Client Case Study: “Socialising”

William came to Emma complaining of not being able to make or maintain friendships since sustaining a traumatic brain injury 5 years ago.

Emma talked to William over the telephone and
agreed they would complete the TASIT. She
visited William at his home and the
assessment took just over an hour but was
fun to do since it involved analysing video
clips of other people. William was able to
recognise some of his difficulties himself
as he completed parts of the test and
found it useful to discuss this with Emma.

When Emma had reviewed the results she
was able to see that William seemed to be
scoring lower in areas connected to
empathising with others. This could explain
his difficulties in maintaining relationships
and indeed William agreed that one of his
friends had described him as mean on one occasion.

Emma agreed to visit William again to discuss ways of helping him address this issue and between them William and Emma developed a strategy whereby William used a verbal mantra to help him stop and read other peoples faces before responding or conversing.

  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Cross

If William could place people into these categories he would then be able to offer an appropriate response.

In addition William felt it would be useful to have business cards printed which briefly explained his difficulties so that he could pass this on to people in the event that he misread the situation.

During their interactions Emma noticed that William was prone to ‘making things up’. Because of her experience with brain injury Emma was aware that this can be a common problem; it is not intentional and can be linked to memory difficulties. She recommended that William complete the RBMT which sure enough highlighted that he had a difficulty storing his memories accurately so that when he went to retrieve them he would often retrieve the wrong information. This was being perceived by others as him lying or telling tales and William was encouraged to use a small diary to note down his activities, thoughts and feelings which helped him retrieve information more accurately when required.