Case Study Antwone's Trauma In American Seaman

Advanced Intervention of PTSD:
Treatment of Childhood Trauma in a Navy Seaman
Maddie Phillips
Aurora University

The presenting client in this case is Antwone Fisher, a black man in his twenties serving in the Navy as a petty officer third class. Antwone was admitted to the psychiatric unit following an incident with a higher ranked officer, whom he had started a fight with following provocation by way of a racial slur. Antwone pled guilty at his court martial and was demoted to seaman as well as being sent to receive psychiatric services from Dr. Jerome Davenport, one of the Navy’s resident psychiatrists. Upon meeting for their first session, Antwone was extremely reluctant to talk to Dr. Davenport. Antwone claimed that there

“Narrative therapy is a method of therapy that separates the person from the problem and encourages people to rely on their own skill sets to minimize the problems that exist in their everyday lives” (Good Therapy). During Narrative therapy, the client externalizes their problems to distance themselves from the problem and to reframe. In this case, Antwone’s trauma is the problem. If Antwone can learn to separate himself from his trauma this will help him realize that he himself is not but rather, the problem is his feelings about the past and its trauma. According to Good Therapy, “Post traumatic stress might help protect a person from the difficult emotions associated with a particular event, although it also contributes a host of new troubling symptoms, such as anxiety. This process of externalization can help a person develop greater self-compassion, which, in turn, can help him or her to feel more capable of change” (Good Therapy). Encouraging Antwone to externalize his problem will allow him to become less defensive in terms of his therapy. Once Antwone is able to separate himself from his trauma he will be more able to identify exactly what events and feelings trigger his symptoms (anxiety, violent outbursts,

In this case, once Antwone can externalize the problem, he can begin to rewrite his story. By rewriting the story about his childhood trauma, Antwone can begin to see that the abuse that he received was not due to him doing something wrong, or not being good enough. It was that Ms. Tate had her own set of problems that she then took out on the boys in the foster home. By rewriting this story of Ms. Tate’s abuse, Antwone can begin to see that these events the happened to him were not his fault, and then eventually begin to come to terms with his feelings and experiences. Once Antwone is able to come to terms with his past, he will be able to see what is truly valuable beyond the problem, hopefully he will be able to see how resilient he actually is. This comes into the last part of Narrative therapy, where the client is able to move past the problem and see the values and strengths within himself that he gained from his rewritten