Directions

In Weeks 3, 4, and 6, you will have two case studies per week presented with some commonly confused disorders. You will need to appropriately diagnose the case studies and then recommend treatment options based on information from the lectures and supplemental materials. The case studies are unique for each week in that they deal with some of the disorders discussed in that particular week.  Before reviewing the week’s case studies, you will also be presented with a video to help you in your diagnosis and treatment plan.

Case Study 1: Week 3

Watch the video below before starting the case studies for this week.

What is the difference between Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzHVzWLeIfg

  1. Client A is a 25-year-old female, 5’7, and currently weighs 105 pounds. She has dropped over 30 pounds in the past two months. She has always struggled with holding on to a few extra pounds, but has finally found a way to lose the weight. She has increased her daily exercise from an hour a day to three hours, reduced her daily calorie intake drastically, and often declines meals or says she will eat later on, but doesn’t. When she does eat with others, she tends to push her food around on her plate or offers to let others try her food, thus making it appear she has finished her meal or eaten more of it than she actually has. At times, she is obsessive about the amount of calories she eats. For example, she tells a story about a time when she went out with friends to a pizza restaurant. She tried to order just a salad, but the restaurant was out of lettuce due to a recall of the product recently. So, she ate a piece of pizza. Feeling terribly conscious of the number of calories in that one slice, she increased her regular daily exercise from three hours to five. She also reports feeling anxious if she cannot get the full three hours of exercise in–so much so that she has left work claiming to be sick so she can ensure that she does exercise that length of time.

  2. Client B is a 32-year-old male, 6’2, and currently weighs 170 pounds. He reports he has been active in football all of his life and also wrestled in college. After entering the NFL draft and being selected to play for a professional football team, he learned he had to maintain a specific weight or face a fine. He has entered a cycle of binging and purging. He admits some of his behaviors started in college when he was wrestling and began to put on a few extra pounds because of the food available. He recalls one specific incident when he went to weigh in before a match and was two pounds over the class he wrestled in. The suggestion offered was that he to go to the bathroom and make himself throw up. He did and weighed in again. He then met the maximum weight allowed for his weight class to wrestle. This happened for the next three meets, so to avoid the embarrassment he started taking a laxative before he went to bed the night prior to a meet.  This allowed him to quickly shed pounds and “make weight” before each meet.  Later he found himself dealing with anxiety and would eat many calorie-loaded foods in one sitting. The current problem is that he cannot control the cycles of binging and purging he engaged in during college. He prefers the use of laxatives over vomiting, largely because he doesn’t have to make himself do anything, except take the laxative. However, he is complaining of some issues having a bowel movement without the laxative.

After reading the case studies, answer the following questions in an essay format of at least 250 words. Ensure you have an introduction, body, and conclusion.

  • What is the diagnosis for each scenario presented this week?
    • Include a detailed justification for the diagnosis. When you provide the justification, make sure to describe the symptoms the individual has that meet the diagnostic criteria of that disorder.
  • What is an appropriate treatment option for the individual scenarios?
    • Include a detailed justification for the treatment option selected.  When you provide justification for the treatment option, use information from the lectures or supplemental resources to explain why that treatment is appropriate for the individual and/or their diagnosis.

Solution Preview

PSYC120 – Abnormal Psychology

Introduction

The cases focused are of two clients one is client A and is reported to be 25 years of age and weighing 105 pounds and is 5’7. The client has lost 30 pounds in the past two months and has been able to maintain her weight by increasing the number of hours that she takes exercise. She as well focuses on avoiding the issues of taking much amount of calories. In the case that client A takes many calories she will even ask for sick time and leave work for having an exercise. The second client is called client B and is 32 years of age weighs 170 pounds and is 6’2. The client is an active footballer and took part in wrestling in college. As a result of the activities, he took part in he had to maintain a certain weight at all times and at the time he had to be forced to vomit to compensate for the increase in weight as needed. The focus of this discussion is to assess the diagnosis of the two clients and the appropriate diagnosis for both.

Diagnosis for each scenario presented this week

Client A is diagnosed with anorexia nervosa. Eddy et al. (2017) depict that anorexia nervosa is a life-threatening eating disorder that is featured by issues of starvation and one having an excessive loss of weight. This is evident for client A who has been able to lose up to 30 pounds within 2 months. The patient as well as had issues of starvation. For instance, she gives out her food to others with the pretense of letting other tests and ending up taking less quantity of food….

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