CASE STUDY: LAURIE

Question

Laurie, a Grade 11 student was sick again. Why was she running this low-grade fever? She was tired. She had no energy. Could it be mononucleosis (kissing disease)? Laurie had heard that lots of teenagers felt this way from mononucleosis. Could that be the reason she was feeling ill?
After a series of blood tests revealed nothing definitive, the doctor mentioned the possibility of stress. Laurie was not able to identify anything that could be triggering it. And she knew that fevers are not caused by stress, or so she thought. Soon she started to feel better and forgot all about her symptoms and her fever until the next marking period when the symptoms reappeared. After four months of this recurring ailment, her parents and doctor began to note a predictable pattern It seemed that during her senior year of high school, Laurie became ill every time a paper was due in her advanced English class.
Could this be? Could written assignments trigger these symptoms? This deserved serious consideration, especially when her mom recounted the machinations she went through to complete the last assignment. Laurie was to write about Shakespeare, and after great difficulty deciding upon the right topic, she finally chose to write about the men who in Shakespeare's time played women and disguised themselves as men in the plot.
It was Laurie's pattern to choose the most difficult and obscure topic she could find or invent. To make matters even worse, Laurie lived in a university town and had access to the university library where she consulted highly advanced reference materials to support her tasks. Both these events, finding the topic and the resources, were rather challenging. Often she would procrastinate until the final moment came to sit down and write the paper. This repeated procedure was true for this paper as well.
With time almost running out and her stress levels increasing, Laurie felt fatigued and feverish. Laurie's grandmother had been an English teacher and an expert in classical literature. Her grandmother offered to help. Laurie accepted the invitation and arrived at her grandmother's house feeling so stressed by this time that a minor provocation initiated a screaming temper tantrum. As Laurie explained, "The screaming and crying, as I began to understand, was a way for me to relieve my stress. But my grandmother didn't know that and offered to drive me home." Her stress level lowered after the crying and screaming, Laurie felt greatly relieved. She calmed down and was able to talk through her ideas with her grandmother. Then she spent the rest of the night completing the paper. Completely drained the next day and still running a mild fever, she stayed home from school but managed to send the paper in.

According to the psychosocial theory of development, if Laurie’s conflict at her stage of development was unresolved, it would have resulted in
a. Adolescence
b. Role confusion
c. Identity formation
d. A, B and C

Answer 1

According to the psychosocial theory of development proposed by Erik Erikson, adolescents go through the stage of "Identity vs. Role Confusion." This stage typically occurs during adolescence, which is when individuals are trying to figure out their own identity, roles, and contributions to society. If the conflicts and challenges at this stage are unresolved, it can lead to feelings of confusion about oneself and one’s place in the world.

In Laurie's case, her stress and recurring physical symptoms seem to be related to pressures she faces in her academic life, particularly around identity and achievement. The difficulty she has in choosing topics for her assignments and the resulting stress might reflect her struggle with identity formation and her desire to live up to certain academic expectations. Therefore, her unresolved conflict at this stage can lead to role confusion, which is related to both identity formation and the general challenges of adolescence.

Given this understanding, the correct answer is:

d. A, B and C

This captures the idea that Laurie's unresolved conflicts can lead to issues related to adolescence, role confusion, and identity formation.