before Jared came down without much effort from the therapist. This indicates that the therapy is doing him well in controlling emotions and tolerating distressing factors in his environment.
Diagnosis: Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) DSM 5- 296.99 (F34.8)
DSM-5 criteria note that a DMDD diagnosis should not be made before an individual clock the age of six. They also note that temper tantrums should not be consistent with the developmental level. The tantrums should be recurrent about three to four times a week. These are all characteristics that Jared shows. The individual with the disorder is also moody or angry the entire day, which other parties notice (APA, 2013). In Jared’s case, this is noticeable by fellow group members, the teacher, and the parents. As such, Jared’s characteristics fit into the DMDD DSM-5 criteria justifying the diagnosis. An ethical consideration that may arise in seeing this patient would include respect for diversity. The patient population is quite diverse, which means that people will have different ways of upbringing. The practitioner may have difficulty agreeing with the treatment that the patients bestow upon the child with the mental disorder. However, it is in the patient’s best interest for them to accept this diversity and not allow it to get in the way of the patient treatment interventions.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.).