Overview
Aggression and self-injury among young people is a common problem. In most cases, aggression is a manifestation of internal conflict, depression, and stress. Self-injury is most cases links to autism disease. Self-injuries that links to autism condition can either be as a result of internal or external markers ( Tordjman et al., 2018). In this case, therefore, understanding the source of the problem is critical in coming up with an educative program to help the patient stabilize his or her life. In the case of Toby, he has exhibited injurious and aggressive behaviors for most of his time both at home and school. It could be possible that these aggressiveness and injurious behaviors are triggered by depression or autism, even though this needs medical approval. However, numerous strategies can be incorporated into his behaviors intervention plan to help Toby manage and finally overcome his behaviors challenge.
Short and long-term behavior goals
Goal setting is the first step towards helping Toby. Short term goals are those that physicians will address within the first two weeks of the intervention program. Assessing Toby to understand the cause of his behaviours and the self-injurious problem is the first short term goal. The second short term goal is to make Toby understand that he has a problem and that there are strategies that can help him overcome his problem. The third short term goal is to isolate Toby from his problem and addressed the problem rather than addressing Toby, psychological intervention such as Narrative Behaviours therapy does best ( Rampling et al., 2016).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The long term goals are those that physicians will address within a period of two to three months. They are also the goals that will need a follow up to ascertain whether Toby has changed his behaviors. The first long term goal is to ensure Toby does not involve in aggressive behaviours. The second long term goals are to ensure that Toby does not get involved in injurious behaviours. The last long term goal is to teach Toby coping mechanism that will help him associate with other people around him. With such goals in his behaviours intervention plan, there is a positive prospect that Toby will be back to normal behaviors.
Intervention steps
The first step is assessment. Assessment implies understanding Toby based on his behaviours and what might be causing the behaviors. The best way to carry out an assessment is data collection. The second step is to assess the results and make an attempt to relate to Toby's problem with other psychosocial problem or a social problem. The third step is psychological intervention, such as Cognitive Behaviours therapy to deal with aggressive behaviors. Cognitive behaviors therapy deals with issues of the mind and also teaches coping mechanism that can help Toby live better with others (C reech et al., 2017). Narrative therapy can also be useful in case Toby is suffering from autism problem, which can be useful mostly to deal with harmful behaviours Toby is exhibiting. The last step is to enhance the coping mechanism that will help Toby associate well with others.
Data collection
Data collection will depend on the behaviours. It will involve taking notes on specific behaviours for a specific period. It will also involve exposing Toby to a group of students and noting how he reacts to them and also behaves while associating with them. After that, Toby will be exposed to the intervention mechanism and taught behavior change coping mechanism for sometimes. The experts will then introduce Toby to a similar situation that made him behave aggressively and injuriously. The result will be noted and progressed studied based on the differences in the data and results.
Hypothesis
While using Cognitive Behaviors Therapy to rectify the aggressive behaviors, the hypothesis is that Toby will develop good behaviors that will change how he perceives others and react to them. While using Narrative therapy to rectify the injurious behaviors, the hypothesis is that Toby will also be isolated from the behaviors and thus will be good while engaging in social life ( Soke et al., 2016). In each case, maintenance is through critical follow up to ensure that Toby is back to a healthy life.
References
Creech, S. K., Macdonald, A., Benzer, J. K., Poole, G. M., Murphy, C. M., & Taft, C. T. (2017). PTSD symptoms predict outcome in the trauma-informed treatment of intimate partner aggression. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology , 85 (10), 966.
Rampling, J., Furtado, V., Winsper, C., Marwaha, S., Lucca, G., Livanou, M., & Singh, S. P. (2016). Non-pharmacological interventions for reducing aggression and violence in severe mental illness: a systematic review and narrative synthesis. European Psychiatry , 34 , 17-28.
Soke, G. N., Rosenberg, S. A., Hamman, R. F., Fingerlin, T., Robinson, C., Carpenter, L., ...&DiGuiseppi, C. (2016). Brief report: prevalence of self-injurious behaviors among children with autism spectrum disorder—a population-based study. Journal of autism and developmental disorders , 46 (11), 3607-3614.
Tordjman, S., Anderson, G. M., Charrier, A., Oriol, C., Kermarrec, S., Caetano, R., ...& Cohen, D. (2018). Relationships Between Self-Injurious Behaviors, Pain Reactivity, and β-Endorphin in Children and Adolescents With Autism. The Journal of clinical psychiatry , 79 (2).
