Case study no. 9: Patricia (age 34), Lawyer

Patricia is a 34 year old lawyer and worked hard whilst raising her son and keeping a fairly busy social life. Recently, she started feeling down and exhausted when at work. Every day she left her job dreading coming back. She felt like all the tasks were weighing on her and she couldn’t see an end of her ‘to do lists’. Her colleagues irritated her and her emails sounded angrier than she’d like to let on. She couldn’t help but comfort-eat. This didn’t help as it only fuelled her anxieties about her body weight. In addition, she began suffering from tension headaches and couldn’t fall asleep as she was feeling restless.

Convinced that this was depression she asked her GP for antidepressants. When her doctor found out that Patricia was a happy mother and never lost interest in her social or family life, he asked more questions about her job. Patricia confessed that she felt very frustrated about the fact that despite all the hard work she put in her job, she wasn’t getting any closer to her desired promotion. It felt like everybody else ‘was getting there’ whilst she was ‘stuck’. She felt like a failure. She thought that she was personally targeted by the boss. Her GP advised her to try counselling to see how the failed expectations affected her emotional well-being and what coping strategies she could use to make the situation better.

The counsellor helped Patricia to examine her personal goals and possible different career paths. He worked with her on her assertiveness skills to help her approach her boss and colleagues in a way which would allow her to achieve her goals without causing unnecessary tensions. Patricia also found it helpful to learn some tips about how to de-stress and take care of herself outside of work.