Mrs. Lopez is an 87-year-old female who lost her wife last year. She is presenting with two significant challenges, including loss of interest in recreational activities and failure to take the prescribed medicine. The underlying reason for the two problems is geriatric depression due to the loss of her spouse that led to suicidal thoughts. In Mrs. Lopez’s case, reflective listening can help the client to feel heard (Miller & Rollnick, 2103). At the same time, reflective statements can help to move the conversation forward and promote change in the client (Miller & Rollnick, 2103).
For both problems, both simple and complex reflective statements can be created. “You lost interest in daily recreative activities” is a simple reflective statement for the first problem, as it simply restates the tip of “the tip of the iceberg” of what the client says. “It appears that you spend all your time thinking about your husband and the days you had together” is a complex reflective statement. According to Miller and Rollnick (2013), it is beneficial to make some assumptions about the condition of the client to adhere to the spirit of motivational interviewing. In this case, the complex reflective statement guesses that the client is preoccupied with thoughts about the loss of her spouse, which takes all of her time and attention. “You have not been taking your medicine” is a simple reflective statement for the second problem. “You appear to have lost interest in maintaining your body healthy” is a complex reflective statement. It makes a guess about the reason for failure to take the prescribed drugs.
Reference
Miller, W., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.