Tag: Psychology infographics

Psychology visually explained

Side effects of psychiatric drugs – You should Aware

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.

Common side effects

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

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Substance abuse – Aware of its effect

Type of substance and its effect
Six important consequences of substance abuse
six domain of substance abuse consequences

Let’s create awareness among young people and children!

Help them to take right decision.

Psychology of Improving Your Career Prospects

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)

Read more about the study

Metaphors – An important tool for therapy

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.

Various benefits of using metaphors in therapy

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

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Psychological flexibility is the ultimate goal of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Psychological flexibility is the ability to be present, open up, and do what matters leads to a life that’s rich, meaningful, and characterized by true vitality. Here is the six core Therapeutic Processes of ACT.

#ACT #Mentalhealth #psychologist #psychology #counsellingpsychology #counselling #drkumarpsychologistpy

Mind trap – Know how to break it

Here are the steps to break the mind trap.
(1) Experience — Observe what really happens without judgement with self-distancing and mindfulness.
(2) Explanation — Discover the true meaning and purpose of the situation as a scientist responsible human being and discount all the negative inner voices and emotional reactions.
(3) Expectation — Decide what is the right thing to do rather than project past memories and feelings to the future.

Throughout the process, let the neo-cortex and your spiritual center take control.

Steps given by Dr T.P. Paul Wong

Understand Your self-defeating emotional, cognitive Patterns

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.

  1. Secure attachments to others (includes safety, stability, nurturance,
    and acceptance)
  2. Autonomy, competence, and sense of identity
  3. Freedom to express valid needs and emotions
  4. Spontaneity and play
  5. Realistic limits and self-control

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

18 maladaptive schema’s

I. Disconnection and rejection

  1. Abandonment/Instability – Perceived instability of one’s connection to significant others.
  2. Mistrust/abuse – Other people will use the patient for their own selfish ends.
  3. Emotional Deprivation – Expectation that one’s desire for emotional connection will not be adequately fulfilled.
  4. Defectiveness/Shame – feeling that one is flawed, bad, inferior, or worthless and that one would be unlovable to others if ex-posed.
  5. Social Isolation/alienation – sense of being different from or not fitting into the larger social world outside the family.

II. Impaired autonomy and performance

  1. Dependence/Incompetence – one is unable to handle one’s everyday responsibilities in a competent manner, without considerable help from others.
  2. Vulnerability to harm or illness – The belief system involving the exaggeration of fear that catastrophe will strike at any time; the catastrophes may be medical, emotional, or external.
  3. Enmeshment/Undeveloped Self – Excessive emotional involvement and closeness with others (often parents) at the expense of full individuation or normal social development.
  4. Failure – belief that one will fail in everything.

III. Impaired limits

  1. Entitlement/grandiosity – belief that one is superior to other people, exaggerated focus on superiority.
  2. Insufficient self-control/self-discipline – The conflict between life goals and low self control, perhaps seeking comfort instead of trying to perform daily responsibilities.

IV. Other-directedness

  1. Subjugation – belief that one should surrender control to others, suppressing desires in order to avoid anger, retaliation, or abandonment.
  2. Self-sacrifice – Excessive focus on voluntarily meeting the needs of others in daily situations at the expense of one’s own desire.
  3. Approval-Seeking/Recognition-Seeking – Excessive emphasis on gaining approval, recognition, or attention from other people or on fitting in at the expense of developing a secure and true sense of self.

V. Overvigilance and inhibition

  1. Negativity/pessimism – A pervasive, lifelong focus on the negative aspects of life, including pain, death, loss, disappointment, conflict, guilt, resentment, unsolved problems, potential mistakes, betrayal, while minimizing or neglecting the positive oroptimistic aspects.
  2. Overcontrol/emotional inhibition – The excessive inhibition of spontaneous action, feeling, or communication, usually to avoid disapproval by others, feelings of shame, or losing control of one’s impulses.
  3. Unrelenting Standards/Hypercriticalness – The underlying belief that one must strive to meet very high internalized standards of behavior and performance, usually to avoid criticism.
  4. Punitiveness – The belief that people should be harshly punished for making mistakes. Involves the tendency to be angry, intolerant, and impatient with those people who do not meet one’s expectations or standards.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy

Schema Therapy Institute

How to deal with difficult situations

We can not avoid our stressful, difficult situation instead we can learn something out of it. Resilience means “bouncing back” and the ability to rise above one’s circumstances. We are not just victim of our situation. Resilience help as to function effectively and positively even in adverse circumstances. By our personal productive factor we can alter the outcome. Resilience involves thoughts, behaviors, and actions that can be learned and developed by anyone. The following combination of strategies would helpful to deal with difficult situations.

Resilience Strategies
Don’t forget 3 R
Taking personal Responsibility to Respond and Recover.

Negative ways to dealing with difficult situations are;

  • Isolate or withdraw from others
  • Engage in negative thinking
  • Alcohol or drug abuse
  • Engage in high risk activities such as self harm
  • Negative view of the self or situation
  • Not seeking or avoid help
Resilience strategies

#Stress #Resilience #Mentalhealth #psychologist #psychology #counsellingpsychology #counselling #drkumarpsychologistpy

Interpersonal Psychotherapy – IPT

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) is a brief, attachment-focused psychotherapy that centers on resolving interpersonal problems and symptomatic recovery. It is an empirically supported treatment (EST) that follows a highly structured and time-limited approach. IPT is based on the principle that relationships and life events impact mood and that the reverse is also true. 1

Interpersonal Psychotherapy quick review

IPT typically focuses on the following relationship difficulties:

  • Conflict with another person
  • Life changes that affect how you feel about yourself and others
  • Grief and loss
  • Difficulty in starting or keeping relationships going

External resource

Interpersonal Psychotherapy: The Model

#IPT #Therapy #Mentalhealth #psychologist #psychology  #counsellingpsychology #counselling #drkumarpsychologistpy