Her accomplishment was then discussed in the context of the treatment rationale (“So you managed to act in accordance with your goal even though your feelings were telling you otherwise and that provided you with some new insights about how things work”). If Monica would not have come to the outpatient facility the therapist was prepared to use that experience to gain more knowledge about her emotional and behavioral Selleckchem Gemcitabine responses and being careful to
frame it as an important learning experience rather than a failure. Her self-monitoring form was reviewed and it showed that she had been staying in bed on the ward with a low mood for most of the time, except for an instance of talking to a fellow patient that had improved her mood somewhat. Monica was then asked about values and she emphasized the importance of her relationship to her daughter, getting routines, being outside, working http://www.selleckchem.com/products/LY294002.html (which she did not think was possible), and that she wanted to be a person who made her own decisions in life. The therapist then encouraged her to come up with specific goals in line with these values. Examples of Monica’s goals were making dinner for her daughter,
going grocery shopping in different stores, taking up choir practice, choosing things (e.g., food, clothes) based on her own preferences, and to start talking about the possibility of working in the future. The therapist was careful to ask about goals that could be targeted during the inpatient admission and Monica mentioned talking to fellow patients, abstaining from asking ward staff about medications and planning her near future. Activities listed so far in therapy were inserted into Monica’s activation hierarchy and graded in terms of expected difficulty. She was then encouraged to choose two activities to complete before next session. She scheduled talking to fellow patients at least twice a day and calling her daughter every other day. She predicted
that she would perhaps be discouraged by different emotions; to overcome this, she came up with the idea of telling someone in the staff about her homework so that they could encourage and support her. Monica’s mood was significantly improved. She felt proud for having accomplished most of her scheduled C1GALT1 assignments except for one day, when she experienced strange bodily symptoms and she had spent the day in bed. The therapist reviewed the experience of both completing the assigned activities and the experience of staying in bed. This was connected to the rationale and Monica had noticed that staying in bed had been somewhat relieving but on the other hand had made her even more worried and depressed as nothing else occupied her mind. Monica and the therapist agreed that when bodily symptoms and pain were very intense, social activities became too demanding for her.