Avoidant Personality Disorder Case Study Role-Play
Role-play # ___: Topic of the Role-play
Counselor’s Name: ________________
Client’s Name: Sonja Smith
Written by: ____________________
Intake Summary: Sonja Smith
General Background Information
Sonja Smith is a 15-year-old girl who came in for counselling as a recommendation of her school’s guidance counselor due to some concern at school. She is on the cheerleading team and she is someone who generally enjoys it and being with her friends. Recently, however, the teachers have noticed that she has been skipping practice and that she has been withdrawn from everyone even her friends. Sonja says that is 2nd oldest of four siblings and that even though both her parents are in her life she lives with her grandmother. Sonja is pregnant. She found out about being pregnant recently when she went to update her sports physical. No one but her grandmother knows about being pregnant, even the boyfriend does not know. She admitted to “feeling insecure” and that she was afraid the boyfriend would leave her if he found out. So instead she wears a sweater all day wherever she goes to cover herself up.
Sonja is in the 9th grade in honors classes and usually excels well in school. Her grade recently has gone from all A’s to A’s and B’s and of course her teachers have noticed. She does not attend cheerleading practice anymore and she avoids talking to her friends and teachers. She makes up the excuse of having to babysit her siblings when she is asked by her friends to come do stuff or just ‘hang out’. She says she feels “ashamed of herself” and that she is embarrassed that she is pregnant, thus she avoids her daily activities.
Sonja’s goal is to find out how to stop avoiding her regular school functions and she is seeking help because she wants to “feel secure enough” to tell her boyfriend. Sonja avoids going to see her mother, but she talks to her on the phone regularly. She says that her grandmother is her strength because her “grandma does not judge any of her kids or grandkids.” She attends Deliverance Church every Sunday with her grandmother, again wearing only sweaters and sweatpants to hide her pregnancy. She says that she does not know if going to church helps her with her situation, but that it provides some comfort. Sonja says that the feels like she has “failed herself.”
Besides being pregnant, she has no medical history that is unusual or of any significance. As for family history, her mother had her first child at the age of 15. Sonja says that her grandmother told her that she also hid all her pregnancies as well. Sonja denies smoking cigarettes, drinking or using recreational drugs.
Presenting Problems
PP1 Avoidance of telling people around her that she is pregnant
Sonja reports that the only one that knows she is pregnant is her grandmother. She wears sweaters all day and every day to hide her pregnancy from others.
PP2 Avoidance of regular school activities
Sonja is in honors classes, but instead of …
