Knowing how to study is essential for acquiring knowledge which is useful throughout our life. These steps may helps you to study, retain and recall when its needed. Identify your gaps and try to enhance your learning experience. Be a life long learner.
#Studyhabit #Studyskills
Still there is dilemma which specialist should I meet, due to lack of awareness about mental health related problems among people. I hope this infographic will help to decide among different specialist such as psychologist or psychiatrist or co therapy. This grouping based on the root cause 1. may be biological which requires medication 2. the root cause may be life event or faulty learning etc which require counseling and psychotherapy. Highlighting the major focus rather than minimizing the importance of one over another. Mental illness are the result of a complex interplay between biological and environmental factors, hence combination of medication and counseling would be effective for many mental illness. Do not underestimate or overestimate the importance of one therapy over another.
While most drugs improving mental health conditions, side effects are often ignored.
Aware! Don’t just be a victim… make informed choice…
It is essential to continue to assess side effects present and modify treatment to minimize their negative impact, and to re-evaluate the necessity of any adjunctive therapies used for the therapy.
Consult your doctor if you have any problems with your medicine or if you are worried that it might be doing more harm than good. Your doctor may be able to adjust the dose or change your prescription to a different one that may work better for you.
Lets explore some studies on this issue….
Approaching psychiatric medications as drugs which produce immediate and delayed psychoactive effects, and which induce tolerance and dependence, fundamentally differs from the conventional understanding that suggests these drugs exert specific actions on (presumed) underlying disease processes. According to the conventional view, the drugs’ psychoactive properties are merely incidental “side-effects.” Despite six decades of intensive research in neuropharmacology, however, there is a lack of evidence that psychiatric drugs have a disease-specific action independent of their demonstrable psychoactive effects. These facts suggest that a radical change of thinking may be necessary about the nature, possibilities, and limitations of psychiatric drug treatment. Ref
Thoughts of suicide, sexual difficulties and emotional numbness as a result of anti-depressants may be more widespread than previously thought, a researcher has found. In a survey of 1,829 people who had been prescribed anti-depressants, the researchers found large numbers of people — over half in some cases — reporting on psychological problems due to their medication, which has led to growing concerns about the scale of the problem of over-prescription of these drugs. Ref
Psychotropic medications overprescribed to children, study suggests
A new study from the Journal of Marital & Family Therapy warns of the dramatic rise in the use of psychotropic medications for children. One in every fifty Americans is now considered permanently disabled by mental illness, and up to eight million children take one or more psychotropic drugs.
According to the authors the mental health field is currently designed to treat adults with psychotropic medications, but they are often misused in the case of children and adolescents, “This presents an ethical challenge to marriage and family therapists, who should be very cautious about these medications as an option for children. The long-term research on their safety for children is uncertain.”
“If the psychiatric community has been misled by pharmaceutical companies in thinking that these drugs are safe for their children, the parents of these children have been in turn deluded into putting their children in harm’s way.” Ref
Psychiatrist may not be accurately informing patients of the potential likelihood of such side effects, and that lack of adequate preparation may result in patients prematurely discontinuing their medication.
Read full report for each drugs here
Read my next post choose your treatment wisely
Follow me for more post on FB
Let’s create awareness among young people and children!
Help them to take right decision.
Educational qualification alone not enough for succeed in work life. Present world is highly competitive and demanding. Understand the requirement from the work force other than just getting degree from educational institutions. Many studies has shown that soft skills are more important for success than the hard or technical skills. Develop your soft skills. learn more about it.
Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients, among others, that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills. The Collins English Dictionary defines the term “soft skills” as “desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquired knowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitude.” (Ref)
Stress, anxiety and depression are very common mental health problems. Becoming aware of the signs and symptoms helps you to aware. Also know the difference and overlaps among stress, anxiety and depression.
Metaphors are valuable tools in the counseling process because they create structure, explain ideas, evoke emotion, and influence attitudes. Metaphors are an indirect, nonthreatening way of addressing concerns. Metaphors can make an idea or topic more memorable to the client. Clients may use metaphors to express emotions or experiences that they have no other way of describing.
Metaphors raises therapeutic exchanges to a different level. it is easier for the client to gain a deeper understanding of his problem than in the simple reflection technique.
Metaphors can be used to build a careful foundation before we approach an idea.
Metaphor allows clients to distance themselves from their own dilemma and emotionally frees them to work with the therapist toward discovering alternative resolutions. Discussions focused on the metaphor provide an opportunity for clients to release suppressed thoughts, emotions, and desires, while sidestepping any resistance.
Spontaneous metaphor makes the process seem natural. The technique is flexible, brings the client to life in the therapy session, and provides a bridge for generalization and change. It is a instrument for change, as well. It creates positive anticipatory feelings about future sessions.
A good metaphor should be simple, concrete, and relate to objects or events that the client is familiar with useful way of describing abstract concepts in familiar terms.
Examples of metaphor
Kaleidoscopes are an appropriate metaphor for change because kaleidoscope images constantly shift. Our life are shifting and changing too.
Butterfly is a common metaphor which represents transformation and change.
“If I tune the strings of music instrument too tight they break. If I tune them too loose, no sound will come out. So not too tight and not too loose works best” metaphor explain the importance of maintain balance.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein
Schema therapy
A schema is an organized pattern of thought and behavior. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information.
Maladaptive schema’s are self-defeating emotional and cognitive patterns established from childhood and repeated throughout life. They may be made up of emotional memories of past hurt, tragedy, fear, abuse, neglect, unmet safety needs, abandonment, or lack of normal human affection in general.
Core Emotional Needs
Our basic view is that schema’s result from 5 unmet core emotional needs in childhood.
Life situations that a person finds disturbing or offensive, or arouse bad memories, are referred to as “triggers” that tend to activate schema modes. In psychologically healthy persons, schema modes are mild, flexible mind states that are easily pacified by the rest of their personality. In clients with personality disorders, schema modes are more severe, rigid mind states that may seem split off from the rest of their personality.
Schema domains are five broad categories of unmet needs into which are grouped 18 early maladaptive schema’s identified by Young, Klosko & Weishaar (2003).
18 maladaptive schema’s and it’s relevant believe system
I. Disconnection and rejection
II. Impaired autonomy and performance
III. Impaired limits
IV. Other-directedness
V. Overvigilance and inhibition
The goal of schema therapy is to help clients to changing the cognitive patterns connected to the schema and replace maladaptive coping styles and responses with adaptive patterns of behavior.
More resource;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maladaptive_schemas
Communication is vital part of therapy, let’s explore which part is essential. Therapy become effective if you learn to use non verbal communication appropriately.
Ref : Mehrabian, A. (1981). Silent Messages: Implicit Communication of Emotions and Attitudes. Wadsworth.