Reference no: EM133276529

Assignment:

Imagine yourself in the role of a nutrition counselor, and Josephine is your client. Josephine is a 20-year-old female who presents with a purging disorder, an "Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder" (OSFED). She currently teaches salsa lessons at the community college and is in her last semester of college. She reports she is living at home, and the food her mother prepares is not the healthiest because her mom is from Honduras and her father is from Guatemala, so the food is prepared differently. She indicates she has been thin all her life, although she has struggled to maintain her weight since going through puberty, and since she is a salsa instructor, she has to remain fit. She reports that she feels very guilty if she consumes fried foods during the day, but that is the way her mom primarily cooks. She feels awful telling her mom to stop cooking that way.

She reports that if she consumes too much fried food or junk food, she will run at least 2-3 miles or else force herself to vomit, but all the food does not come out. She reports sometimes if she has a later class, she will not eat dinner or only eat one meal per day. She has tried counting calories, but then she gets so mad at herself for consuming more than 1,200 calories that it causes her to exercise more, which then leads her to feeling exhausted. She indicates she is on no medication but does take a multivitamin when she remembers to. She indicates she has gone from 110 pounds to 125 pounds over five years and wants to be back down to 110 or even less. She also had gone to the doctor, and he was quite concerned with her lab values.

You are addressing a group of nutritional counseling interns in a training session. Josephine has given you written permission for this because as a student herself, she appreciates the value of education and training, as long as she can remain anonymous.

The students have completed the coursework for their degree in nutrition, so they have read about the Stages of Change model and about counseling and cognitive-behavioral techniques. They also are familiar with what constitutes normal versus excessive exercise.

Your goal is not to teach those concepts to them, but rather to help them understand how to apply them in a practical situation.

You will discuss the following concepts with them:

1. The stage of change this client is in, and how you determined that. (Include at least three supporting reasons for your conclusion.)

2. How her stage of change could affect her willingness to learn.

3. How you would establish rapport with her, and why you would do it in that way.

4. Three counseling skills that would be appropriate for this client, and why (include at least two reasons for choosing each skill).

5. Two cognitive-behavioral techniques that could help in her situation, and why you chose them.

6. How you would educate this client on normal versus excessive exercise.