Mental health
Introduction
One of the main branches of psychology is mental assessment. This part of psychology calls for numerous observations and ability to relate a certain behavior or response to a set of responses to comprehensively understand the mental status of a person (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/excerpts/hicks_50.pdf).
It usually involves careful observation of any possible or visible cue that might give a clue to the mental status a person, a lot of careful questioning and taking of notes as well as mental history of the person under observation. It also calls for human behavior understanding and causes of the various types of mental ailments (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/excerpts/hicks_50.pdf).
Assessment procedure
This involves analysis of the patient trying to get the maximum possible from a physical assessment. It calls for comprehensive systematic approach as well as a study on the medical history of the patient. However, making such an assessment depends on the subject him/herself.
The procedure may involve:
Historical analysis. In this section of the assessment, a brief history of the subject and his/her environment are examined. The most important parts of subject’s history are medical history, family history and recent major events in the life of the subject. Former treatment and psychological tests may also be of vital help in this assessment. Medical history usually reveals the type of treatment that the subject has gone through enabling another similar or dissimilar prescription depending on the general medical information gathered. A family history enables the assessment panel or party to link the current mental problem with inheritance and if not, understand the most probable cause of the mental illness.
Observation and interview. In this section, the assessor usually asks some questions relating to the most likely cause of the illness. This is mostly done on patients who appear sober and in a stable condition to answer questions. Physical observation of the general body response to certain descriptions and phenomena are also very important. Words uttered by the subject may also give a clue to the situation behind the sickness.
Hypothesis formation and feasibility. This part of the assessment calls for clear understanding some common mental illnesses in the population. The hypothesis is then analyzed and the hypothesis with maximum evidence is taken as the most probable disorder or illness.
Treatment procedure
After assessment, the health personnel have to make some medical examinations and tests if necessary. This will make it possible for the personnel to know the type of mental illness he/she is dealing with. Treatment is done according to illness evidenced in the assessment and testing stages. In most mental illnesses, double stage treatment is very essential. The first phase of the treatment is short term treatment which calls for a person to administer treatment (usually in an interval of three months). Under this treatment, the subject is under close monitoring to ensure that the situation progresses as anticipated. In the second stage, long term analysis of the subject is done. In long term treatment, the subject may be released back to the society since in most cases the short term treatment is done under subject’s confinement.
In the conclusion part, the medical personnel gives some remarks on the general response of the subject and recommends any other treatment if necessary. (Matthews, 2007)
Looking at the current case at hand, there are several observable features in the general response of the patient under consideration to comfortably conclude that the person is suffering from a mental illness. Some of the key features of the mental illness include:
Pacing up and down the whole restaurant (Restlessness and anxiety). This is the very first symptom that the patient is not mentally stable. Considering this from a general perspective, it would appear odd for any mentally stable person to pace up and down the whole restaurant paying no attention to any specific person (Roberts, 2006).
Elevated levels of anger (high susceptibility to anger). In most cases, mentally unstable people have their brains fully stressed by a certain aspect in their lives. With the high levels of stress, the victim cannot differentiate between whom is out to offend him or help him/her. So as to avoid any sort of confrontation, such people usually have very high levels of temper generally making them very much vulnerable to anger and mental illness if the amount of stress does not reduce to levels that can be accommodated by the human brain (Kaplan, 2001).
The other feature present is the abrupt shifting in moods and behavior of the subject. With such abrupt changes, the subject makes me group him as a mentally unstable person calling for more analysis if possible mainly through interrogation and keen observation (Mary, 2004).
Lastly, there appears to be great fear inside this person (Traumatized). This is exhibited by the abrupt mood swings that this person suffers from. Another exhibit is the response that I get from the subject when he learns why I went to the restaurant. The rate of getting angry affirms that the person has something that greatly petrifies him and makes his whole coordination tremble. On top of this fear, this person is suffering from hallucinations. This occurs when he starts to call (cry) out to his sister who by observation I believe has something to do with his mental health (Robert, 2005).
Carefully examining the case at hand and analyzing the whole situation, the most likely mental illness in this person falls under distress category. Several factors support this speculation.
The main features categorizing this case as a distress case include:
1. High levels of anger.
2. Fear and hallucination.
3. Anxiety.
4. Incoherent answering of questions.
5. Body language from observation. (Bandara, 2006)
This confirms that this is a distress case and therefore I have decided to use mental distress diagnosis (depression) to help this person out of the problem. The best procedure to adopt is outlined in the following paragraphs (Robert, 2005).
a) Take the patient out of the restaurant maybe to his home or another private place
This will help ease the tension in the subject and calm him down. After calming down, it will be easier to talk to the patient and possibly learn more about the causes of the distress. The seclusion also allows observation of the patient slowly and carefully with minimal disturbance.
b) Use a soft and compassionate tone towards the patient
c) Showing the patient that you and the family are a reliable resource that he can confine his secrets to at such times
This would enable the medic to deal with the patient in a way that he will narrate the whole ordeal without fear and lies. By this method and procedure, the patient will give the necessary details for medic enabling successful diagnosis (W.H.O, 2006).
1. Biological causes
Trauma – after digging deep into the patient’s history, he had a traumatic event which occurred to him at the age to 25. This resulted in a disruption of his chemical balance. From his treatment history, he was using strong medicines to help keep his body chemicals balanced. Though the drugs helped reinstate the chemical balance, he suffered from side effects of the drugs which included depression. After depression encroached, the other family members did not help him recover thus in self confinement, his mental health deteriorated (W.H.O, 2006).
Another factor under this category that I can attach to the situation is poor diet. This was in contrast to the prescriptions of the medical personnel who had treated him when the imbalance was being tackled. Poor diet contributed towards adverse effects of the drugs which accelerated the rate of depression (W.H.O, 2001).
2. Social factors
These are the most likely causes of the whole illness. They can be classified as:
Seclusion. After the traumatic effect in the previous year, Jack was secluded from the society. This gave him more than enough time to be alone and solving his own problems by himself. Having to face the whole idea of losing a sister who was raped and murdered in front of his own face, he had a lot to blame himself for. The idea of being present at the time of the incident also made Jack feel irresponsible and blame himself for the whole thing. Having nobody to share in his problems, Jack felt more separated and started fearing anybody since he believed that everyone knew of the incident eating him from inside (W.H.O, 2001).
Social judgment. Since almost everybody in the society knew what happened to his sister, the society pointed an accusing finger to this young man instead of trying to encourage him to cope with the whole situation. As a result, the young man widened the gap between himself and the whole society regularly avoiding any audience or public appearance (Roberts, 2006).
Lack of friends to talk to and open up his heart to. This resulted from the increased social distance between Jack and the society. His friends fled from him and even started fun of him claiming that he was partly responsible for his sister’s death (W.H.O, 2001).
3. Psychological factors
Self confidence and confinement. As earlier stated, every man believes in solving his own problems alone without referring to anybody since it is believed to be a sign of weakness. After the incident, Jack like every man decided to handle the whole situation without confining in anybody else. This resulted in increased mental pressure and stress which later led to depression. Thinking that everything was still under control, he went further on self confinement with stress to a point that it became mental distress almost affecting his coordination (Richards, 2010).
Blaming of oneself for things that are out of control yet one believes they were under his control. This is a problem that affects every person in the society who is directly linked to a certain occurrence that might be prevented. This occurred when Jack took it as a personal irresponsibility. He took the whole accident as something he would have prevented yet he didn’t do it. This made him feel guilty of his sister’s death and with such a loss and blame on him, the mental pressure was very high in his brains (Gamma, 2007).
Having learnt of the illness and diagnosed it fully, I would like to prescribe the best way forward to deal with this problem so as to gradually help in the healing of this patient.
Short term treatment
Psychotherapy. This would be more of a counseling treatment. This type of treatment should be administered to the patient soonest possible. The main reason why I propose this type of treatment is due to the root cause of the ailment. Considering the main cause of the ailment, self guilt and hopelessness can be claimed. This is mainly due to the fact that Jack was first secluded from the society and when he was undergoing a lot of challenges, nobody appeared to care about him. This made him develop self hatred which further pushed him into the current situation. The treatment may last from short term to long term and can end at any time when the patient heals (www.medicinenet.com/mental_illness/article.htm).
Depressants. Although these drugs are usually used for the wrong purposes, a person with such a mental problem can be asked to use them. This is because the drugs will lower the amount of stress and strain on the brain. As a result, the patient may learn with time how to deal with things in a cool way and remain calm. The patient may also come into terms with the reality that he could have done nothing to prevent the death of his sister. In this way, the drugs would have helped him cope with the reality and know where to start (Akiskal, 2006).
Homecare. Under this docket, the patient requires a lot of monitoring. This may involve all the remaining family members who should be there for him so as to help him heal. This would require the family members to learn how to approach certain issues in presence of the patient so as to ensure that the patient does not suffer from anxiety again (Gamma, 2007).
Psychiatric treatment. This form of treatment is much more important in this case due to certain characteristics I personally observed. During the traumatic accident that led to the death of Jack’s sister, Jack was hit using a blunt object at the back of his head. After his medication and treatment, he appeared okay but was not closely examined to see if his brain was affected by the hit on his skull. Later, he started developing almost permanent headaches which made him a slave to painkillers to no avail. After closely examining him after he slept, I found a pimple-like protruding from the area suspected to have been hit and once I touched it, he woke up immediately seething in pain. Therefore, I would recommend psychiatric examinations carried out on him to know if his ménages or brain was affected (The United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2011.).
On matters pertaining to long term treatment, I would propose three treatments for at least two years as period of observation.
Psychiatric treatment. This should be carried out mostly if the patient has evidence of an affected brain. It would help heal the brain and the ménages so as to ensure that the brain is not damaged at the very end. An interval of three months should be used during the observation with various head X-ray observation to ascertain that the patient does not develop a tumor in the ménages of the brain (Hattie, 2004).
Psychotherapy. This would involve vigorous counseling which I believe should be done on monthly basis to help stabilize the social sphere of the patient. This is mainly important because the patient will have to cope with the society and since he can’t change the society, he should adapt to the society so avoid being hurt again (http://psychology.about.com/od/psychotherapy/a/what-is-psychotherapy.htm).
General health treatment. This part would mainly involve regular medication so as to regulate the effects of depressants on the patient. This is due to the adverse effects that the drugs can bring to the patient if they accumulate to toxic levels. This part of treatment also comes in with diet. The doctors should try to ensure that the patient eats what is necessary for quick and favorable healing (http://psychology.about.com/od/psychotherapy/a/what-is-psychotherapy.htm).
In conclusion, I would like to comment on the general approach to mental health. Considering statistics, more than 15% of deaths witnessed in our countries traces back to mental illness. This is mainly because people do not properly understand what mental health is. From a psychological perspective, it is the general well being of a person in all aspects including general health. Thus, I would like to request all the people to find friends to who they can open up. This would reduce the amount of mental pressure and torture enhancing proper mental health (http://www.epigee.org/biological-causes-of-mental-illness.html.).
References
http://www.epigee.org/biological-causes-of-mental-illness.html.
http://psychology.about.com/od/psychotherapy/a/what-is-psychotherapy.htm.
http://www.medicinenet.com/mental_illness/article.htm.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2011, Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General. "Chapter 2: The Fundamentals of Mental Health and Mental Illness.
US National Institute of Mental Health, 2006, The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders in America Retrieved May 2007.
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