Reference no: EM132695333

Question: Sarah Tay, a 35-year-old widow of two young children, had been working from home since her organization heeded the government's directive for remote working six months ago. For the last six months, Sarah had been juggling between work and maternal duties. Although Sarah has domestic help, she feels that, as a mother, she should be doing majority of the caregiving tasks by herself.

Her work supervisor noticed that Sarah had not been submitting her work deliverables on time for several occasions. There were also several instances when Sarah had to miss online work meetings as her children were unwell. During online work meetings, Sarah was very sensitive and felt that her colleagues were blaming her for not contributing in the projects. There were a few times when Sarah had snapped at her colleagues and exited the online meetings abruptly. This was unlike of Sarah's gentle and soft-spoken personality known to many of her colleagues.

Concerned for her well-being, the work supervisor went to visit Sarah to check on how she was. During the visit, Sarah confided that she had been having persistent negative thoughts and was very worried that her children would die of contracting Covid19 after attending childcare. Thus, there were a few times she had pulled them out from the centre and took care of them at home instead when she heard of infection breakout at the childcare centre. Staying at home most of the time with her children, Sarah admitted that the negative thoughts had given her a lot of mental distress. She also felt tired very often and faced difficulties focusing on her work.

After seeking Sarah's consent, the supervisor then referred Sarah to the counselling services provided by the organization.

As a counselor, what are the symptoms that illustrate the presenting problem of Sarah. Can you cite two relevant examples from the passage?