For my assignment I decided to take a closer look at Bonnie and the possibility of her quitting smoking. To begin, some strengths of her case are she has her doctor and family around her who are concerned for her. In addition Bonnie seems to have a good bond with her provider, which is encouraging for communication for any medical issues. I would try to learn about more strengths by asking her about other connections with family, community, and hobbies. My concern is, however, I need to ask Bonnie if she wants to make this very big change. From my assessment of the information given she is in stage one, pre-contemplation at most (Summers, 2015). In this stage, she doesn’t see a need for change and honestly isn’t ready (Summers, 2015).

It may also be she doesn’t have a clear realitiy of her smoking being problematic LaMorte, 2016). Although pinpointing the exact stage of change can be difficult (LaMorte, 2016). So I would apply some interview techniques such open ended questions to figure out exactly how she feels about the issue. So to begin my first question would be “How do you feel about smoking?” I feel at this point I don’t have enough information in relation to how she is feeling about smoking and the pressures of others wanting her to quit so open ended questions would be beneficial here. To add to that, she may feel an immense amount of pressure and guilt in relation to quitting smoking so it is essential I don’t add addition pressures here. If she confirmed my suspicion about not being interested in giving up smoking, I would ask her what she wanted to do next in response to her family’s pressure. Perhaps ask her if she’d be interested in sitting down with them and explaining her need for support rather than pressure to stop smoking. With a situation like this, where the patient is adamant about how others feel, rather than how they feel, it is vital to listen more than question. When questions are needed, they need to be very open ended without an opinion base.