Brief CBT for Work-Related Anxiety and SelfDoubt in a Young Medical Social Worker: A Case Report

Background: Healthcare and social-service workers are often exposed to institutional adversity, such as power imbalances, perceived corruption, and personal financial strain, that can erode their sense of professional efficacy. This case report describes a brief, cognitive-behavioral intervention for work-related anxiety and self-doubt in a young medical social worker in a Philippine tertiary hospital.  Case Presentation: AJM, a 24-year-old woman, was referred through the hospital's employee wellness clinic after her supervisor noticed excessive worry, self-doubt, reluctance to ask for help, and higher stress than peers carrying a comparable workload. Her difficulties had followed a ten-month stint in government social work, during which she experienced entrenched power imbalances and daily exposure to corruption, and was expected to shoulder work-related costs from her own salary. A confrontation with a demanding patient reactivated these memories and temporarily impaired her work functioning.  Intervention and Outcome: She received three sessions of supportive, cognitively oriented therapy over roughly two weeks, centered on cognitive reframing, resilience-building, behavioral experiments in help-seeking, and structured homework (journaling, selfreminders, and questioning of doubts). By the second session she reported improved emotional regulation and had begun to seek support from her supervisor; at an informal check-in about six weeks after the first consult, she reported continued gains in how she approached her work. No standardized measures were administered; outcomes rest on self-report and clinical observation.  Conclusion: The case suggests that a brief, formulation-driven cognitive-behavioral approach, delivered within an employee wellness service, may help workers whose self-doubt is rooted in earlier institutional adversity. As a single uncontrolled case, it is hypothesis-generating rather than confirmatory.