Research demonstrates that the main reason that children do not use alcohol, tobacco, or drugs is because of their parents or guardians- as a result of their positive influence and due to their offspring having the knowledge that actions such as this would disappoint them. Therefore it is paramount that parents/ guardians develop a strong relationship with their children and interact with them concerning substance abuse. (National Crime Prevention, 2012)
Parents can avert alcoholism by being a positive role model by demonstrating ways to solve problems, have fun, and manage stress without using alcohol; pointing out examples of irresponsible behaviour, such as ones you see in movies or hear in music; and by remembering to set the example by avoiding contradictions between their words and their actions; using alcohol in moderation; not binge drinking; and avoiding the consumption of alcohol in their children’s presence. (National Crime Prevention, 2012)
The Social Learning Theory and Social Care Practice
Social learning theory focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It considers that individuals learn from one another, including such concepts as observational learning, imitation, and modelling. (Stretch et al, 2010)
Individuals are often reinforced for modelling the behaviour of others. Bandura suggested that the environment also reinforces modelling. For instance; the observer is reinforced by the model (Stretch et al, 2010). For example, a student who changes dress to assimilate with a certain group of students has a strong likelihood of being accepted and thus reinforced by that group.
Describing the consequences of behaviour can effectively increase the appropriate behaviours and decrease inappropriate ones. This can involve discussing with learners about the rewards and consequences of various behaviours. (Stretch et al, 2010)
Modelling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviours. Instead of using shaping, which is operant conditioning, modelling can provide a faster, more efficient means for teaching new behaviour. To promote effective modelling a teacher has a necessity to ensure that the four essential conditions exist; attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.
Modelling is an excellent way of aiding service users to conquer anxieties, for example in social situations. Parents or guardians can help this fear by aiding their children feel comfortable in social situations; getting to know their children’s friends and their families; and involving their children in positive group activities, such as sport teams, scouting troops, and after school programs (National Crime Prevention Council, 2012).
In addition this will also aid health care practice in future years, as the parents/ guardians will have socialised their children with positive role models, such as individuals who do not engage in risky behaviours, which will result in the children developing positively and resist turning to drugs or alcohol for fun prematurely.
The Psychodynamic Approach and Health Care Practice
In groups such as alcohol addicts and habitual symptomatic excessive drinkers, the excessive drinking is symptomatic of underlying psychological or social pathology. Conversely, in other groups after numerous years of excessive drinking or "loss of control", this phenomenon does not develop. The group with the loss of control is designated as "alcohol addicts." (Goodman, 1998)
There is no intention to deny that the non-addictive alcoholic is a sick individual; but his ailment is not the excessive drinking, but rather the psychological or social difficulties from which alcohol intoxication gives temporary surcease. (Goodman, 1998)
The "loss of control" is a disease condition which results from a process that superimposes itself upon those abnormal psychological conditions of which excessive drinking is a symptom according to Goodman (1998).
The reasons for drinking to excess can be found in the thought processes of the mind. Hypnotherapy techniques alter the process away from desiring to consume alcohol excessively to requiring just a moderate amount and enabling an individual to remain in control. (GoToSee.co.uk, 2011)
Hypnotherapy can also aid individuals to identify their reasons for excessive alcohol intake. The issues behind excessive drinking may not always be obvious to the individual but the methods used in hypnosis can explore the subconscious part of their mind where hidden thoughts and behaviour reside. Drinking can also be habitual and again, the subconscious is where habits are formed. For numerous individual with drink problems, their reasons can be traced to lack of confidence or poor . We are all aware how our inhibitions disappear after the consumption of alcohol, but for an individual, who is socially shy or becomes anxious in social situations, alcohol can alleviate their anxieties and having an alcoholic drink becomes a coping mechanism and may conclude to an addiction that needs ever increasing amounts. (GoToSee.co.uk, 2011)
The Psychodynamic Perspective and Social Care Practice
According to psychodynamic theorists, both rational and irrational behaviours arise from fundamental psychological forces. The significance of the term “dynamic” in the psychodynamic approach to phobias rests upon the fact that these underlying psychological forces within an individual can be both contradictory, in addition to complimentary to one another. (, 2012)
When an individual is anxious they frequently have fears regarding events that have happened previously or may happen in the future, about things they have engaged in or may do, and about whether their environment is a safe or unsafe place. (Stretch et al, 2010)
Shyness is a common category of mild fear – if it is minor, it may not be significantly impactful on an individuals life. Numerous individuals get apprehensive prior to meeting new people but find that, once they are with them, they have the ability to control their nerves and even enjoy the situation. A phobia is also a fear. Individuals have fears concerning such things as heights, spiders and the dark, but for the majority of individuals, they fail to be so influential that they avoid certain aspects of their everyday lives. A fear takes the role of a phobia when the aspects of an individual’s daily routine is impacted, as a result of this; a social phobia, for instance. A social phobia introduces anxiety to an individual when they are in the presence of others, as they have a tendency to apprehend that they are critical of them, or they may humiliate themselves (, 2012). Ultimately, this can become so detrimental that the individual suffering avoids any interaction with others and prevents social situations completely. (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2012)
The psychodynamic approach to phobias actually manages the unconscious and past experiences to analyse and estimate present behavioural approaches (, 2012). For instance, the professional can consider the case of an individual who without any reason becomes terribly horrified when coming in close contact with a particular situation or object. In this period, the psychodynamic theorist encourages the individual to speak about their childhood experiences and the type of relationship the individual shared with his relatives and acquaintances; which may be an unpleasant experience if the past has played a significant role in damaging the individual’s psychological equilibrium. (, 2012)
In order to treat phobias a psychodynamic theorist takes the aid of cognitive behavioural therapy. In this particular therapy, the service user is gradually exposed to fearful situations and thus why it predominantly is implemented to treat anxiety disorders. This specific treatment type is suitable for adults, adolescents and children. (, 2012)
The psychodynamic approach to phobias includes two of the most distinguished approaches including desensitisation and flooding. Methodical desensitisation is a slow and gradual procedure in which an individual is introduced to trivial apprehensive, to severe apprehensive circumstances (, 2012); ultimately concluding in the phobia being eradicated.
The Humanistic Perspective and Health Care Practice
In the case of alcoholism addicts, at a certain point, a natural inclination to grow and achieve a more fulfilling existence can over-power the causes of addiction. Nurturing these desires is far more effective in overcoming addiction than relying on the causes for answers. Take, for example, success rates of recovery in 12-step programs. Rather than focusing on the causes of addiction, or drawing the outlines for recovery from the cause, 12-step programs take a distinctly humanistic approach, encouraging individual to better themselves, their lives, and their communities. These programs rely on the addict's personal desire to better themselves and subsequently direct the individual in how to accomplish this. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
Despite personal biology and environmental factors that teach an addict to deal with life by avoiding it, the humanistic perspective allows an addict to overcome these things by taking control of their choices and the behaviours that were detrimental to them. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
Client-centered therapy, also known as Rogerian therapy, is a non-directive form of talk therapy that was developed by psychologist Carl Rogers during the 1940s and 1950s. (About.com, 2012)
According to major humanists like Carl Rogers and Fredrick Perls, individuals were born knowing how to be healthy and were naturally inclined to making healthy choices. These healthy natural impulses were thwarted by parents, teachers, religious leaders and other authorities acting on a variety of unhealthy (dysfunctional) culturally endorsed convictions, or from abusive motives. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
The role of the therapist is to aid their service users to overcome their negative influences of authority and society or abusers and return to making their own healthy choices which would support their development. According to Rogers, with loving care and support, individuals are able to "fix themselves". (American Psychological Association, 2012)
The Humanistic Approach and Social Care Practice
In the context of social care environments the approaches implemented to aid individuals in conquering issues, professions consider the safety needs and ensure that the individual has a sense of security in the specific environment (American Psychological Association, 2012). For example, when an individual requires to interact with a member of Child Line, the initial question from the employee would be “do you feel safe in the environment you are?” (Child Line, 2012). This allows the child or adolescent to feel reassured that the individual who of which they are communicating with does care for them, which enables the victim to commence expressing their issues with the employees of the organisation.
The humanistic approach is critical in social care practice as the most vulnerable of individual are interacted with, for instance, children and adults with physical and potentially mental health concerns. (Stretch et al, 2010)
Rogerian counsellors are an additional approach practiced within social care. The counsellors act in a non-judgemental, non-directive manner, displaying warmth, empathy and unconditional personal regard towards the service users. These humanistic approaches are central to the development of the therapeutic or caring relationship and define qualities necessitated by those who seed to work in a holistic and person-centred way. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
The Cognitive Perspective and Health Care Practice
Cognitive behaviour therapy is based on the idea that feelings and behaviours are caused by an individual's thoughts, not an exterior stimuli for instance, individuals, situations and events. Individuals may not be able to alter their circumstances, but they can alter how they think about them and consequently alter how they feel and behave, according to cognitive-behaviour therapists. (About.com, 2012)
In the treatment for alcohol and drug dependence, the goal of cognitive behavioural therapy is to teach the individual to recognise situations in which they are most likely to consume alcohol or use drugs, avoid these circumstances if possible, and cope with additional problems and behaviours which may result in their substance abuse. (About.com. 2012)
Cognitive-behavioural coping skills treatment is a short-term, focused therapeutic approach to aiding individuals with alcoholism become abstinent by using the same learning processes that individuals utilise to develop alcohol and drug dependence initially. (About.com, 2012)
Self-actualisation is a vital concept underlying client-centred therapy. It refers to the tendency of all individuals’ beings to move forward, grow, and reach their greatest potential. When individuals move toward self-actualisation, they are also pro-social; that is, they tend to be concerned for others and behave in honest, dependable, and constructive ways. The concept of self-actualisation focuses on human strengths rather than human deficiencies. According to Rogers, self-actualisation can be obstructed by an unhealthy self-concept (negative or unrealistic attitudes about oneself). (Advameg, 2012)
The Cognitive Perspective and Social Care Practice
The cognitive perspective employs for such a vast spectrum of illness, and is regularly used in combining with medications and additional treatments. This approach can aid individuals within a social care practice to enhance social activities. (Stretch et al, 2010)
In a social care practice the cognitive approaches are frequently implemented within the care home environment. This is as a consequence of numerous residents being diagnosed with depression, not only as a result of not living in their personal homes, but also due to the fact that a number of their loved ones may have deceased. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
Cognitive therapy can be beneficial to those with severe depression, as they initially acknowledge themselves as insignificant, which then results to the individual believing that the future is also forbidding; ultimately the individual feels that the world is the issue and there is no method to remove them from this. However, cognitive therapy challenges these negative thoughts and feelings and encourages the service user to gain positive feelings and outcomes for the future (Stretch et al, 2010), demonstrating similarities to the methods implemented in health care practice.
Cognitive therapy is also used with individuals who have a bipolar disorder, as individuals with this disorder find great difficulty in regulating a stable mood, and cognitive therapy aids to maintain the level of highs and lows regarding the service users. (American Psychological Association, 2012)
The Biological Perspective and Health Care Practice
Psychologists from the biological approach assume that behaviour and experiences are caused by activity in the nervous system of the body. The things that individual think and feel, say and do are caused, one way or another, by electrochemical events occurring within and between the neurones that make up their nervous system, particular those in the brain. Many biological psychologists also agree that because the development of the brain is determined by the genes an individual inherits, that behaviour may be influenced by genetic factors. (Sammons, 2012)
Biological psychologists explain behaviour by trying to relate it to the functioning of the brain and nervous system. The brain can be subdivided into numerous components, structures and bio-psychological explanations often focus on which brain areas are responsible for which types of thinking or behaviour and how they connect with other functions and brain areas. (Sammons, 2012)
Other biological psychologists focus more on the role of genetic influences in particular types of behaviour. For example, it is widely believed by biological psychologists that schizophrenia, a psychological disorder involving a range of symptoms including hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking and speech, is at least partly the result of inheriting a faulty gene or genes. These genes are thought to influence the development of the nervous system, making it vulnerable to malfunctioning in certain ways that produce the symptoms of the disorder. (Sammons, 2012)
The role of biological processes in behaviour can be studied in many different ways, but researchers favour methods that are quantitative, objective and well controlled because these are most likely to produce valid scientific evidence. (Sammons, 2012)
The Biological Perspective and Health Care Practice
Within social care practice, there are frequent tests on children from the educational psychiatrist to ensure that the individual is developing at the average rate, and that there is no behaviour or mental problems emerging for the future. These assessments also aid in detecting any abnormal behaviour patterns; for example, disruptive behaviour or deprivation of any form of communication; Autism for instance, Autism is a disorder where an individual’s behaviour is diverse to an average individuals. Autism has been proven to be genetically inherited. (Stretch et al, 2010)
(M2)
Psychology is a broad discipline and consequently has seen a continuing escalation in the number of fields of study developing within it. The psychodynamic, cognitive and humanistic existential perspectives are limited examples of differing core methods of approach and emphasis when applied to fundamental psychological issues. These differing approaches permit issues to be examined in a variety of methods by psychologists. (Stretch et al, 2010)
Whilst it is relatively customary now to combine these metatheories in order to approach psychological issues, the predominant framework of the broader perspectives continue to underpin these methodologies and formats of contemplation. (Gross, 1991)
Two key metatheories which exist within the field of psychology are the Biological perspective and the Behavioural perspective. Whilst both of these approaches attempt to answer the same essential questions that exist throughout psychology, they are fundamentally different in their delivery and methodology, although some similarities do exist. A brief example could postulate that someone operating within the emphasis of the biological perspective; the premise of which being that mental processes and behaviour can be explained by an understanding of physiology and anatomy, usually with a particular focus on the brain and the central nervous system. This is with the purpose of understanding how they affect a subject in terms of their emotional response to stimuli; in comparison to one who adheres to the Behavioural perspective would examine environmental factors or use observation to determine the answer. (Gross, 1991)
Despite the fact that we do inherit certain components of our lives biologically, our behaviouristic style of life can dictate to our biology and the manner in which we respond (Gross, 1991). How? Well… if a male had a desire to become a female centred on his ideals given to him by his society (behaviourism), he can fulfil that by taking oestrogen and receiving shots. Ultimately, he could then opt for surgery- as could females desiring to become a male; conversely, she would receive testosterone. The biology dictates the behaviour of the specific aspect, but if something happens to that aspect that makes it want to alter its biology, it can, but nature being the regulator of order; it will restore things back to its equilibrium. Biology and behaviourism are more like “symbiosis” than alike. (Gross, 1991)
The biological approach is inclined to use experiments to investigate the impact of our biology on our behaviour, in addition to case studies which analyse the enduring effects of lobotomies, a drug or hormone therapy on an individual. The behaviourist methodology also tend to experiment, however, it collects data using the observation technique; this is due to the significance behaviourism places on observable behaviour, which ensures that only the intended things influence the observed behaviour. (Gross, 1991)
An additional comparison is that both approaches make assumptions that state that they know the major influences on our behaviour and make use of the scientific, nomothetic approach to psychology. (Stretch et al, 2010)
In contrast, when observing the factors that are thought to control human behaviour, the biological approach tends to suggest biological factors, whereas the behaviourist approach suggests factors arising from our learning history. (Stretch et al, 2010)
(D1)
The Behaviourist Approach
One of the greatest strengths of the behaviourist approach is that it focuses merely on behaviour which can be observed and manipulated under laboratory conditions, as the environment is highly controlled, collecting objective quantitative data. The association with alcohol consumption can be documented with ease, for example. Carrying out scientific investigations proposes that the research is extremely repeatable due to the controlled systematic manner of the analyses (Stretch et al, 2010). This is a strength of the perspective, as using scientific methods gives added status to psychology.
In addition, the principles of behaviourism have been tested mainly on animals. Such findings may not apply totally to human behaviour, which is much more complex (Stretch et al, 2010). This ethnologist (the study of animal behaviour) argues it is a weakness because it ignores innate biological factors.
The behaviourist approach concentrates on the present, rather than exploring an individual’s thought processes, innate biases and in turn views individual in a very mechanistic manner; reducing complicated processes to simple stimulus-response behaviours. This may be considered a weakness as a more applicable explanation may have been disregarded. However, it may also regarded an advantage as many individuals are oblivious of the occurrences which have concluded in their abnormal behaviours, and also abandoning the undesirable behaviour may hold greater importance, in comparison to comprehending the causes of the behaviour.
Conversely, if an approach fails to treat the underlying causes of the behaviour, it is probable the behaviour will return subsequent to the treatment the individual receives (Stretch et al, 2010), for instance, Systematic Desensitisation and aversion therapy.
In spite of the behaviourist perspective having convenient and beneficial implications for treatment, these treatments have the ability to create ethical issues (Gross, 1991). As with the example stated above, the service user would have to experience a traumatic period of nausea, due to method of aversion therapy, which may conclude in ethical queries, for instance, such treatments being used with the absence of consent of the service user.
These aspects which are disregarded by the behaviourist theory are highlighted in additional approaches (Stretch et al, 2010), for example in terms of alcohol consumption; the behaviourist approach ignores the fact that alcohol is a drug, which would obviously have physical effects on the human body, whereas, this would be the main principal to the biological approach. (Stretch et al, 2010)
The Biological Approach
The methods used by the biological approach give its studies a high degree of reliability, validity and scientific credibility, which is enhanced by its focus on objectively observable phenomena rather than subjective experiences. Whilst most individuals regard this as a strength some would suggest that bio-psychologists neglect an crucial aspect of being an individual: their experiences. (Stretch et al, 2010)
An objection to the biological approach would be its use of animal models as a basis for understanding human behaviour: given that each animal’s nervous system reflects its unique evolutionary function and history, it may not be possible to draw clear conclusions about human behaviour from studies of other animals. (Gross, 1991)
A further objection to the biological approach could be that it tends to focus on genetic and biological influences on behaviour to the exclusion of social and cultural influences. Social psychologists would suggest that it is difficult to explain what individuals do without reference to their relationships with others, and many psychologists would suggest that culture, particularly in the forms of social learning and language, has a critical impact on thinking and behaviour that the biological approach tends to neglect. (Gross, 1991)
However, it cannot be denied that the biological approach has contributed an enormous amount to our understanding of the fundamental processes of behaviour (Gross, 1991). It has also delivered into numerous other areas, including medicine and surgery (Stretch et al, 2010). Biological psychologists have provided explanations for a range of psychological disorders including depression and schizophrenia, and the drug therapies they have helped to develop have allowed many individuals to live normal lives that previously would not have been able to. (Gross, 1991)
by
leahskinner6 (student)
