2 Flashcards
(34 cards)
What does good mental health look like?
- high levels of social and emotional health and wellbeing
- high levels of functioning
- resilience
What is a mental health problem?
- short term
- mild impact on function
- typically goes away once stressor is removed
- everyone experiences mental health problems
- e.g. upcoming SAC’s
What is a mental health disorder?
- dysfunction
- atypical thoughts, feelings and behaviours
- cannot cope with stressors
- long lasting
- moderate to severe impact on functioning
- diagnosable condition
- 3 D’s (deviant, dysfunctional, distressful)
Why is mental health on a continuum?
- fluctuations in mood and everyday life/not a static state
- not something you do or don’t have, everyone has mental health, just the status of this can be different; MHP, MH, MHD
- it is dynamic; constant change
What are internal factors compared to external factors?
- internal originate from within a person (bio and psych factors)
- external originate from outside the body (social factors)
What is a phobia?
- an intense, persistent and irrational fear of a particular object
- source is known, maladaptive, always distress
- not everyone experiences a phobia
What is anxiety?
- feelings of fear or apprehension towards events that may happen in the future
- sources is known, can be adaptive, eustress or distress
- everyone can experience anxiety
What is stress?
- any stimuli or stressor that causes a bio/psych response to internal or external stressors that are perceives to challenge a persons ability to cope
- subjective
- everyone experiences
- eustress or distress
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: what are predisposing factors?
- predetermined
- increases the likelihood of developing a phobia
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: predisposing factors - biological, GABA dysfunction
- GABA is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter that decreases physiological arousal by maintaining optimal/low levels of firing on the post synaptic neuron
- when there is a dysfunction, this means there are low levels of GABA
- therefore increasing the firing of the post synaptic neuron which in turn increases the physiological response to a stimulus
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: what are precipitating factors?
- current contributing factors
- initiates or contributes to the initiation of a phobia (or MHD)
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: precipitating factors - biological, role of the stress response
- fight-flight-freeze response
- when presented with a stressor the FFF response, activated by the sympathetic nervous system, is activated and stress hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline are released into the bloodstream
- this increases the physiological arousal to allow the body to confront/deal with the stressor
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: precipitating factors - physiological, classical conditioning
- precipitates/contributes to the development of a phobia
- need to include the NS, CS, UCS, UCR and repeated pairings
- phobia can be developed to a NS as we may be conditioned to associate it with fear
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: precipitating factors - social, specific environmental triggers
- acquisition of the phobia is due to environmental experiences to a phobic stimulus in lifetime
- transmission of threat info: see info about stimulus on tv, through media etc
- parental modelling: observational learning - behaviour learnt through observation of other people
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: what are perpetuating factors?
-prolongs/maintains the phobia (or MHD) or prevents recovery
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: perpetuating factors - biological, long term potentiation
- LTP is the long lasting strengthening of a neural pathway through repeated stimulation of said neural pathway
- this strengthens the association between the CS/phobic stimulus and the CR/fear response
- LTP also works in conjunction with the FFF whereby, the amygdala is activated and strengthens the significance, and in turn, consolidation of the event
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: perpetuating factors - psychological, operant conditioning
- reinforcement of a behaviour
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: perpetuating factors - psychological, cognitive bias
- distorted thought patterns
- memory bias: refers to focusing on negative aspects of previous experiences (selective memory
- catastrophic thinking: thinking of the worst possible outcome
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: perpetuating factors - social, stigma related to receiving treatment
- stigma refers to the judgement from society
- particularly in regard to seeking support for mental health concerns
- due to this, sufferers are often reluctant to seek help due to fear of being judged by others
- which in turn maintains and prolongs their phobia, and in some cases worsens the phobia
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: what are protective factors?
- assists in treating and possibly removing the phobia (or MHD)
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: protective factors - biological, GABA agonists
- GABA agonists such as benzodiazepines mimic the action of GABA in the CNS
- this inhibits the over-activation of the physiological response in the presence of the phobic stimulus
- it does this by inhibiting post synaptic neurons from over-firing and therefore reducing the physiological anxiety responses
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: protective factors - biological, breathing retraining
- when experiencing the FFF response in response to a phobic stimulus, hyperventilation can occur due to CO2 and O levels becoming disrupted
- breathing retraining assists in reducing this physiological response to the phobic stimulus by regulating breathing and alleviating their anxiety symptoms
- e.g. box breathing can be used while in the presence of a phobic stimulus (inhale in for 4sec through the nose, hold for 4sec, exhale through the mouth for 4sec)
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: protective factors - biological, physical exercise
- when experiencing the FFF response to a phobic stimulus, stress hormones (adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol) are released into the blood stream
- exercise can be used to “burn off/work off” these hormones as well released endorphins, which in turn alleviate the stress response and allow for a clearer mindset to then find an approach to cope with phobia
Factors contributing to phobia and treatment/protective factors: protective factors - psychological CBT strategies (cognitive behavioural therapy)
- CBT works on the key assumption that thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all interrelated and impact on one another
- by focussing on the thought processes (and changing/challenging negative thoughts into positive ones), identifying their triggers, and identifying maladaptive behaviours (and turning these into adaptive behaviours), a person can change their feelings in response to a phobic stimulus to overcome this
