Running head: BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL ASSESSMENT

Bio-psycho-social Assessment
SW 3020
Amanda Cummings
FJ4309

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Bio-psycho-social Assessment
Part A
Presenting Problem:
Ms. D is a 46-year-old married Caucasian female who is going
through tough times in her marriage and is having a hard time
handling stress. She feels like she is starting to become depressed
from the stress and marital issues causing her drinking habits to
increase drastically. She is coming to see a social worker because of
the stress and depression she is feeling, help with ways to cope with
this because she feels her drinking habits are getting out of hand and
how to handle the issues she is having in her marriage so it will not
end in divorce.
Family of Origin History:
When Ms. D was born her father was 19 and her mother was 18
and they were married at that time and still married to this day. Her
brother and her were both planned pregnancies but her sister and
other brother were accidental. Her sister was accidental because they
got pregnant before they were married and her one brother was
accidental because they had him while her mother was taking birth
control and he was born ten years after they thought they were done
having kids. All of her siblings are still alive and in good health. Her
sister Traci, who is the oldest of Ms. Ds siblings, earned her associates

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degree in general studies and her bachelors in paralegal in her early
30s and she is now 47 years old and works as a paralegal. After her
sister was born she came along and then her brother Todd who has his
high school diploma and is now 44 years old and works as a technician.
Her youngest sibling is Jeremy who earned a bachelor degree in
business in his 20s and then went on to get his masters in engineering
in his early 30s and he is now 33 years old and works as a design
engineer. Both of her parents are still living with her father at the age
of 66 and her mother at the age of 65 and they are both retired. Her
father earned a bachelor degree in management in his 40s and her
mother has her high school diploma along with some certifications for
child development. Both parents are fairly healthy and physically
active but her mother has Lyme disease and her father has glycoma
and high blood pressure. Holidays were always celebrated with getting
the whole family together to eat and play games together. For every
holiday they made sure to attend church. The concept of death was
also a spiritual thing in their family. They believed that people who
died went to heaven and they would be reunited with them again one
day. So although they were sad to see their loved ones go they could
still hold on the happy thought that one day they would see them
again. There were some forms of abuse in Ms. Ds family including
physical and sexual abuse. Two different men sexually abused her
mother, one being her mothers uncle. One of their uncles also sexually

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abused her sister. For a short time their father physically abused her
brother Todd.
Developmental History:
Ms. D was born naturally through a vaginal delivery. She
weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. She did not
experience any feeding issues and was bottle-fed and weaned at the
age of 10 months. Some of her developmental milestones include
talking at 15 months, walking at 1 year old, and being potty trained at
18 months. She was told that she had advanced developmentally
when it came to being potty trained because she caught on so quickly
at such a young age.
Health History:
Ms. D has been healthy her whole life, from the time she was
born up until this very day. Her childhood illnesses were just the usual
and common cold, flu, and chicken pox. She was 13 years old when
she had her first menses. She has never had any surgeries or chronic
illnesses throughout her whole life. There are no current medications
that she is taking but she is allergic to penicillin. One virus she got
when she was a teenager was human papillomavirus. She has never
had any broken bones but when she was younger she had an accident
that caused her to get stitches in her forehead due to splitting her

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head open on a table. In her early 20s she struggled with obsessing
over her weight and constantly exercising.
Relationship/Sexual History:
Throughout Ms. Ds life she has had many friendships and three
committed relationships. When she was a child she had a lot of
slumber parties with friends and her best grade school friend was
Claudia who lived down the street. In high school she had three very
best friends named Jodie, Terry, and Dave. She remained friends with
Jodie a little while after high school but they slowly lost touch and she
doesnt hear from her at all these days. She still hears from Terry and
Dave once in a while so they havent completely lost touch. Kelley and
Susan are some of her good friends from work that she has been
friends with since she started her job 10 years ago. She sees and talks
to very often. Her very best friend that she has known since she was
born is her sister and she knows they will be close for the rest of their
lives. Her husband who she has known for 26 year is another person
that she considers her best friend. She started dating at the age of 15
when she was aloud to only go on group dates because her father
would not let her go on a date alone until she was 16 years old. Her
sexual orientation is straight and her first sexual experience was when
she was 17 years old. She has had one sexually transmitted disease,
which is called human papillomavirus. She currently only has one

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sexual partner which is husband who has had a vasectomy so they do
not use any other forms of birth control. Her ability to enjoy sexuality
and have orgasms is very good and healthy.
Family of Creation History:
Ms. D has had a total of three committed relationships throughout her
whole life. She was married by the age of 22 and her husband, Doug,
was 27 years old when they got married. She said that the main
reason why she got married was because her mother pressured her
because she thought that Doug could take care of her and it was in her
best interest to marry him at that point in her life. She even broke it
off with Doug at one point in their relationship but her mother got
involved and talked Doug into trying to win Ms. D back. Another thing
that contributed to the reason why Ms. D got married was because she
really wanted to have children and the only way she thought that
would be appropriate was to be married. Doug has been her only
marriage but when asked about divorce she responded with not yet
and went on to say how she has thought about divorcing Doug on
many occasions. She described that Doug had put her through a lot of
emotional abuse with his actions in the past. Currently she described
the nature of her relationship with her husband as unsatisfying and she
feels unfulfilled with the relationship. She feels like they do not have a
loving bond or good communication between them and they lack the

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passion a marriage needs. She said she knows she loves him but is not
in love with him. She has a lot of bitterness and resentment towards
him because he had a lack of respect for her and he cheated on her in
the beginning of their marriage and it still affects the way she feels
today. Overall she said her relationship with her husband as rocky and
complicated. She was always the one to end things in her past
relationship also with reasons like being bored or believing that her
significant other was controlling or immature. Ms. D has never been
involved with abortion, adoptions, or foster children. She had two
pregnancies that she delivered naturally to Amber who is now 23 years
old and Colin who is 21 years old. Ms. D planned both pregnancies but
her husband saw them as accidental. She planned them because she
wanted to be a mother more than anything else in this world. She is
close with both of her children and has a good relationship with them.
She talks to them on a regular basis and is involved in both of their
lives. Both of her children are in college and working towards their
bachelors degree. Colin is a full time student and Amber works as a
nanny. Her husband has his bachelors in business and currently works
in finance.
Substance Use/Abuse History:
Ms. D drinks regularly but she says she has had no addictions to
anything but admits to being on the boarder line of alcohol overuse.

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She drinks wine every night and has a little more than a few liquor
filled drinks during the week. Her last drink that she had was two days
ago, which she said was very good for her to go that long without
drinking. The first time she tried drinking alcohol was when she was 15
years old and she says that she has never received treatment for any
addictions throughout her whole life.
Mental Health History:
The only kind of mental health history Ms. D says she has is going
through a lot of rough times in her marriage. She tried to get
treatment by going to marriage counseling in West Bloomfield at a
counseling office. They went to three sessions and she felt it was very
unsuccessful because at that point her husband was not interested in
participating fully.
Military History:
Ms. D has no military history or experience.
Financial History:
Growing up Ms. D said they did not have a lot of money and her father
was always working more than one job but she said she still never felt
deprived or like her family was poor. These days Ms. D and her
husband are very well off and comfortable. She said they are finically

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secure and dont have to worry about how they are going to pay the
bills each month.
Legal History:
Ms. D has no legal history besides a few traffic tickets so she has never
been to jail or in trouble with the law with anything past those tickets.
Immigration issues:
Ms. D has no immigration or cultural issues because she is a legal
citizen of the United States.

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Part B
Presenting Problem:
Ms. D is a 46-year-old married Caucasian female who is going
through tough times in her marriage and is having a hard time
handling her drinking habits when it comes to stress. She feels like she
is starting to become depressed from the stress and marital issues
causing her drinking habits to increase drastically. She is coming to
see a social worker because of the stress and depression she is feeling,
help with ways to cope with the stress and depression because she
feels her drinking habits are getting out of hand and how to handle the
issues she is having in her marriage so it will not end in divorce.
I.

Ms. D will improve stress management skills without the use of

alcohol.
A. Ms. D will not drink on weeknights and limit herself to one
drink over the weekends for a month straight.
1. Ms. D will get rid of the alcohol in her house by the end
of this week.

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2. Ms. D will keep a tally of all the drinks she consumes
after each week so she is aware.
B. Ms. D will relieve stress without the use of alcohol by
participating in a yoga class for stress management offered at
her gym four times each week and attending them three out of
the four times each week.
1. Ms. D will look into what times work best for her to
attend this class and have a set schedule of when she will
attend within sometime this week.
2. Ms. D will sign up for the classes by the end of this
week.
3. Ms. D will attend the amount of classes that are
required each week.
4. Ms. D will participate well in class and take home the
skills learned after each class.
II.

Ms. D will put effort into working on her marriage.

A. Ms. D will go to marriage counseling with her husband once a
week for a month straight.
1. Ms. D will talk to her husband about going to counseling
within the next couple of days.

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1. Ms. D and her husband will research an appropriate
place that they both feel will suit them best within the next
two weeks.
2. Ms. D will make an appointment that works well with
both her and Mr. Ds schedules.
3. Ms. D and Mr. D will attend the marriage counseling on
the day that they made the appointment.
4. Ms. D and Mr. D will equally participate in every session
and take them seriously.
B. Ms. D and Mr. D will go on the marriage retreat that their
church is offering.
1. Ms. D will contact the church for more information about
the retreat within the next couple of days.
2. Ms. D will talk to her husband about going to the retreat
right after she finds out the information.
3. Ms. D and Mr. D will make arrangements to attend the
retreat.
4. Ms. D and Mr. D will go on the retreat and stay the full
time.

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5. Ms. D and Mr. D will participate in all the activities
offered on the

retreat.

C. Ms. D will read the book How to Fix your Marriage by the
end of the month.
1. Ms. D will research where to find this book within the
next couple of weeks.
2. Ms. D will purchase the book.
3. Ms. D will read the entire book.

Contract for Plan of Change

Client name: Ms. D
1. Description of the Problem:
Ms. D is going through tough times in her marriage and is
worried it may end in divorce. She is also having a hard time
handling her drinking habits when it comes to stress. She feels
like she is starting to become depressed from the stress and
marital issues causing her drinking habits to increase drastically.
2. Primary Goals:
Improve stress management skills without the use of
alcohol.
Put effort into working on her marriage.
3. We, the undersigned, agree to the objectives in the following
plan:

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A. Ms. D
B. Mr. D
C. Amanda

(Signature of Client)

(Signature of Worker)

(Date)

(Date)