Amy presents with extreme anxiety bordering on depression. Her demeanour and body language reflect fear and reluctance to share her life story. As a counsellor I am faced by such situations numerous times whereby active listening and non judgemental questioning break the ice. Empathy and building rapport is essential to establish a therapeutic relationship. Amy's trajectory is full of mistrust and dysfunctional relationships. It is imperative to understand the underlying cause of this and assessing her risk and protective factors is essential. I have always considered the strengths and social support system of a client. What can help this young person overcome this trauma or adversity? What personal traits does Amy have that may help her in …show more content…
Furthermore, these contextual patterns are underpinned by belief system, ideology and language ( Bronfenbrenner , Blum ). Hence the resilience paradigm focuses on strength based intervention and takes one away from deficit oriented practice. Building on my professional practice , incorporating the HEADSS assessment form facilitated the process of determining the risk and protective factors of my clients. As mentioned in my previous post I did not take any formal assessments during my counselling sessions in the past. However, introduction to HEADSS through the course work and furthermore attending a professional development course I used the assessment tool with Amy to screen psychosocial health issues, taking into account her overall level of health risk and vulnerability. It proved to be an important tool in screening Amy's immediate at -risk factors and hightlighting her protective factors. In fact, it helped her recognise her strengths and not just focus on her weaknesses as some previous psychosocial screenings had done. Amy feels that factors highlighted as resilience were some of her defence mechanisms. Anne Deveson (2003) reiterates that everyone is resilient though it is not a constant state of being. Resilense is derived from the interaction between the individual and their environment and hence Amy can nurture this quality by focusing on her protective factors and