Reframing Case Studies

In this case, the mother, Melissa tries to control her 17-year-old son, Matt’s decisions regarding his girlfriend Shelly, whom she believes is a bad influence due to a dismissed drug charge she was arrested for. Melissa and her husband Mike are also concerned that Matt’s grades will only be good enough to get into a community college. Furthermore, Melissa does not want Shelly to come over and instead wants to go out to eat as a family. Matt does not want to break his plans with Shelly and is upset that his mom is constantly judging her without actually knowing her. Besides his girlfriend, his sister Mia has gone through his computer and found porn. As a result, Melissa wants to now control his computer as well. Throughout this conflict, the

Reframing “problems as questions or issues rather than as statements of fact or opinion” (Cloke, K., Goldsmith, J., 2011) would be one way to help better communicate Melissa’s emotions to Matt. Instead of cutting down his girlfriend and blaming her for all Matt’s shortcomings of late and yelling that she could not wait for him to move out, she could have asked him “what can I do to get you to talk to me?” or “is there something I can do to help you with your homework (grades)?. Another way to use this method is to reframe “statements to express what you want from the other person rather than judging their attitude or behavior” (Cloke, K., Goldsmith, J., 2011). “Matt I realize you love football and may still be upset you cannot play this year, but I need for us to work together to help you get your grades up”. Lastly, “reframe issues to separate people from problems and depersonalize the problem”. As a replacement for the real issue Melissa is having with her son, concern over his grades, future, loss of control over him, Melissa is using Matt’s girlfriend as a smoke screen. To get past this Melissa needs to ask herself, why is she angry at Matt and his girlfriend? She may also find that sitting down and letting Matt and her husband express their feeling over these issues they are having and

Melissa could focus on the events that she regretted. Such as “WE CAN’T WAIT EITHER!! (Mumbles to herself) I can’t believe I just said that” (Cloke, K., Goldsmith, J., 2011). She could have apologized right after saying this by saying “I am sorry I just said that, I did not mean a word of it and know it hurt your feelings. Can we please sit down and find a way for us to resolve our problems?”. The same goes for Matt after he said, “I HATE IT HERE.” He could use an apology to de-escalate the situation by saying that he was also very sorry and should not have said that because it may have hurt his mom’s feelings. They both could also have asked what they needed from each other to make things “right again”. Such as, Melissa: “ I realize I was wrong to bring your girlfriend into our conflict. I also realize that I should not be yelling at you. What can I do to fix