Practices in Mental Health
What are the practices in mental health? Most people believe
that mental health experts merely sit and discuss problems with
patients. The fact is these experts have more to contend with
than merely discussing problems.
The experts are responsible to keep notes, evaluate the
patient's problems carefully, and find a solution for what is
causing the problem. Mental health is never easy since
counselors' everyday evaluate patients with all types of
disorders, diseases and so forth. Experts commonly study
diagnosis such as schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder,
histrionic, antisocial, psychopathic, and so forth every day.
Since mental health has many areas of study, it is often
difficult to find a solution. The many disorders, diseases of
the mind, and other related mental health issues are in constant
search of developing strategies that work toward a better
future.
Looking at a few of the diagnoses can help us to understand the
practices in mental health. Let us start out light and work our
way through a series of complex mental illnesses. While there
are many suffering with eating disorders and disconnections the
problem seem simple to repair, however it is more complex than
many realize. If a person has an eating disorder it is probably
linked to a childhood where negligence came into play.
For example, the patient may have grown up in a home where
money was tight. The parents may have struggled to keep food on
the table, and often the child ate one meal per day. Later the
child was able to eat two meals per day however, this amount
decreased again. The problem starts with nutrition. The patient
was malnutrition meaning that a normal eating habit was never
developed. Now we have established a root of the problem, we can
see that mental will follow since the patient probably feels a
sense of resentment toward the lifestyle he or she lived and
some of that resentment is on the parents.
Regardless of the effort they may or may have not made to feed
the children, it was their responsibility to find a solution to
maintain a healthy living environment. Probably because this
patient was suffering malnutrition the patient was also suffer
insufficient emotional support. This is all grounds for eating
disorders and disconnection to come into focus. Now what if the
patient is anorexia or bulimic? What if the patient has a deeper
problem than eating disorders? What if the patient is putting
his or her finger down her throat to throw up? Then we are
looking at medical, mental, and eating disorders combined.
As you can see what seems a simple problem turns into a
rollercoaster ride for both the patient and therapist. What
about anxiety disorders? So the person gets upset now and then.
What is the problem we all do this. First, we must understand
that anxiety disorder is not only stress or shaking of the hands
when upset. Anxiety disorders include symptoms such as phobia of
public, feelings of despair, sadness, hysteria, heart
palpitations, sexual conflicts, and the list goes on.
Now we started with what seemed to be a simple problem, but
after evaluating a few of the symptoms we can see we are looking
at a major problem that requires extensive evaluation. Panic
disorder is another (what seems to be simple to fix) diagnosis.
However, panic disorder like anxiety disorders has complicated
symptoms, including phobia, chest pain, breathing difficulties,
blackouts, and so on.
We can see that the disorder has potential risks since both the
body and mind are affected. To treat the disorder we must look
at all aspects of the patients, including the symptoms. Not
everyone with panic or anxiety disorders suffer the same
symptoms. In fact, some patients suffer less than others do.
Therefore, we do not have a common ground to stand on, but at
the same time, we have common denominators that can direct us in
the right path to resolve. Practices of mental health are not as
simple as many believe. There is more to mental health than most
realizes and this includes the people that study mental health,
since they too are always searching for better solutions and
answers.