Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Youth Negatively Impacted by Bullying: A Case Report

Abstract

Surprisingly few intervention approaches have been evaluated for youth negatively impacted by bullying, and only one known study has directly addressed the traumatic nature of these peer experiences. Thus, there is currently little guidance for practitioners working to address the mental health needs of this population in an individual therapy context. The current article presents a case report of an adolescent male with social anxiety and attention problems who had experienced chronic, severe bullying that had resulted in significant posttraumatic stress symptoms. It illustrates the process of implementing an adapted version of the Modular Approach to Therapy for Children with Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, or Conduct Problems (MATCH-ADTC) to address these presenting problems. Results demonstrate the potential utility of a modular cognitive-behavioral approach, as it effectively reduced the patient’s experiences of bullying victimization as well as his symptoms of posttraumatic stress and social anxiety; high levels of treatment satisfaction were also reported by the patient and his caregiver. The current article highlights unique treatment considerations and challenges when providing mental health services for youth negatively impacted by bullying victimization, emphasizing the need to help them develop coping skills and a plan for responding to aggressive peers and then the importance of trauma narration to reduce intrusion, hyperarousal, and avoidance symptoms and to process inaccurate and unhelpful (i.e., self-blaming) cognitions stemming from these experiences.