Read the passage below and answer to the questions given below.
A GRADUATE STUDENT WITH ANXIETY DISORDER
The client, Brinda, is a 28-year-old Mauritian female. She is the youngest of 5 children; she was raised in a culturally religious family in a large Mauritian town. She attended catholic schools, and religion remained a very significant part of her life. The father has a small retail business and the mother is a primary school teacher. Because of the socio- economic situation of the family, Brinda had to spend a lot of time supporting the family in the household work and in the father’s trade. Her elder brothers and sisters were less helpful. After secondary schooling she decided to go for higher studies in a well-established Indian university. She did not get the support of the family in this endeavour, however she insisted and went.
She phoned for a counselling appointment and arrived earlier that scheduled. She reported that she had anxiety disorder throughout nearly all her life, including her childhood years. However, the problem increased during her adolescence and it peaked by the time she joined university. Last year her anxiety had seriously interfered with her functioning. She reported worries in different spheres of her life. She was concerned about her own life and that of her parents. During one incident a few months earlier, she had thought that her heart was beating slower than usual and she had experienced a tingling sensation; and this led her to worry that she might die. In another incident she heard her name being paged over a loud speaker in an air-port and worried about the death of someone very close to her.
She was also worried about her future. She feared excessively about getting a bad grade even though she never had one during the last five years she was at the university. She was also very worried because she had encountered difficulties in completing her master’s thesis on time probably due to her high level of anxiety.
In classes she worried excessively about the lecturer, and what other students thought of her. She tended not to talk unless the class was small and she was quite confident about the topic. The situation was similar at the hostel. Hence, she remained aloof and withdrawn most of the time. Although she had a small number of friends, she never had a boyfriend because of her shyness about dating. She had no problem talking or socializing with the male folk as long it was not a dating situation. She believed that she should only date a man if she was quite sure it could be a serious relationship from the outset. She feared excessively that if a man did not want to date her, it meant that she was not a pleasant person or she was boring.
In addition to her anxiousness, Brinda reported muscles tension and easily fatigued at times. She also mentioned that occasionally she had great difficulty to concentrate on a task for a long period of time. She suffered from severe and blinding headache as well. On certain occasion she had experienced memory loss for short period of time but others were not aware of it. Besides, she described herself as being moody, irritable, and restless. When she was unable to do her household or school work she spent a great deal of her time to daydreaming. The content of the latter created more problems than it solved.
She suffered from insomnia because of frequent nightmares. At times she had difficulty falling asleep if she was particularly anxious. But at other times she slept excessively, in part to escape from her worries. She frequently experienced dizziness and palpitation, and in the past had full blown panic attack. On overall, she frequently reported feeling paralyses and unable to do things. Brinda’s mother was as well anxious throughout her life and had been treated for panic disorder.
Brinda was obviously extremely bright and managed to do very well in spite of her lifelong problem of anxiety. But as the pressures of finishing graduate school and starting her career loomed before her, and she got older and never dated, the anxiety became severe enough that she thought to go for treatment wisely.
Now answer to the given questions:
Question 1: Name 4 words that show that Brinda was anxious.
Question 2: Suggest 2 causal factors of her anxiety disorder.
Question 3: Elaborate a treatment programme for the above mentioned disorder.
Question 4: Name 2 of Brinda’s actualizing tendencies.