ESSAY: Treatment Planning for Couples and Families Experiencing Pervasive Mental Illness or Health Issues

Identify the pervasive mental illness or health concern present in the couple/family.
Conceptualize the couple’s/family’s problem through your chosen theoretical orientation.
Design a treatment plan including short- and long-term goals.
Explain two evidence-based interventions you would use to address the couple’s/family’s issues and how you would use them. (Note: The interventions may not emerge from your chosen theoretical orientation.)
Justify the intervention you selected with two evidence-based research articles.

ANSWER

Treatment Planning for Couples and Families Experiencing Pervasive Mental Illness or Health Issues

Pervasive mental illness refers to the conditions or group of disorders that lead to the delay of communication as well as socialization skills. Some of the common symptoms associated with such disorders are having difficulty in speaking a given language, relating with people, and showing an unusual interaction with objects. In this case, the main focus will be on a couple that is experiencing pervasive mental illness of autism.

Autism is a disorder whose major characteristics include difficulty in social interaction as well as communication. It is based on a repetitive behavior that one displays for not being in the position to socialize well or as expected (Rutter et al., 2003). The couple, in this case, has one of the spouses being autistic and therefore needs intervention to manage the situation.

Using the extreme male brain theory, an individual with autisms is not in a position to fully empathize or systemize some of the things that they encounter or face. The man in the relationship is the one with autism, and this is evidenced by the fact that he does not have an appropriate balance of systemizing and empathizing. Since he has an autism disorder, he lacks the ability to empathize. This means he is not able to read expressions, actions, body language, intentions as well as perceptions. He has shown a difficulty when it comes to thoughts as well as feelings towards some of the things that the wife does.

In order to understand and also control human systems, one needs to focus on the different human actions. The autism patient needs to be trained on how to handle lawful and logical systems that are presented in various modes. A short term treatment plan for the husband with autism will be behavioral in nature (Strock, 2007). Since he has had cases of seizures and gastrointestinal distress, he will need to be subjected to activities that jog the mind and make it adapt to a given environment. This will involve training him on how to improve language and communication skills. At the same time, he will need to be trained on how to focus and retain memory for an extended period.

The long term treatment plan will involve subjecting the autism husband to medication. This will involve admonishing an ATN Medication Decision Aid in a safe manner (Francis, 2005). The medication will be targeting the symptoms of autism and also dealing with side effects that come with the same. The patient will be injected with tranquilizers to help in relaxing the mind and help the patient focus and retain memory on communication and interaction. Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) is one of the evidenced interventions that the couple would apply. This would entail changing the way the wife has been handling or interacting with the husband. For instance, she will have to subject him to activities that support positive behavior and gaining new skills to interact. Pivotal Response Training (PRT) is the other evidence-based intervention the couple would apply. This intervention will be aimed at increasing the desire of the husband to learn how to understand feelings, body language, and thoughts. It will also help the couple on how to initiate communication with each other and gain from the same. These interventions are effective and would be applicable since the couple already knows that one…