Brain injury may be one of the most under diagnosed problems for those seeking psychotherapy and counseling. Most of the time people who enter into psychotherapy, be it individual, family or marriage, they rarely consider that their emotional, cognitive and relational issues may be the result of a brain injury. What about you?
As a therapist are you regularly screening for brain trauma and injury. A good intake form will include a screening for head injuries. Many head injuries are over looked or undiagnosed because the client was not officially diagnosed with a concussion or they did not lose consciousness. Therefore they many not even think to include a hard bump on the head in their intake paperwork. Hence the importance of you the therapist digging deeper with your client as you go through their intake paperwork. Explain to your client that you are interested in knowing about any kind of head injury they have sustained: whether they were hospitalized or sought medical attention or not.
Symptoms like apathy, depression, anger, mood changes and relational problems may all stem from an undiagnosed head injury, aka brain trauma. According to Harvard Magazine there are over 5 million people in the US living with the long term effects of TBI (Traumatic Brain injury).
For more information about recognizing and treating Traumatic Brain Injury read this article.
If you need a comprehensive intake form that will help you remember to assess for head injuries click here.