For this case, I studied a student named Daniel, age 17 from a small city in Alabama. He has two siblings, both older but uninvolved in his overall daily life. One sibling lives out of state, the other now lives with another relative. Daniel lost his mother to cervical cancer at the age of 15. He did not have a typical relationship with his mother; it was volatile. Daniel was recognized in school as being gifted by the second grade. He participates in a “gifted program” where he is pulled out of class every day to participate in STEM activities. Although Daniel is identified as gifted, his grades do not reflect gifted placement. Daniel has friends and is familiar with his community having lived in since age three. He does not go out on his own to visit friends anymore. His last encounter with friends landed him in a mental facility after taking unknown drugs given to him by friends in an attempt to harm himself. Daniel has recently moved out of state to California and enrolled in a public school where 56% of students are non-black.

For this case, I studied a student named Daniel, age 17 from a small city in Alabama. He has two siblings, both older but uninvolved in his overall daily life. One sibling lives out of state, the other now lives with another relative. Daniel lost his mother to cervical cancer at the age of 15. He did not have a typical relationship with his mother; it was volatile. Daniel was recognized in school as being gifted by the second grade. He participates in a “gifted program” where he is pulled out of class every day to participate in STEM activities. Although Daniel is identified as gifted, his grades do not reflect gifted placement. Daniel has friends and is familiar with his community having lived in since age three. He does not go out on his own to visit friends anymore. His last encounter with friends landed him in a mental facility after taking unknown drugs given to him by friends in an attempt to harm himself. Daniel has recently moved out of state to California and enrolled in a public school where 56% of students are non-black. Daniel has a way of understanding things differently than the norm and is very process oriented when it comes to working on assignments.

When dealing with counseling issues for students, I try to use a creative medium. For example, helping students become grounded is important. Sometimes talking through or trying to get a student to express exactly what they are dealing with is difficult; students can see the issues in their mind but they can't articulate it - there is a gap. I try to bridge that gap through creative expression, role playing, sculpting, sand trays and mask making. My approach to incorporating well-being is also slanted towards creativity - how can the student connect to the things around them, things they usually take for granted or don’t think about, what does it mean to learn how to breathe - how is the additional oxygen going to help them, why does focusing on an issue that isn’t mine, make me feel better? Those are the things in the back of my mind when I work with students.

In the case of Daniel, my approach leans towards a combination of humanist, behavioral, cognitive and psychoanalytic. A lot of who he is stems from the environment he grew up in. He also has been held to a standard (Gifted) that I don’t believe he understood or realized what that meant. Daniel at times seems to perform or act outside of reality or what is going on around them. I do not believe he learned the necessary skills required for socializing with different age groups. Taking all of that into consideration, thus I think he would do well with creativity or a medium where he doesn’t have to have things be perfect. I would start off by having Daniel create a family tree for some identity work. Who is he? How does he identify? What ethnicity group? What makes him who he is? What are the differences between his home state of Alabama and his new home, California - how does this new place impact him? I think a lot of Daniel's work has to do with identity and that is what I would focus on in working with him.