Psychosocial Health

1. Psychosocial Health

2. What is psychosocial health? • The mental, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of health. • Psychosocially healthy people: • Feel good about themselves • Feel comfortable with other people • Control tension and anxiety • Meet the demands of life • Curb hate and guilt • Maintain a positive outlook • Value diversity • Appreciate and respect nature • Enrich the lives of others

3. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

4. Four aspects of P.s. health • 1. Mental Health: The Thinking You • Includes your values, attitudes, and beliefs. • Mentally healthy individuals: • Have the intellectual ability to sort through information, messages, and life events, to attach meaning, and to respond • Likely to respond to life’s challenges constructively • Know when to seek help • Know when they are okay and when they are starting to slide

5. Four aspects of P.s. health • 2. Emotional Health: The Feeling You • Includes your emotional reactions to life • Emotionally healthy individuals: • Respond appropriately to upsetting events • Able to express feelings, communicate with others, and show emotions in an appropriate way • Can affect social health, academic performance, etc.

6. Four aspects of P.s. health • 3. Social Health: Interactions with Others • Ability to use social supports, and ability to adapt to various situations. • Socially healthy individuals: • Have wide range of interactions with family, friends, and acquaintances • Able to listen and express themselves • Form healthy attachments • Act in socially acceptable and responsible ways

7. Four aspects of P.s. health • 4. Spiritual Health: An Inner Quest for Well-Being • Relates to having a sense of meaning and purpose to one’s life, as well as a feeling of connection with others and with nature. • Broader than religion • Spiritually healthy individuals: • Recognize our identity as unique individuals • Gain a better appreciation of our strengths and shortcomings and our place in the universe

8. Influential factors • Family • Environment • Self efficacy • Self esteem • Learned helplessness versus learned optimism • Personality • Life span and maturity

9. Self esteem skills • Pay attention to your own needs and wants. • Take good care of yourself. • Take time to do things you enjoy. • Do something you have been putting off for a sense of accomplishment. • Give yourself rewards. • Spend time with people who make you feel good about yourself. • Take advantage of any opportunity to learn something new. • Do something nice for another person.

10. Personality • Those who possess the following traits often appear to be psychosocially healthy: • Extroversion • Aggreeableness • Openness to experience • Emotional stability • Conscientiousness • Resiliency

11. What is your personality? • http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes1.htm • Use dictionary for unknown words. • Answer honestly for best results. • Write down 4 words of your personality description. • Journal reflection: • Summary of description. • Is this description realistic for you? Why or why not? • Use specific examples.

12. Enhancement strategies • Find a support group. • Complete required tasks. • Form realistic expectations. • Make time for you. • Maintain physical health through exercise. • Examine problems and seek help when necessary. • Get adequate sleep.

13. When it deteriorates • Abusive relationships • Stress • Anxiety • Loneliness • Financial upheavals • Traumatic events • Chemical imbalances • Drug interactions • Neurological disruptions • Acting in ways that are outside of what might be considered normal. • MENTAL ILLNESSES: disorders that disrupt thinking, feelings, moods, and behaviors and cause a varying degree of impaired functioning in daily life.

14. Mental illnesses/disorders • 57.7 million U.S. adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. • 6% suffer from a serious mental illness requiring close monitoring, residential care in many instances, and medication. • Leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for people aged 15-44.

15. Mood disorders • Chronic mood disorders: disorders that affect how you feel. • i.e.: persistent sadness or feelings of euphoria. • Include: • Depression, dysthymia, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder. • 30 years old is the median age of onset for mood disorders.

16. Depressive disorders • Symptoms: • Loss of motivation or interest in pleasurable activities • Preoccupation with failures and inadequacies; concern over what others are thinking • Difficulty concentrating; indecisiveness; memory lapses • Fatigue and loss of energy; slow reactions • Sleeping too much or too little • Withdrawal from friends and family • Diminished or increased appetite • Significant weight loss or weight gain • Thoughts of death or suicide

17. causes of depressive disorders • Interaction between biology • Learned behavioral responses • Cognitive factors • Environment • Situational triggers and stressors

18. Treating mood disorders • Both psychotherapeutic and pharmacological modes of treatment are used. • Psychotherapeutic treatment: • Cognitive therapy-helps to look at life rationally and correct pessimistic thought patterns. • Focuses on the present rather than the past. • Pharmacological treatment: • Antidepressant drugs • Common drugs: SSRIs-selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors

19. Anxiety disorders • Characterized by persistent feelings of threat and worry in coping with everyday problems. • Generalized Anxiety Disorder: a constant sense of worry that may cause restlessness, difficulty in concentrating, tension, and other symptoms. • Panic attacks: severe anxiety reaction in which a particular situation, causes terror • PTSD: a collection of symptoms that may occur as a delayed response to a serious trauma.

20. Phobic disorders • Phobia: a deep and persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that results in a compelling desire to avoid the source of the fear. • Achluophobia - Fear of darkness • Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces • Hydrophobia - Fear of water • Podophobia - Fear of feet • Scolionophobia - Fear of school

21. Obsessive compulsive disorder • Characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts and repetitive behaviors. • Feel compelled to perform rituals over and over again. • Powerless to stop behaviors. • 2 million Americans over age 18 have OCD. • Obsessions must consume more than 1 hour per day and interfere with normal social and/or life activities.

22. Personality disorders • A class of mental disorders that is characterized by inflexible patterns of thought and beliefs that lead to socially distressing behavior. • Paranoid personality disorders: pervasive, unfounded suspicion, and mistrust of other people, irrational jealousy, and secretiveness. • Narcissistic personality disorders: exaggerated sense of self importance and self absorption. • Borderline personality disorder: impulsiveness and engaging in risky behaviors.

23. Schizophrenia • Mental illness with biological origins that is characterized by : • Irrational behaviors • Severe alterations of the senses (hallucinations) • Inability to function in society • Altered sense of self • Radical changes in emotions, movements, and behaviors • Treatable but not curable

24. True life Episode True Life: I Have Schizophrenia

25. suicide • 32,000 reported in the U.S. every year. • More lives are lost to suicide than to any other single cause except cancer and cardiovascular disease. • Women attempt more than men. • Men are more successful in their attempts.

26. Warning signs • Recent loss and inability to let go of grief • History of depression • Change in personality: sadness, withdrawal, anxiety, etc. • Change in behavior • Expressions of self-hatred, excessive risk taking • Change in sleep patterns or eating habits • Direct statement: “I might as well end it all.” • Indirect statement: “You won’t have to worry about me anymore.” • Final preparations

27. prevention • Monitor warning signals • Take threats seriously • Let the person know how much you care about him or her • Listen • Ask directly • Do not belittle the person’s feelings • Help the person think about alternatives • Tell individual’s spouse, partner, parents, siblings, or counselor

28. Consider seeking help if: • You feel like you need help. • You begin to withdraw from others. • You have hallucinations. • You are considering suicide. • You feel out of control. • You turn to drugs or alcohol to escape from your problems. • Your daily life seems to be nothing but repeated crises.

29. Mental health project • Requirements: • Topic: Mental illness or disorder • Paper: 3-4 pages in length (double spaced) • 2-4 sources (reliable) • Use class time. • Due next week.

30. Source: • Donatelle, Rebecca J. Health: The Basics. Green ed. San Francisco, CA: Benjamin Cummings, 2011. Print.