Assignment: Assessing Mood Disorders

Mood problems often constitute a primary reason why parents seek professional help for their children or adolescents. Most often, mood problems include irritability, sadness, or anger. A certain amount of moodiness and impulsivity is normal during childhood and adolescence; therefore, it makes it exceptionally difficult to diagnose children and adolescents with conditions such as clinical depression or bipolar disorders. One of the most challenging elements in counseling is objectively assessing whether a child or adolescent has a mood disorder. Cultural and family factors are one reason this is challenging. At times, these factors are directly the cause of the mood disorder or contribute to the stress or distress of children and adolescents. Therefore it is important to use a systematic, objective, and dispassionate procedure for gathering data about children and adolescents when conducting assessments.

For this Discussion and subsequent Discussions, consider these questions:

a) Where does the child’s or adolescents problem originate from, and

b) Does the problem stem from the child or adolescent, or is it the family or other factors?

By asking these questions, you can more accurately assess a child’s or adolescent’s problems and create evidence-based interventions to address the right problem effectively. Select a case study in this week’s Learning Resources, and consider the child’s or adolescent’s presenting problem and where the presenting problem may originate.

Example.

Anger is a negative emotion that can cause physiological arousal to rise, thoughts of blaming others, and an increased propensity for violent behavior. Most of the time, disappointment or interpersonal frustration makes people angry. Children's hostile and aggressive behaviors are the subject of numerous theories. One is modeling, in which they watch their parents, teachers, or peers demonstrate these behaviors. The child then imitates the threats they receive from their parents and the yelled reprimands they receive from their teachers. When a child comes from a chaotic family, the child may imitate the family members' actions. Similarly, the low self-esteem theory suggests that people with low self-esteem tend to exaggerate negative events and are more troubled by failure. For instance, they frequently interpret comments that are not critical as critical. In addition, they are more likely to have low interpersonal confidence and social anxiety levels.