Counseling Psychology, mental health

Mental Health and Mental Diss

A mental illness is defined as a dis of the brain that causes a distraction in a person 's HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Thinking " \o "Thinking " reflection HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Feeling " \o "Feeling " sensation , HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Mood " \o "Mood " moods , and HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Socialization " \o "Socialization " communication with others . Mental illness is separate from the legal idea of HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Sanity \o "Sanity " sanity and HYPERLINK "http /en

.wikipedia .org /wiki /Insanity " \o "Insanity " insanity . Most psychologists ascribe mental disease to organic /neurochemical reasons that can be cured with HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Psychiatric_medication " \o "Psychiatric medication " psychiatric treatment , HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Psychotherapy " \o "Psychotherapy psychotherapy , improvement of the way of life and other helpful measures but , many of the reasons of mental disease are still unknown The fight between HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Nature_versus_nurture " \o "Nature versus nurture "nature " and "nurture " continues . Neuroscience and genetics can 't thoroughly explain the results of genetic heritage and developmental environment . The existence of mental disease and the legality of the psychiatric specialization are not universally acknowledged . Some specialists , especially Doctor HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Thomas_Szasz " \o "Thomas Szasz " Thomas Szasz , Professor Emeritus of HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Psychiatry " \o "Psychiatry " Psychiatry at Syracuse , seriously stand up against the practice of use of the definition "mental illness " The HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Anti-psychiatry " \o "Anti-psychiatry anti-psychiatry movement frequently refers to what it means by "myth of mental illness " and dispute against a biological cause for mental diss , or also states that all human experience has a biological origin and so no type of behaviour can be called a disease per s

There are various approaches in modern psychotherapy that are regarded as useful and effective . Some specialists prefer one of available methodologies the others combine strategies and methods from several theories . Cognitive theory is one of the most popular theories that are used in the field of psychotherapy at present . Cognitive theory did much for understanding the mechanisms and nature of mental diss in general and anxiety in particular

The diagnosis of mental disease is not very easy task . The picture of the basic symptoms "is "decorated " with a variety of additional difficulty to concentrate on any business , the attention "is floating A known phenomenon "the lights are on but nobody 's home " is from this area - it is necessary to re-read the same for thirty times to catch sense at last (is sclerosis a disease . It is difficult to select word while communicating with other people , the string of conversation is constantly lost there is a strange indecision , constant doubts even at performance of the most usual tasks . The self-confidence vanishes , it seems , that all the tasks are done wrong the global feeling of fault may arise before relatives and friends , the person feels like a burden in the family , unnecessary , superfluous at work . His internal monologue sound approximately so "I am a loser . I have achieved nothing and now full professional bankruptcy is waiting for me . Both the past and the future are imagined gloomy and pessimistic . The person collects the most unattractive facts of the biography , completely ignoring those moments when he was happy , achieved success . From time to time there is an idea that , perhaps , the simplest way is to leave the life there is diversified dis of dream : it is difficult to fall asleep in the evening , general duration is reduced because of often awakenings , and as a result the wakes up at 4-5 o 'clock in the morning . There is also a constant drowsiness the person is ready to fall asleep at any time appetite is falling - feeling of hunger practically does not arise there may even feel disgust to the taste of food . As a rule psychologists and psychiatrists speak about light depressive dis already at the presence of two typical symptoms and at least two additional symptoms : if there are all three typical symptoms and more than four additional , that state is already called heavy depressive dis (Bloom Floyd E , Lazerson Arlyne 1988

Szasz ' ideas appeared to influence traditional scheme and methods of treating mental diseases . The question of relevancy and justice as regards to treating such illnesses as depression was never aroused before Szazs presented his theories . It was customary to accept treating people that suffered from nervous disease as appropriate and the society never hesitated that the treatment they receive is the best way to help these people , as traditional medicine suggests it . Some commentators state that these ideas were not invented by Szazs , they appeared in 60s and 70s , when many argued against locking people and forcing them to take drugs just for being different from the people around Apparently , the repressive forces of the state had nothing better to do than round these people up and torture them at their pleasure Depression and mania , we were led to believe , were minor personality quirks that existed mostly in our heads (Brewis , 2000

Thomas Szasz turned out to be a person that accumulated these ideas and supported them with arguments deriving from his knowledge of biology and medicine . His books helped adding necessary changes into legislation related to the problems of treatment of so-called mental diseases Moreover , he insisted that the notion of mental illness itself is absurd and mistaken

Of course , his theories may be discussed and argued , as the subject of the discussion is controversial and unclear . But there are some evident positive effects that the works of Szasz brought into traditional medicine . The most important of them is , probably , drugging the teenagers . There was much spoken about a flood of non-attending the school by teenagers who took antidepressants at that time . This question resides on slippery ground , and the works of Szasz joined all the proponents of the mental health and aroused much indignation as regards to medicated children

The fact that the effects of drugs are not completely studied they weren 't tested on children to find out the effects , the consequences of long periods of taking these medicines are not familiar . Besides , many supporters of Szasz ideas spoke about the profits of drug companies and drug stores that derive an income selling these drugs . So , even in those cases when side effects were evident , drug companies attempted to hide them . Breggin MD , who wrote the book Talking Back to Prozac , stated "When mental health professionals point to spurious genetic and biochemical causes [of depression and recommend drugs rather than learning better ways of living] "they encourage psychological helplessness and discourage personal and social growth

The essence idea of cognitive therapy is to make a persons change their attitude to the things . One of the specialists that base their practice on the concepts of cognitive theory was Albert Ellis . He worked out Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy . This author stated that emotions derive from an interaction between events in the environment and beliefs and expectations which we have (qtd in Clark ,

. 130 Sometimes these beliefs are so powerful that they affect person 's emotional conditional . The purpose of emotive behavior therapy is to make these emotions less powerful and not badly influence person 's emotional condition (Clark . According to the concepts of cognitive theory , specialists counseling in mental diss , should focus on mental condition of the client and investigate his identity , rather than treat his physical body with the help of medicines that may have side effects

Another famous author who worked in the field of cognitive therapy was Aaron Beck . He worked out a special methodology and strategies to treat depression and anxiety that were based upon the conceptions of cognitive theory . Clients are to perform a dialogue within his inner world to define the patterns that are to be changed to improve client 's condition . Treatment strategies worked by Beck help a client to find out depressive beliefs and change his way of thinking . The commentators describe the essence of Beck 's approach as following : According to Beck and Emery , the way we process information is governed by structures called schemata . These schemata are made up of rules for explaining incoming information , and for retrieving what we have already learned They are capable of exerting powerful effects on how we experience and relate to the world . For example , the schemata of a person with a social phobia cause them to become anxious and avoidant by explaining incoming information and memories in terms of social threat . Treatment consists of correcting faulty or illogical thinking by repeatedly confronting cognitive schemata with discrepant information from role-playing and homework assignments (Abela ,

.117

Modern medicine includes treating depression and anxiety with psychotherapy or medications , or combining both these treatments . The experiments and researches show that a combination of these two methods is mostly effective , especially because antidepressants rarely result in dependence . Companies that produce medicine encourage doctors to prefer medical treatment to psychotherapy , but there are cases in which referring to a specialist in psychotherapy is necessary . In case the person takes antidepressants and this brings no results , a visit to professional in mental health may be more effective (Clark ) Cognitive theory and therapy based upon it provide for a theoretical basis allowing specialists better understand the reasons for anxiety and depression to appear , to treat them effectively . This theory is regarded as effective even in comparison with other popular theories . To better understand the impact of cognitive theory into modern psychotherapy it is necessary to observe its perspective on mental illnesses and anxiety in particular

According to the cognitive theory , the reasons for depression , anxiety and worries appear due to several reasons

Sometimes it is enough just to see a model of behavior to take it over when a person expresses intense fears or nervous condition . Sensitive people often answer such behaviour the same way

Sometimes a person inadequately estimates the situation and interactions with people around . People 's reaction is perceived as more negative that it has been , a person may have excessive feeling of fault for insignificant mistakes

It happens when a person applies unreasonable expectations to an imaginary situation , and when something goes wrong in the person 's imagination , negative emotions make a person disappointed or in other way affecting his emotional background

Such person may also imagine various situations of interacting with other people , and possible negative results of such interaction make the person afraid of communication . Self-critique grows and determines person 's behavior , his sense of guilt influences person 's actions and his viewpoints (Beck

According to the concepts of cognitive theory , all unreasonable and reasonable fears or derive from person 's thoughts . Logical thinking should help the person tell the difference between these two fears , but in case the person feels frightened , it is hard to see distinctions between reasonable and unreasonable . In this situation solution will depend upon person 's capacity to recognize real dangers to avoid them and not pay attention to imaginary problems . Psychologists state that people are inclined to fear the situations where their ego may suffer rather than the situations that may be physically dangerous for the person . As the specialists state , ordinarily rational cognitive processes run amuck and exaggerate the dangers , as when beginning spelunkers think the cave will crash down on them or speakers fear the audience will think they are dumb or people avoid revealing their personal opinions and intimate feelings (Beck ,

. 98

Most unreasonable fears are groundless , such as fears of worms , spies speaking to an audience , meeting strange people . Unfortunately , such fears have a tendency to excess and influence the person 's emotional condition on a larger and larger scale . Some authors suggest that such situations that may produce no real harm derive from imaginary awful consequences of these situations , existing only in person 's mind . Thus these negative ideas are associated in person 's mind with any similar situation , and this produces fears . For instance , a timid person imagines the situation when he meets someone and then he experiences a feeling of loss , not knowing what to say and how to behave . This makes the person more and more shy and closed . There is another example described by the specialists . A large number of people are afraid of dark , although very few people faced a real danger in the dark . These are imaginary monsters or ghosts , that people are afraid of . Children start to be afraid of dark in the age when their imaginations is functioning and they may fancy possible dangers that are waiting for them in the dark , and these groundless fears remain when the children grow up . Thus , it is evident that the fears are produced by the person 's identity , by person 's imagination (Abela

Cognitive therapy combines treatment consisting of 10-15 sessions . This treatment is based upon conceptions of cognitive theory . According to these concepts , people experience anxiety because they are inclined to interpret slight physical feelings as signs of coming mental or physical disaster . For instance , palpitation may be regarded as the sign of coming heart attack . This abnormality has a cognitive nature , and it is supposed to create a loop , when such erroneous interpretation produces strengthening of physical feelings , which , in turn , leads to excessive fears and panic (McGinn

Treatment therapy starts from identifying an idiosyncratic variant of such loop , carried out by the patient with a specialist 's assistance . As soon as client starts to realize that anxiety and fears derive from physical sensations and thoughts of negative nature , related to these sensations , the specialists start to apply various cognitive treatment procedures that help people deal with their erroneous interpretations of physical feelings . These behavioral and cognitive treatment procedures comprise determining observations that are harmful for patient 's emotional condition . This patient learns more about symptoms of ungrounded fears or anxiety and learns to recognize them . Behavioral procedures comprise bringing about sensations that cause fears , when a patient pays attention to his physical condition , or looking through word pairs that describe sensations that produce fears to point out the reasons of anxiety symptoms to appear (McGinn

As far as the cognitive therapy is concerned , it has a special structure and duration for each special kind of mental dis . A schedule is made at the beginning of a course of treatment , the process and the results are controlled within the process via observing changes in beliefs . Making up summaries during sessions also help in achieving understanding between a patient and a client . Sometimes a patient is prescribed special treatment exercises at home (McGinn

References

Abela , J . R . Z D 'Allesandro , D . U (2002 . Beck 's cognitive theory of depression : The

diathesis-stress and causal mediation components . British Journal of Clinical

Psychology , 41 , 111-128

Beck , A . T (1985 ) Anxiety Diss And Phobias : A Cognitive Perspective . Basic Books

Clark , D . M (1997 . Panic dis and social phobia . In D . M . Clark C . G . Fairburn

(Eds , Science and practice of cognitive behaviour therapy (pp 121-153 . New York

Oxford University Press

McGinn , L . K (2000 . Cognitive behavioral therapy of depression Theory , treatment , and

empirical status . American Journal of Psychotherapy , 54 , 254-260

Bloom , F , Lazerson A (1988 "Brain , Mind , and Behavior , New York Freeman

Szasz , T (1961 /1972 ) The Myth of Mental Illness . Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (Paladin edition , abbreviated with a summary , 1972

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