Unit 8: Psychological Perspectives for Health and Social Care - P2, P3, M2 and D1

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Unit 8: Assignment 2

P2 and P3

Behaviourist approach

The behaviourist approach can be very useful in health and social care, as this approach explains clearly about learned behaviours. Through this approach health professionals could look at and identify particular behaviour using the concept of associating (classical conditioning) or reinforcement or punishment (operant conditioning).

In health and social care, systematic desensitization is used as a health aversion therapy for service users who are finding everyday aspect of their life impossible to cope with. For example a service user who has a phobia of going out may isolate and feel depressed and may not leave their house at all.

In this case, health professionals could apply principles of classical conditioning in everyday life in a practical way. The most common method to change behaviour of phobia is by using the systematic desensitization. This method first involves creating a ‘hierarchy of fear’, a health professional may come up with list of aspects that is associated with fear the service user has.

This classical conditioning procedure is there to help to achieve a state of relaxation for the service user. This is to help to replace the fear and anxiety of state to calm and relaxation. They could do this by showing least feared situation or object to the service user and they are encouraged to relax after they feel alright and not fear it anymore, the health professional will move on to the next level.

This procedure is repeated over a period of time until the service user could face the final most feared object and situation without any worry and anxiety. The principle of classical conditioning also used as a treatment for service users who are struggling with alcoholism.

The way it is done is that service user will be given a drug which, when it is mixed with alcohol, it will lead them to have really unpleasant physiological effect such as vomiting and nausea. This will make the service user to associate alcohol with the aversion, therefore to help them to stop drinking alcohol because they had unpleasant experience.

Operant conditioning is also used in health and social care and health visitors or health professional who gives parental advice may use principles of operant conditioning through reward and punishment.

For example, super nanny use reward and punishment as way to help children behave in good and obedient way to their parents.

(M, 2010, pp. 354, 355)

Social learning theory

Social learning theory can be used in health and social care to promote anti-discriminatory behaviours and practices. This could be done through the use of positive role models within the health education campaigns.

Some people can learn new behaviours by observing other people; this could be done through imitating the behaviour. For example, the late Princess Diane is someone of a high status, prestigious and has attractive characteristics. She broke the big taboo of AIDS and HIV by shacking hand with a patient who has that illness. She also helped to remove misunderstanding and prejudice about the illness. As some people had misunderstanding that AIDS and HIV can be transmitted by touch.

(M, 2010, pp. 355, 356)

This shows that how important role model as they have a powerful part in influencing other people’s behaviour especially when tackling discrimination in health and social care.

There are many celebrities that promote health campaigns and they are used as a role model. The reason for this is that the public may notice more if famous celebrities are used to promote it.

Example of this is that NHS has used Alesha Dixon to promote health ad for contraception. This is done by her posing in a bath full of condoms and this is promoting people to use contraception more when having an intercourse.

However, it can cost a lot of money to use celebrities for health campaigns for example, according to Dailymail, NHS has spent £90,000 for celebrities to front public health ad campaigns.

The reason why the NHS spend that amount of money asking celebrities to do health campaigns could be because the public may pay attention to the health campaigns more likely to imitate and change their behaviour by taking more care for their health.

Psychodynamic approach

Psychodynamic approach in relation to health and social care is to help health professionals to understanding challenging behaviours of the service users.

The basic theory of psychodynamic approach is that people’s behaviours are sometimes driven by their unconscious forces. (M, 2010, p. 356)

This means that it is important that health professionals try to recognise that sometimes they would not be able to understand certain behaviours using question and answer techniques, as some service users may not be aware of what is troubling them. (M, 2010, p. 356)

Therefore it is important that health professionals ...

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Psychodynamic approach

Psychodynamic approach in relation to health and social care is to help health professionals to understanding challenging behaviours of the service users.

The basic theory of psychodynamic approach is that people’s behaviours are sometimes driven by their unconscious forces. (M, 2010, p. 356)

Therefore it is important that health professionals understand that it is necessary to look into more and try to interpret the behaviour of the service users. By the assumption of the behaviour is some way related to what the unconscious mind is and what is going in there. (M, 2010, p. 356)

When service users are worried and feeling anxious of things they tend to have fears about certain events that have happened or might happen or things that they have done or might do later on. They may dwell on the negative thoughts about the world and think whether it is a safe or unsafe place to live. (M, 2010, p. 356)

People often try to use different techniques to help control their anxieties, one of them could be denial or regression. This is a type of defence mechanism, when someone is in denial they try to tell themselves that it is not happening and it is not their fault and have conscious denial. (Chaloner, 2014). If a service user’s family member is dying and they know about it, they may be in denial and refuse to accept it.

Whereas when a service user is going through regression they may revert back to behaviour of an early stage and may use childhood coping mechanism. Example of regression is service user may start to throw temper, tantrums and may swear and try fighting. Or even they may be crying and sulking. (Chaloner, 2014). A service user who is diagnosed with diabetes may stress out and behave in a childish way instead of being mature about it.

The problems that regression could cause to service user are that by using regression it would not solve the problem that they are facing. As well as other people may start to think that they are being immature and also they are not learning to cope well with their situation. (Chaloner, 2014)

Example in relation to health and social care, a health visitor was asked to see by a mother who had concern of her 4 year old daughter. The child was happy and outgoing before her younger brother was born, she started to throw tantrums and started to wet herself frequently, which she previously didn’t do before her brother was born.

The health visitor explained to her mother that the little girl is going through regression because her mother pays more attention to the new baby and the little girl feels that she is being rejected and is unimportant to her mother.

Humanistic approach

The humanistic approach for in health and social care would be to apply this approach in counselling. Carl Roger developed a particular type of counselling that is based on unconditional positive regard which means that the counsellor try to help service users to develop more positive sense of self. (M, 2010, p. 357)

Unconditional positive regard basically means that the councillor support and validates the service user’s life experiences, feelings, beliefs and emotions without making judgements about whether the service user is good or bad. (M, 2010, p. 357)

By doing this over the time the service user could start to accept who they are and see themselves in positive way and feel that they are worthy. They may also start to let go of their unrealistic high expectations that is associated with their own ideal self. (M, 2010, p. 357)

In order this to happen for the service user, the councillor must have empathy, understanding, and respect for the service users, have good active listening skills and have non-judgemental approach when doing their work.

Empathy is trying to really listen to the person and try to respect them as who they are. In order to do this the councillor must put aside their judgements and try to put themselves in their shoes.

Understanding is a crucial part in health and social care, especially to councillor who are trying to help service users. In order to truly show understanding the councillor must first closely listen to what the service users are saying. The councillor also needs to use their own emotions and sensitive to become effective helper to the service users. The councillor also needs to ask probing questions such as ‘How does that make you feel?’ and ‘Can you identify what it is you are afraid of?’ This is to help the service user break down the problems that they have and recognise its components part. (M, 2010, p. 357)

Another humanistic approach in health and social care that is important is active listening. Active listening is different to just listening to someone while they talk and start talking afterwards what they have to say. In active listening, councillors for example they have to pay attention to the body language of the service user as well as try to interpret what they are trying to say and check their understanding. (M, 2010, p. 359)

In health and social care, health professionals must try to respect all service users regardless of their difference in gender, social class, ethnicity, religious belief, language and culture. It is important that they try to approach service users with non judgemental manner as otherwise it could become a barrier in helping them. (M, 2010, p. 359)

Other health professionals such as health worker and social workers need these skills that are described above when dealing with service users.

Cognitive approach

This approach in relation to health and social care is to help and support service users who have leaning difficulties and emotional difficulties.

Service users with learning disabilities such as dyspraxia, dyslexia and ADHD may experience huge frustration with their daily lives.

Supporting individuals with emotional difficulties e.g. depression and post traumatic stress disorder – CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

In health and social care health professionals would encounter many service users who are suffering from depression.

In order to support service users who are suffering from depression, they could take Cognitive behavioural therapy also known as CBT. CBT helps service users to challenge their negative thoughts that they have about themselves to positive.

Post traumatic stress disorder is about when someone experienced traumatic that is posed threat to their life or others.

Symptoms of post traumatic disorders are anxiety, depression, phobias and substance misuse such as cocaine, alcohol. They may also experience relationship problems with others.

Commonly soldiers and other people who went through traumatic experience such as rape could experience post-traumatic stress disorder. These experiences make it really hard for them to cope and it may become too much for them to bear it alone.

They could re-experience the traumatic event through nightmares, flashbacks and frequent recall of the event. This is called intrusion and this could make it much harder for them to cope and it could affect their everyday life.

The treatment for service users who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are often involves a health care professional such as psychiatrist, social worker or clinical psychologist to help the service users to change their negative thoughts.

Biological approach

In health and social care, it is important to understand development norms, as it is required to know whether the development of a child is growing at a normal rate. By knowing the development norms, health professionals could identify if a child or baby is growing at a rate they should be.

Health professionals could identify some diseases caused by genetics and the Arnold Gesell developed an assessment scale to help health professionals to make judgements on whether the child’s behaviour and understanding matches of the ages of the child.

The assessment scale enables health professionals to compare the scores to an earlier development scores to know if the development is going in a satisfactory rate.

This helps skilled health professionals to identify any development problems that may happen to a service user. By knowing this in advance can help to make early and appropriate intervention.

There are three stages in the assessment scale; the first stage is between the ages of two and a half years up to six year old.

The second stage is measured from four and six years old and the third stage is between the age of six and nine years old.

In health and social care, it is important that the health professionals have a clear understanding of the link between genetics and certain illnesses such as autism and schizophrenia.

It has been noted that it is difficult to determine to how genetic inheritance could have big influence on behaviour. There is evidence to back up this point and the evidence does show that genes do have a role in a person’s behaviour.

Health professionals such as nurses, doctors, midwife and paramedic’s works in shift especially in night shift, they may have the urge to fall asleep when they are supposed to be working. When they go home, they may not be able to sleep as there is a disruption to circadian or the biological rhythms.

The long term effect of sleep deprivation can be negative as it puts the individual at a risk of serious medical conditions such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Another long term effect is that it could shorten the life expectancy of the individual and they could be also at risk to injury and accidents.

In addition to this they could also have long term mood disorders such as depression and anxiety due to lack of sleep for a long term. (NHS Choices, 2013)

The two psychological perspectives that is suitable for the new counselling centre is Cognitive and Psychodynamic approach.

I am proposing these two perspectives because it is useful approach to be applied to health and social care service provision. With these two perspectives health professionals could offer a new therapy which could be offer service users with emotional support and treatment.

The similarities between cognitive and psychodynamic approach are that both of them is related in dealing with emotional difficulties such as depression, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

Both of these approaches could also be used for a therapy such as talking therapy and CBT therapy. Both will rely on one to one relationship with the therapist.

In the new counselling centre the health practitioners could come across service users who are suffering from some sort of mental health illnesses as well as learning disabilities. Through this two approaches health professionals could help these individual service users by offering them emotional support and self-management skills so that they could cope on their own.

The difference between cognitive and psychodynamic approach is that cognitive approach focuses on supporting individuals who have learning difficulties as well as emotional difficulties.

Another difference between cognitive and psychodynamic approach is that CBT therapy is very structured and has a set of timeline whereas psycho analysis is very open ended as you don’t know when the therapy will end.

Whereas psychodynamic approach focuses mainly on understanding challenging behaviours and managing anxiety such as dealing with stress.

The venue that is suitable for this new counselling centre is somewhere it is in the centre of the community, where the local people have easy access to the centre.

Therefore many people have access to the service and enabling them to get the emotional support that they need. As well as this the centre should also accommodate the needs of service users who have disabilities.

There should be different and separate rooms which service users and health professionals could use for different therapies and for private rooms for consultation with the health professionals.

Cognitive and Psychodynamic approach both focuses on dealing with behavioural and emotional changes for an individual.

There are both strengths and weaknesses for the two therapies that I have proposed for the new counselling centre.

For example the strengths of CBT therapy is it can help service users who are suffering from mental health conditions such as: anxiety, depression, OCD, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and phobias.

Strengths of CBT are that it has structured layout and anyone can follow through and health professionals could provide emotional and practical support to the service users.

In CBT health professional provide opportunities to the service users to participate in the therapy by encouraging them to share their stories and experiences. As well as encouraging them to do diaries and activities to help them challenge their negative thoughts.

The weaknesses of CBT are that it may not be useful and helpful for everyone. Some service users may not like CBT and feel that positive thinking is hard for them.

CBT therapy will not be effective if service user do not work together with the therapist and do not attend sessions.

The strengths of psycho analysis are that it helps service users to understand their thoughts and get insight into their unconscious mind. They may be also able to understand better about themselves and find the roots of their problems.

Strength of psycho analysis is that the service users could build a long lasting relationship with their therapist.

One of the weaknesses of psycho analysis therapy is that it could be lengthy process which involves 2 – 5 sessions per week for several years. This may not be for everyone as some service user may not have the time for it and may not be convenient for them.

Service users who are taking part in this therapy must be prepared in investing a lot of their time and money. Service users also must be motivated to do it otherwise it will not be effective and useful.

Another weakness of psycho analysis therapy is that it does not work for all people and different types of disorders.

(McLeod, 2007)

If service users do not come often for their therapy, they may not be able to find the therapy effective and may not be able to build a relationship with the therapist.

Psychodynamic therapy is not well structured like CBT and some people may prefer more focused and directive approach of CBT therapy.

Conclusion

For the new counselling centre, the cognitive approach therapy may be the most useful therapy than the psychodynamic.

There is number of reasons as to why CBT therapy is more useful than the psychoanalysis therapy.

CBT sessions are well structured and less time consuming as psychoanalysis
Service users would be able to learn self-management and coping strategies
Meet new people
Educational
Opportunities to take part in the session with other people
Share stories and hear about others stories.

For the new counselling centre, it is useful to have therapies like CBT because service users would be able to learn and find ways to challenge their negative thoughts. They would also be able to come out of their isolation by meeting new people with similar problems as them.

Talking therapies can be effective especially for those people who are suffering from mental health. It provides them a place where they can talk about their feelings and worries with other people that may be going through the same thing as them.

As service user may find it hard sometimes to talk about their emotional problems with their family and friend.

Psychodynamic approach therapy may not be suitable and useful for the new counselling centre.

In this approach therapist will try to make service users to think about their past experiences. In their unconscious mind and this could trigger another episode of distress and service users may not like this and not be able to cope with it.

Service users who are going through depression and other anxiety problem, it could lead to them not going to the counselling centre.

It may be also that some service users find the duration of the therapy inconvenient for them.

Bibliography

Chaloner, A. (2014, October 23). Sigmund Freud - Defence Mechanism. Cardiff, Cardiff, United Kingdom.

M, S. B. (2010). BTEC Level 3 Nationals in Health and Social Care Student Book 1. Essex: Pearson.

McLeod, S. (2007, ND ND). Psychoanalysis. Retrieved December 29, 2014, from Simply Psychology: http://www.simplypsychology.org/psychoanalysis.html

NHS Choices. (2013, June 18). Why lack of sleep is bad for your health. Retrieved December 27, 2014, from NHS Choices: http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/tiredness-and-fatigue/pages/lack-of-sleep-health-risks.aspx