Mental Health: Disorders, Therapy, and Professionals
Obsessions and Compulsions
- Obsessions: Unwanted thoughts, ideas, or mental images that occur over and over again.
- Compulsions: Repetitive ritual behaviors, often involving checking or cleaning something.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder: Intense, persistent feelings of anxiety that are caused by an experience so traumatic that it would produce stress in almost anyone.
Dissociative Disorders
Dissociation: Refers to the separation of certain personality components or mental processes from conscious thought.
Types of Dissociative Disorders
- Dissociative Amnesia: (Most common) Characterized by a sudden loss of memory, usually following a particularly stressful or traumatic event.
- Dissociative Fugue: Characterized not only by forgetting personal information and past events but also by suddenly relocating from home or work and taking a new identity.
- Dissociative Identity Disorder: Also called multiple personality disorder, involves the existence of two or more personalities within a single individual.
- Depersonalization Disorder: Refers to feelings of detachment from one’s mental processes or body. Individuals describe their feelings as though they are outside their bodies, observing themselves at a distance.
Somatoform Disorders
Somatization: Refers to the expression of psychological distress through physical symptoms. Individuals can experience depression but with inexplicable symptoms like paralysis.
Types of Somatoform Disorders (Two Most Common)
- Conversion Disorder: People experience a change in or loss of physical functioning in a major part of the body for which there is no known medical explanation.
- Hypochondriasis: A person’s unrealistic preoccupation with thoughts that he or she has a serious disease. (People think they have the disease and feel the symptoms even though they don’t have it.)
Therapy
Therapy: General term for a variety of approaches that mental health professionals use to treat psychological problems and disorders.
Two Types of Therapy
- Psychologically based therapy
- Biologically based therapy
Psychotherapy: Involves verbal interaction between a trained professional and a person—usually called a client or patient—who is seeking help for a psychological problem.
Biologically based therapy: Involves the use of drugs or other medical procedures to treat psychological disorders.
Achieving Goals in Psychotherapy
- Seek to help by giving hope of recovery.
- Develop a trusting relationship between client and therapist.
Psychotherapy Methods
- Each method has a different goal and different ways of achieving that goal.
- Electric approach
- Nonetheless, research on the effectiveness of psychotherapy is encouraging.
Types of Mental Health Professionals
- Counseling Psychologist: Treats adjustment problems and personal problems. Works in institutions.
- Clinical Psychologist: Treats anxiety and loss of motivation. Works in hospitals and clinics with people with psychological problems.
- Psychiatrist: Prescribes medication and administers other kinds of biological therapy.
- Psychiatric Social Worker: Practices psychotherapy. Counsels people with everyday personal and family problems.
- Psychiatric Nurse: Dispenses medicine and acts as a contact between counseling sessions.
Advantages of Individual Therapy
Some people need more personal attention. Others feel uncomfortable in a group setting. They may talk more freely and comfortably alone with a therapist.
Advantages of Group Therapy
Individuals don’t feel alone, share the same problems, and feel better with the support of others.
Types of Group Therapy
- Self-Help Group Therapy: Composed of people who share the same problems.
- Encounter Groups: Composed of strangers who don’t necessarily share the same problems.