Selecting the Right Professional Case Study

Mental health professionals are a diverse group and range greatly in their scope and depth of practice. In terms of doctorly prepared practitioners you will often find yourself working with psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuropsychologists. Using websites such as Study.com, explore these careers and what roles these professionals play. Then consider the three cases below and imagine you are the case worker for each instance. Your job is to refer the patient to one (and only one) of the professionals (i.e., psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, or neuropsychologist) who is the best choice to evaluate and manage the case.

• Case 1 (Gary). Gary is a 23-year-old male who just last year enrolled in community college and who came to the attention of his professors when his grades started to drop. When asked what was going on he stated that there were people watching him all the time making it hard for him to sleep and therefore to study.
• Case 2 (Connie). Connie is a 40-year-old mother of three and has been employed at a local warehouse for the last many years. She is well liked and gets great job performance reviews. Recently she has shown instances of being late, her work has declined, and she has been seen crying when off alone. She states she is upset over her children leaving for college and her husband not giving her much attention.
• Case 3 (James). James is a 30-year-old semipro ball player. He was, until recently, moving up in his career and was getting a lot of attention from scouts. However, just in the last few weeks his pitching started to suffer, he became irritable over nearly everything, and was just found slumped over the steering wheel of his car that had rolled into another parking space. He was uninjured but seemed very confused.

In your initial post,

• Determine which one (and only one) of the professionals (i.e., psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist, or neuropsychologist) is the best choice to evaluate and manage each case.
  • Who do you pick?
  • Why?
  • Why not one of the other practitioners?