Understanding Mental Health

Mental Health

• A state of well-being where the individual understands their abilities
• Enables coping with life's normal stresses
• Allows for productive work and community contribution

Categories of Mental Health

• Attitudes towards oneself
• Individual growth, development, and self-actualization
• Relation to reality and environment, including autonomy and environmental mastery
• Integration of developing and differing aspects of oneself

Characteristics of a Mentally Healthy Person

• Realistic outlook
• Acceptance of self
• Autonomous nature
• Authentic self
• Capable of intimacy
• Creative expression
• Good self-esteem
• Sense of value and purpose in life
• Optimistic attitude
• Comfortable with solitude

Factors Affecting Mental Health

• Self-esteem impacts self-image and self-worth; high self-esteem links to positive outlooks
• Feeling loved and accepted fosters self-esteem and positive relationships
• Confidence in one's unique qualities helps face challenges and promotes a positive attitude
• Family breakups or loss can be extremely painful; professional help is recommended for youth
• Difficult behavior can manifest as acting out, like aggression or non-compliance
• Physical ill health can affect brain chemistry and mental health

Abuse and Mental Health

• Abused children are prone to mental disorders into adulthood in physical, sexual, psychological, or verbal forms
• Abuse leads to low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, depression, isolation, and anger

Mental Health Act (Republic Act No. 11036)

• Enacted July 24, 2017, as Bill No. 1354
• Establishes a national policy to enhance integrated mental health services
• Protects individuals utilizing psychiatric, neurologic, and psychosocial services
• Secures rights and welfare of persons with mental health needs
• Provides services down to the barangays
• Integrates psychiatric, psychosocial, and neurologic services in hospitals
• Develops a comprehensive national mental health care system
• Improves mental health care facilities in the country
• Promotes mental health education in schools and workplaces

Health Defined

• Complete physical, mental, and social well-being, exceeding absence of disease

Illness Behavior

• Social role with mutual expectations for a sick person and a healer

Disease

• Refers to a physical condition of the body

Diathesis Stress Model

• Psychological disease results from interaction between predisposition and stress

Diathesis Factors

• Vulnerability to psychological disorder, remaining dormant until stress activation
• Genetic links to family history and defective genes
• Biological issues, such as oxygen deprivation or poor nutrition in childhood
• Childhood experiences, like isolation and shyness

Stress Factors

• Can interact with predisposition to cause psychological disease
• Minor daily stress at home or externally
• Life events, such as family death or starting school
• Short-term events, such as family death or starting school
• Long-term factors, such as chronic pain

Modifying Protective Factors

• Environmental factors can modify the interaction between diathesis and stress
• Resilience or protective factors prevent mental illness
• Family nurturance or a protective social environment
• Protective factors dampen negative interactions

Psychopathology

• The diathesis-stress model involves vulnerability factor (diathesis) + stressor = psychological disorder
• Diathesis and stressor must both be present to cause symptoms

Developmental Psychology

• Focuses on changes in behavior over time

Developmental Psychopathology

• Focuses on changes in abnormal behavior

Acute Stress Disorder

• Severe anxiety, dissociation, other symptoms within a month of extreme traumatic stress
• Clinically significant distress/impairment in life functions
• Disturbance lasts 3 days to 4 weeks, within 4 weeks of the traumatic event

Adjustment Disorder

• Abnormal or excessive reaction to an identifiable stressor
• Symptoms are more severe than expected, with significant impairment
• Occurs within 3 months of the stressor and lasts <6 months after stressor ends
• Responses are linked to single (flood, fire) or multiple events (marital, financial)
• Stressors are recurrent or continuous

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

• Triggered by terrifying/witnessed events
• Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety
• May cause temporary difficulty adjusting/coping; may infer if lasts months/years

Other Stress and Related Disorders

• Depression
• Anxiety Disorder
• Mani-depressive disorder
• Post-traumatic stress syndrome
• Alcoholism

Coping

• People's actions to overcome stress effects - to prevent, delay, avoid, or manage stress

Problem-Focused Coping

• Changes stressors, effective when control is possible
• Not effective when it’s beyond individual's control
• Efforts involve: Changing the situation, redefining the problem, looking at alternative solutions, evaluating the implications of alternatives, choosing the best to act on

Emotion-Focused Coping

• It's about emotional regulation, best when stress is beyond control
• Includes: Cognitive Response (Denial/avoidance, distraction/minimization, wishful thinking), self-control of feelings, seeking meaning, self-blame, and expressing feelings

Mandala

• Represents universe symbolically, used in Hinduism/Buddhism

Psychoanalysis

• Dream symbol, represents dreamer's search for completeness/self-unity

Pathologist

• Health provider examining bodies, tissues; using lab tests for diagnoses

Pathology

• The study of the essential nature; involves the study from pathos–suffering, and logos–study

Disease

• Opposite of ease, something impairing functionality

Abnormal

• Away from normal or average

Psychopathology

• Scientific study of mental/psychological disorders, etiology, progression, symptomatology, Diagnosis, and treatment

Psyche

• Is the soul, or "essence of life (spirit/soul)", named after a princess immortalized by Zeus

Science of Diseases

• "Pathology" from French/(medical Latin); origins from Greek pathos "suffering" + -logia "study", which was pathologized

Importance of Abnormal Psychology

• Raises self-awareness and understanding
• Combats stigma and discrimination
• Provides psychosocial support
• Creates career opportunities
• Enhance personal well-being
• Improves understanding of human behavior

Prevalence in the Philippines

• 3.6 million Filipinos struggle with mental, neurological or substance use disorders

• Suicide rates: 3.2/100,000 higher for males (4.3) than females (2.0)

Prevalence - Filipinos

• 154 million Filipinos have depression
• 877,000 die due to suicide every year.
• 15.3 million Filipinos have substance use disorders
• 9th leading cause of death among 20-24 year olds is from Intentional self-harm

Global Prevalence

• 1 in 8 struggle with mental disorders, anxiety/depression most common with respective increases of 26%/28%

Anxiety Disorders

• They involve too much fear, worry, and disturbances to behavior
• Generalized, anxiety, social/ separation anxiety, panic disorders and attacks

Major Depressive Disorder

• Depression differs from typical mood shifts/challenges causing depressed moods

Bipolar Disorder

• It involves depressive/manic episodes, including possible euphoria, irritability

Schizophrenia

• It means impaired perception with delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and agitated behavior

Eating Disorder

• It entails irregular eating, food obsession, body image issues causing risks, distress

Disorders - examples

• Anorexia/bulimia nervosa

Disruptive Behavior

Dissocial Disorder

• Otherwise known as Conduct Disorder shows persistent disruptive behavior and disobediences

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

• Cognitive and behavioral disorders arising during development significantly impair functionality

THE DSM

• Disorders of Intellectual Development: limit intellectual function/adaptive actions.
• Autism Spectrum Disorder: difficulty in social interaction
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: shows inattention/hyperactivity impacting academic achievement

Mental Distress

• Variety of inner problems, confusion, stress, lack of sleep

Mental Illness

• Psychological/behavioral pattern causes disabilities, diagnosed, and causes distress

Mental Health Providers

• Psychiatrist does both drug prescriptions
• Psychologists does not prescribe and assesses

Scientist-Practitioner Model

• Mental Health professionals using a scientific approach

Sources

Somatogenic

• Problems coming “from the body"

Psychogenic

• Problems coming "from the mind"

Syphilis

• Bacterial infection with primary stage of painless sores

Sexual Assault and Brain

• It triggers hormones affecting body's response

Reactions to Trauma

• Hormonal levels may be elevated and result in emotional numbness

Theoretical Paradigms

Biomedical Model

• Implies therapy can work with medical interventions

Biopsychosocial Model

• Considers psychology/sociology and integrates them

Positive Psychology

• Enablers with great kindness will cause outcomes towards strength being dependent

Resiliance

• Mechanism for facing stressful situations

The Four D’s

• Deviance, Distress, Dysfunction and Danger

Szasz

• Claims society identifies “problems as mental illness”, he called it “a myth”

The Supernatural and Biological Traditions

• Exorcism occurs when religious rituals deal to rid a victim of evil spirits
• Oresme suggested disease, for example, depression shows demons

Mental Health and the HIV Epidemic

• Divine punishment for being a part of homosexuality

Historical Notes

• Hypdrotherapy caused shock with ice water
• Mass hysteria or emotional contagions can cause feelings or panic

Humoral Theory

• Problems show, or present, themselves because of bodily fluid imbalances

Insulin Shock and Mental Health

• Sakel would use dosages until individuals become comatose. and some would recover.

Moral Therapy

• Emotions are more often psychological

Mental Hygiene

• It occurs because if Dorothea DIx and her efforts

Mesmer

• He suggested patients have undetectable fluids in problems