After reviewing the Mrs. Kay’s file and conducting an initial interview, the social worker will be able to assess Mrs. Kay’s ego functioning. This will determine her areas of strength and limitation. Next the social worker will infer Mrs. Kay’s defense mechanism based on the assessment, in order to gain a better understanding of the her current mental state. In regards to ego functioning, her level of reality testing was poor, in which her internal reality focusing on her ability to be independent of others and solely dependent on God. The external reality is an assisted living facility, where all the residence in this facility requires some level of assistance with daily self-care. Her loss of reality testing may be a byproduct of her recent fall and bone fracture as well as her holding on to her Greek Orthodox religion. Culturally and religiously she could argue that her judgment …show more content…
Kay’s s modulating and controlling impulses function appeared to be strong in areas such as sexual and aggression control. Her modulation of affect is another strong area of her ego functioning, in which her emotional reactions relate to her feelings. When she is in pain she expresses it appropriately by frowning and pointing to the area of pain. Her object relation function appears to be a strength, as evidenced by her maintaining a positive regard for her sister, mother, and father who are consistent members of her family that she reminisces about. Her relationships with other caregivers appeared to be intact, however, her expectations of herself has decreased. Which highlights her inability to properly control her self-esteem function. Since this area, judgment and reality testing seems to be the most problematic the social worker formulated questions to further assess these ego-functionings. Same questions from the assessment include, what expectations do you hold for yourself; are you able to meet those expectations; are these expectations realistic and fair (Berzoff,