Case Study Assignment

Find a person to interview who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder (It must be one found in the DSM-5). You may interview family members, friends, or classmates. If you don’t know anyone, consider contacting local rehab facilities, crisis centers, psychiatric facilities, eating disorder treatment centers, substance abuse treatment centers, etc., to see if you might be able to interview a patient. You may not use yourself as your interviewee.

It is helpful to use the voice recording feature on your phone to capture the content of your interview for later reference. You do not need to include a typed transcript of the entire interview, but may provide excerpts from it in your paper.

Your essay (500-1000 words/2-4 pages, 12-point Times New Roman with 1-inch margins) will discuss the content of the interview and your analysis of the information you gathered. You may examine your own assumptions and expectations about how the disorder would affect someone. Make it personal; don’t have your paper read like a webpage on the disorder.

Grading Rubric

Criteria	Point Value
1. Symptoms: Which symptoms of the disorder does your interviewee experience? Is this disorder ego-syntonic or ego-dystonic?	10 points
2. Risk factors for psychological disorders: Social conditions: i.e., living in poverty, overpopulation, or times of war, other stressful events. Family factors: i.e., immature parents who are overwhelmed by parental responsibilities; abuse, mentally disturbed parents, harsh discipline. Psychological factors: i.e., stress, intelligence Biological factors: Genetic defects; low birth weight; exposure to toxic chemicals, head injuries. E.g. Do others in the family have the same disorder or other mental disorders known to be related to the one your interviewee has?	20 points
3. Scope of the person’s life affected by the disorder? For example, which of these areas are affected? Employment, education, friendships and dating, family life, health care, hobbies, etc.	10 points

Criteria

Point Value

1. Symptoms:

Which symptoms of the disorder does your interviewee experience?
Is this disorder ego-syntonic or ego-dystonic?

10 points

2. Risk factors for psychological disorders:

Social conditions: i.e., living in poverty, overpopulation, or times of war, other stressful events.
Family factors: i.e., immature parents who are overwhelmed by parental responsibilities; abuse, mentally disturbed parents, harsh discipline.
Psychological factors: i.e., stress, intelligence
Biological factors: Genetic defects; low birth weight; exposure to toxic chemicals, head injuries. E.g. Do others in the family have the same disorder or other mental disorders known to be related to the one your interviewee has?

20 points

3. Scope of the person’s life affected by the disorder? For example, which of these areas are affected? Employment, education, friendships and dating, family life, health care, hobbies, etc.

10 points

Criteria	Point Value
4. Treatment: What treatment has your interviewee received and how effective has it been? If talk therapy, what theoretical orientation; that is, what type of talk therapy did he/she try? What is currently considered to be the most effective treatment for this type of disorder? Has the person ever been hospitalized for this disorder or any other disorder?	25 points
What are the theoretical explanations that have been proposed to explain this disorder? Do they seem to fit your interviewee’s situation?	20 points
 What seems to have caused the disorder in your interviewee’s case?
6. Comorbidity issues: What disorders are typically found to correlate with your interviewee’s disorder? (For example, eating disorders are often linked with depression.) Does your interviewee suffer from these problems as well?	5 points
7. Cite your sources on information in the body of the text using APA format and include a reference page, also with APA format.	10 points