need help with my essay …

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

Hi,

I would be interested to hear what you guys think of the questions :

“Is psychological distress best understood as an individual problem” ?

Claire x

[*Lassie*]

Pass……… would not know where to start :surrender:

[kerrie and stan]

i belive that psycological distress should be assesed as an individual problem and it should be assesed by the indevidual person aswell. instead of putting the same banner on all people with similar symptoms they should be assesed individually to find there specific needs

sorry not very good at writting what i think so if i dont make sence then just shout ;D

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

i think i see what u mean 🙂

that people should be listened to and their actual symptoms and situation listened to rather than just grouped into a label of say “depression”

its a good argument Kerrie 🙂 

what about if their symptoms are created by society … at the moment economic situation isnt good – what if a father loses his job and cant get another, he becomes depressed as ‘he’s let his family down’ is that “his fault” that men are portrayed in society as main wage earners which puts more expectation onto him or that the economy is crippled and jobs are fewer – is that his fault ?  what if his child needs special care in some way and he now cannot provide so feels inadequate …

arent these actually problems of society, economics and politics – not anything “abnormal” or “mad” about the individual themselves ?  is it right then to lock them away and take all their freedom and dignity in a mental hospital when things get so bad they try to take their own life (say because they cant bear the emotional pain, or to give wife/family money on insurance??)

arent these all the man trying to live up to social expectations and because he’s not falling within our tight social “norms” … suddenly he’s mad, deluded, ….. inhuman …?  :'(

(can you tell i got fed up of mental health “care” along time ago !!!!)

interesting isnt it … 🙂

claire x

[kerrie and stan]

[quote author=claire wills + bonnie link=topic=13985.msg264668#msg264668 date=1238176145]
i think i see what u mean 🙂

that people should be listened to and their actual symptoms and situation listened to rather than just grouped into a label of say “depression”

its a good argument Kerrie 🙂 
[/quote]

im glad you understood what i was trying to say ;D

[quote author=claire wills + bonnie link=topic=13985.msg264668#msg264668 date=1238176145]
what about if their symptoms are created by society … at the moment economic situation isnt good – what if a father loses his job and cant get another, he becomes depressed as ‘he’s let his family down’ is that “his fault” that men are portrayed in society as main wage earners which puts more expectation onto him or that the economy is crippled and jobs are fewer – is that his fault ?  what if his child needs special care in some way and he now cannot provide so feels inadequate …

arent these actually problems of society, economics and politics – not anything “abnormal” or “mad” about the individual themselves ?  is it right then to lock them away and take all their freedom and dignity in a mental hospital when things get so bad they try to take their own life (say because they cant bear the emotional pain, or to give wife/family money on insurance??)

arent these all the man trying to live up to social expectations and because he’s not falling within our tight social “norms” … suddenly he’s mad, deluded, ….. inhuman …?   :'(

(can you tell i got fed up of mental health “care” along time ago !!!!)

interesting isnt it … 🙂

claire x
[/quote]

in a situation like this there are three ways to look at it:
1 – from the person (male A) point of view
2 – From an ousiders point of view
3 – from a healthcare proffesionalls point of view

1 – Male A will feel like it is his fault, that is natural as the males have always been portraed as the ‘bread’ winner but this is slowly changing as more men are staying at home whilst the females go out to work.

2 – An outsider without knowing what has gone on ‘behind the scenes’ will ussually assume A)Male A is being stupid and should get over it B)Male A has brought it all on himself or C) its not my problem so i dont care. i dissagree with this as if only one person will listen then i could mean the differance between Male A getting through it or ending it all.

3 – Ah the healthcare people, well they always prefer to give you medications rather than dealing with the underlying cause and that is why, in my oppinion, so many people take thier life.

all people need is someone to listen to them, not as a judge, like a physcologist, but as a listener. they dont need the “and how do you feel about that?” cr*p.

psycological issues are not the fault of the individual person as it may have been trigured by a traumatic event or anything. the healthcare people need to realise that every person is different and we can not all be labeled under the same banner

sorry ive gone on a bit 😀

[Mudgie]

is it not about how the individual deals with each situation?

from my experience – depression can be clumped together – the symptoms are usually the same but it is how they are dealt with that makes the difference.

I see it like – 5 people travel to Edinburgh

1. By train
2.  By foot
3.  By aeroplane
4.  By car
5.  By hitchhiking

They all end up in Edinburgh they all have different journey experiences but they all end up in the same place.  Some have coped better with the journey than others but they all end up with the same destination.

People deal with different situations because of core beliefs usually a combination of nurture and nature.  It isnt about what life throws at you but how you deal with it.  Anyone with depression will always be prone to it no matter their mental state of health – you can control the depression instead of the depression controlling you.

It is about remodifying your behaviour so that you can deal with the situations that cause you stress or trigger negative automatic thoughts in a different way so you dont feed the depression and end up in duvet therapy or self harming etc etc.

and when people are “locked away” and their freedom taken it is for their own good – our NHS isnt so full of funds that this is done on a whim  Section 12 is there for a reason.  No one gets mental health care unless they need it and if that means that they have been assessed and more than one professional has said it is in their best interest.  At that moment in time you are too ill to understand anything and if you arent making rational decisions then someone should do it for you.

It is interesting but you have a very blackened view because of your experiences with mental health care.  You need to take a step back and take your own personal emotion out of the equation to have a balanced view.  Not everyone is failed by “the system” and there is a lot to be said about self help

[kizkiznobite]

orienentation and attitudes …self and society…claire…resource Nezu  😉

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

i think ur right kerrie 🙂

i am hoping that my own experience will help me to make a difference in some of these ways.  the stats are really awful something like 10% of ppl with schizophrenia take their life 🙁  

mudgie – arent a persons beliefs and coping strategies learned (from soc/cult/ethnic etc…) and if an individual has coping mechanisms (such as self-harm) that are seen as ‘mal-adaptive’ in society – society position them as ‘doubly abnormal’ …?

as you say “situations that trigger….” – surely these are all environmental and thus not located within the individual person ?

it could be argued that people are “locked away” to remove abnormality from society – politically influenced as funding allocation is from govt. policies and under their control.  

mudgie – your own viewpoint is very mainstream and one sided.  ‘cbt’ type approaches are not suitable for many many people suffering from psychological distress.  they are widely criticised and rely totally on an assumption of rationality and good language skills.  they also rely on the person accepting that the distress comes from within and the argument is that it doesnt.  it is socially constructed from our environment.

i dont have a “blackened view” because of my own experience – I am constructing an academic argument about how problematic it is for psychological distress to be located within the person.  take another example – schizophrenia, one of the main experiences are auditory hallucinations … in this culture hugely problematic and until very recently got you locked away for a fair stint (see Rosenhan, 1974 for how easy it was) but in a culture where hearing voices is held in high esteem / valued you become a sacred person ..  “the person” is still the same – its the environmental understanding of the experience which creates all the distress …

mental hospitals can be hugely problematic – people become their label, invisible in all but diagnosis.  this is what a great deal of the studies show … whats a label anyway ?  shorthand for medics to “understand you” … isnt that problematic, doesnt it strip away the very social experiences which are the root of the distress ?

the symptoms of depression are not ‘all the same’ there are several different subtypes of neurotic depression and atleast two that you could argue were borderline with neurotic and psychotic elements.  and thats “mainstream” from ICD/DSM classifications – even for one instance you can pick from a list of different “symptoms” to become “diagnosed”.  also – where’s the line … who decides you are “depressed” .. society does (politics, education, culture ….) one day you wake up and you are “abnormal” … a bit like at 12 midnight all food that has a use by date for that day immediately goes bad – no it doesnt … someone just decided an arbitrary time because of political guidelines 🙂

claire x

p.s. there isnt a “right” answer 😀  its an academic argument – you just take a standpoint and go 🙂  and to be honest the more i research this the more scary the world becomes !!  i just didnt realise how many everyday boring un-noticed (dominant social norms) things can be problematic for minority groups.  

n.b. i am not saying that some approaches are not valid or reliable – just that some can be questioned and critiqued 🙂  some ppl even go as far to argue depression doesnt exist – those people are just really really existential and grounded as studies show depressed ppl give better estimates of theirs and others skills etc … than non depressed ppl … ecological psychology might argue that it serves a purpose to regulate and control populations …

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

p.s.

Bev …?

Nezu are a warp – capable species in the delta quadrant ….???

interesting 😀

claire x

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

aah … it would seem they also wrote a self help book on coping 😀

its interesting but very mainstream/cbt – again, discriminatory assumptions …

oooh i like this critiquing business lol !!  maybe thats what pessimistic people were made for lol !!! 🙂

claire x

[kizkiznobite]

:canadian:  ::)

try arthur m  😛

look at the reactive cancer studies…..

[kerrie and stan]

a bit like at 12 midnight all food that has a use by date for that day immediately goes bad – no it doesnt

thats a great quote ;D

it is also very true, there are people out there that as soon as the use by date comes around that is it they through the food out even if it is perfectly good.

now if you put that into a psycological perspective…………. :-\ if you get my drift

[tri 'n snatch it bonnie girl]

:-[ :-[ :-[  thats me Kerrie  :-[ :-[ :-[

(luckily dogs and OH arent as fanatical so its not wasted)

[kerrie and stan]

i have been in a psycological situation myself and one that i am not prepared to delve into on an open forum so i do know something of what im talking about and im not just doing the whole “ive read about it so i know what im talking about” that a lot of people, including doctors, do and that is a major problem with the NHS they go so much ‘by the book’ rule that the ‘book’ become law so if a person deviates drom a diagnostic by one syptom the consequesiss can be disastrouse and have been.

the NHS need to learn by talking and learning from people that have been in that position

claire im not going to insult you by saying ‘i know what your going through’ as i dont however you do have my sympathies and should you ever need someone to talk to then i will be here

sorry for the spelling im having one of those days 😀

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