Within CBT/REBT, the processes occurring within a client's mind are considered most important to locating the source of the problem(s). These two approaches differ in the way thought processes are conceptualized, however, with REBT focusing on irrational

Jill

Jill is a 41-year-old Irish Catholic single woman from Northeast Philadelphia who presents for counseling complaining about family problems, especially with her stepmother. Jill is the second of two children. She has a brother 3 years her senior. Her parents divorced when she was 12. She continued to live with her mother until she went away to college at age 18. Her father remarried, but her mother did not.

Jill went to college locally (Drexel), but her parents agreed that it would be a good experience for her to live on campus. Her father paid her tuition, room, and board for her 4 years there. She majored in English Literature. After graduating, she began a doctoral program in Sociology in 2008 at the University of Minnesota, but she has not completed the program. She lived in India for 2 years collecting data for her dissertation, but cannot seem to write the final document. She lived back in Minnesota after returning from India, but missed her family and returned to the Philadelphia area 4 years ago. She had a boyfriend in Minnesota, but she realized he did not want to marry, so that made it easier for her to return home.

For the first year back in Philly, she lived with her father and stepmother. Jill has always had concerns that her stepmother disliked her and was jealous of her relationship with her father. During the year in which she lived with her father, arguments with her stepmother were frequent, and her stepmother often threatened divorce if Jill continued to stay in the home. Jill’s father compromised by asking Jill to move into an apartment, and he would pay the rent. He also gave her spending money on a regular basis.

Jill is now employed full-time as a librarian’s assistant at a small private college. She is satisfied with this job as it meets some of her intellectual needs, but it has not been her career goal to work in a library. She took the job in the library because she likes the college atmosphere, and her father and stepmother told her they would no longer pay for her rent and groceries. She is having trouble making ends meet on her current salary. She recently cancelled her land-line telephone so that she could save money.

Jill has few friends. She tried joining a book club, but found they were frequently angry with her because she never read any of the books. She would then ask the group to postpone their meetings until she could catch up. She sits home most evenings and watches movies. Another favorite hobby is “revising Wikipedia entries.” She enjoys reading through Wikipedia and changing entries that she believes to be incorrect.

Recently, Jill has become very interested in wandering through the book stacks at work and finding interesting titles. She has been “borrowing” books from the college library without checking them out. She believes that this is her right as an employee. She keeps them at home until she finishes reading them. To this date, she has not finished or returned any of the 23 books she has “borrowed.”

She has tried some computer dating, but this has been unsuccessful. One man stalked her for 2 months after their date because he believed she might be royalty. She does not worry too much about being single at 41 because her brother is also still single at 44. Because of medications that her mother took to avoid morning sickness, Jill is infertile. She discovered this after reading a Wikipedia entry and following up with her physician who performed a number of tests and verified her infertility. As such, she feels “free from the biological clock.” However, she spends weekends at her cousin’s house playing with her cousin’s four young children. She says, “it’s the highlight of my weekend.”

Jill is entering counseling now to find out how she can have a better relationship with her father and stepmother. She hopes her father might help her out financially. Recently, her father was hospitalized with an illness Jill has diagnosed as the “Bird Flu.” When she tried to visit him in the hospital, she found that her stepmother had told the hospital security to disallow her visits. Since his return home, Jill has not been allowed to visit her father’s house. Her stepmother feels that she is a stressor for her father and a constant drain of money and resources. She was not invited to Thanksgiving dinner this year, even though her brother was.