Case Study Manuel

Case Study 2 Manuel is a 27 year-old single Hispanic accountant, he is successful in his career but seems to struggle with his love life. He grew up in a middle class catholic family where marriage is considered a sacred union that is only done once. His parents were high school sweet hearts and have been together for over 30 years. When Manuel was 21 years old he was cheated on by his fiancée, he found out she had slept with his friend one drunken night while Manuel was out of town for the weekend. Manuel ended the relationship and has had trouble committing to a woman ever since, he embarks on a number of flings and can’t seem to hold a relationship for longer than a few months. He either ends up cheating on the women or ends the relationship
He has been considering settling down and wants to have a more serious relationship with Diana but is having trouble trusting her although she has not given him any reason not to. Manuel likes to know where Diana is all hours of the day and feels anxious when she is out with friends and family without him. Diana’s family has noticed that she has been spending a lot of time with Manuel and she has significantly decreased the amount of time spent with friends and family. She no longer comes home or goes out with friends as often as before and when she does go out she always brings Manuel. After dating for a few months they decide to move in together, Manuel begins to check Diana’s emails and phone records and would become upset when she didn’t want to take him out with friends or family. He prefers staying in and being at home with one another and grows anxious when Diana does not let him know where she is. Whenever they would go out Manuel often accuses Diana of deliberately drawing attention to herself and when she glances at strangers he claims she is interested in other men, which has lead to several arguments between the couple. Last week Diana and Manuel decided to stay in and watch movies, while watching “50 first dates” Diana mentioned that Adam Sandler was a really great actor; Manuel grew angry and stormed off into the room. When Diana tried to confront Manuel
When approaching treatment for Manuel and his relationship we can use the theoretical framework of Baucom, which states that there is both a trauma theory and an interpersonal forgiveness theory (Knapp. 2017, Week5). From the case study we know that Manuel has experienced the trauma of having lost the person he believed he was going to spend the rest of his life with due to her engagement of infidelity with one of his friends. It is also important to exam the interpersonal forgiveness theory to try and help Manuel give up the negative emotions that he is feeling after being cheated on. In addition, Manuel and Diana would benefit from couples therapy as the therapist would assess the couple and begin the treatment model for infidelity that would help Manuel ease his fears of being cheated on and allow him to gain trust in Diana and his relationship. It is important to assess the couple first, in this case the therapist will want to know how rooted Manuel’s infidelity issues are and how that has impacted his previous relationships including his current relationship with Diana. There are three stages of treatment that will allow the couple to be able to confront any ongoing issues and to help develop normalcy in the relationship. During the first stage, the impact stage, the couple will speak about their emotions, triggers, or specific events are affecting their relationship to be able to help them work through those issues to be able to gain routine back into