My Therapeutic Approach with Major Depressive Disorder Patient

My client's name is William, and he exhibits symptoms of depression. William is a middle-aged male who has served in the military and has attended several combative military operations. The death of my client's colleague Jimmy, whom they served together in the military before he died in battle, stresses William. My client's stress emanates from the thought of sharing the information of Jimmy's death to Jimmy's parents. 

I adopted a counseling therapeutic approach to administering diagnosis on William. The therapeutic approach involved engaging William into a conversation that discusses the various issues that stress the client. I plan to allow my client to talk about the problems stressing in his mind. The approach was practical, though, at some points of the conversation, William would almost lose his patience with me and became harsh ( Harris, 2013) . William is not progressing according to the expected clinical outcome. It is visible with the follow-up therapy. he is not talking about the trauma he has concerning the death of his friend, which means he is not ready for closure. 

Evaluation of the Adopted Therapeutic Approach 

The therapeutic approach that I assumed was effective on William. The client would occasionally confirm that he felt relieved while talking to me. The client's comments confirmed that the method of making him talk about his troubles was helping in easing the tensions caused by mental distress. The sudden anger moments that occasioned William's responses indicated that counseling therapy was relevant in exposing the anger that William felt deep down. My approach avoided the occurrence of unexpected results from William by questioning him on the possibility of having suicidal thoughts. I brought up the question of suicide to discourage the ideas of my client from taking undesired angles. Moreover, I shared my contact with William so that he could call me in case of any suicidal thoughts so as to prevent any unexpected results. My therapeutic approach is less effective, contributed by William’s inability to be true to himself ( Harris, 2013) . In the case of dreams, for instance, he denies and even insists that it would be a plot by his wife, brother and sister-in-law to get him to therapy. 

Reference 

Harris, W. (2013). Mindfulness-based existential therapy: Connecting mindfulness and existential therapy.  Journal of Creativity in Mental Health ,  8 (4), 349-362.