Scientist-Practitioner Approach to Treating Substance Abuse of an Asian American Lesbian Woman

Scientist-Practitioner Approach to Treating Substance Abuse of an Asian American Lesbian Woman

Scientist-Practitioner Approach to Treating Substance Abuse of an Asian American Lesbian Woman This paper presents a case of an Asian American lesbian woman with a substance abuse problem. The case details the significant life events of the client that contribute to her current situation.
Introduction
Evidence-based practice (EBP), as part of the scientist-practitioner approach, utilizes evidence in making clinical decisions about a case. Chen, Kakkad & Balzano (2008) describes EBP as: concerned with promoting effective practice through integrating the best available research evidence with clinical expertise in the context of client characteristics (e.g., values, religious beliefs, worldviews, goals, treatment preferences) and sociocultural factors (p. 1261-1262) Chwalisz (2003) enumerates the steps in EBP as follows: The first is the raising of specific clinical questions regarding the client’s reported problem case followed by the search for evidence to answer such questions. Such evidence is evaluated for its usefulness in the attempt to solve the problem. Next, the findings are applied to the client’s problem and finally, the outcome of the intervention or therapy is evaluated.

In this paper, the presenting case provides the details surrounding the main problem which is the client’s substance abuse. Evidence is searched in the case and evaluated using all five axes of the DSM-IV-TR to come up with a speculative diagnosis. This step is important in gaining credibility of the evidence. Feltham (2005) contends that evidence-based practice is set apart from other “anything goes” therapy practices he describes as “spurious”. ………………………..