Thursday, August 31, 2017 Ma.

Victoria Ty Cruz
Psych 155 THX 2015-89009

Reflection Paper on Case Vignette 1

There are a few risk factors that can be identified from the information given in the case
study. Firstly, there would be the distal causal factor of Susanna being part of a broken family, as
her mom left the family when she was just eight years old. This means Susanna did not have a
mother figure present for most of her life, which could have made her vulnerable during childhood
and even up to her age now. Moreover, her siblings (especially the oldest one, Ate Luisa) are all
more successful than her, as they are stable with careers and families. This could have led to
insecurities and pressure for Susanna to perform as well as her siblings and attain the same success
that the rest of her siblings have. However, this itself also suggests a possible proximal casual factor
regarding Susannas socioeconomic status, because she most likely does not have a stable and
career, unlike the the rest of her siblings. Lastly, another proximal causal factor would be the
implied strained relationship between Susanna and her father. Susanna seems to be quite
inconsistent in her testimony in court, because even though she admits to stealing checks and
forging her fathers signature on these checks, she claims is still not her fault for writing the bad
checks. Her justification for this is because her father refused to pay for her medical school, which
she feels ruined her career as a brilliant physician. However, to me, these imply some sort of deep
grudge that Susanna holds against her father and makes me think that maybe Susanna and her father
do not have a good relationship at all, especially since Susanna seems to be blaming her father for
her failures and shortcomings in life.
As for which factors are which, Susanna growing up in a broken family due to her absent
mother is a psychological causal factor. Moreover, I think that having siblings who are all stable
with families and a career are another psychological causal factor, because this could have given her
emotional and mental stress to try and be like them. I also think the implied strained relationship
that Susanna has with her father are a psychological causal factor. Lastly, maybe the fact that
Susanna grew up in a middle-class family, with only her dad, who had a salary of a mid-level
accountant, is a socio-cultural causal factor. Susannas dad most probably may have only provided
his children with basic needs, especially since he had to raise all of his children alone.
As for the diathesis-stress model for this study, the diathesis in this case study would be the
fact that Susannas mom left her at such an early age, thus she grew up in a broken family. The
stressor would be the implied negative relationship between Susanna and her father.
I also have a few questions regarding this case study. The following questions are:
Is this Susannas first arrest and first time in court?
How are the relationships between Susanna and her siblings?
Why did Susannas mom leave her family when she was eight years old?
Why didnt Susanna finish college?
What made Susanna want to go to medical school, even though she wasnt even able
to graduate from college?
Does Susanna file her fingernails on a daily basis (i.e. is this a habit of hers)?
Why did her father refuse to pay for medical school?
Did Susannas father have a favourite child? How did he treat her and the rest of her
siblings?
Does Susanna have any genetic predisposition to any abnormal behaviour?
How does Susanna dress during other situations i.e. how does she dress on a daily
basis?
Page 1 of 2
 Does Susanna have a prominent family history of mental illness?
Lastly, reflecting on the process, I found it generally difficult because we werent given that
much information regarding Susanna. Its challenging to try and make assumptions when we are
confined to so little information. I also found it somewhat tricky to identify the stressor, because I
initially thought the stressor was how all of Susannas siblings are stable with careers and families.
However, I ended up deciding that this was a contributory cause, and instead, the real stressor was
the implied negative relationship between Susanna and her father, because during her testimony in
court, everything she says seems to always connect back to her father.
Additionally, while analysing this case study, I felt like I needed to constantly re-read and go
over the case as many times as I could. This is because I wanted to make sure that I wouldnt miss
out on any information given about Susanna, because one small detail can say a lot about her.
I also was not able to did identify any biological causal factors, especially since majority of
the information on the case describes more of Susannas time during the court and her family
dynamic. There is nothing mentioned in the case study about any genetic predispositions to a certain
abnormal disorder. However, after reading the last part that explains how Susannas oldest sister
wonders how Susanna could have turned out so different from the rest [of her siblings], made me
wonder that Susanna may have a genetic vulnerability after all, because Susanna is the only one
who turned out to be problematic amongst her siblings. This part also made me think that maybe
Susanna was affected by a non-shared environmental influence, because Susanna and the rest of her
siblings all experienced not having a mother while growing up, and yet the rest of them were still
capable of being stable enough with careers and families. This means that there is a possibility that
Susanna couldve had a unique experience at school or even at home that could have affected only
her upbringing. And thus, as mentioned earlier, I think the culprit to this could maybe be the implied
strained relationship between Susanna and her father, wherein maybe the father treated Susanna
differently compared to her other siblings while growing up.

Page 2 of 2