mental wellbeing psych

Levels of functioning

The degree to which an individual can complete day-to-day tasks in an independent and effective manner

Resilience

The ability to cope with and manage change/uncertainty (high levels of resilience allows you to respond effectively to stressors/overcome/adapt to them = mental wellbeing)

Mental wellbeing

An individual’s current state of mind, including their ability to think, process information and regulate emotions

Social and emotional wellbeing

A framework that includes all elements of being, and therefore wellbeing, for Aboriginal and Torre Strait Islanders (based on a holistic, multidimensional view of health)

Social wellbeing

The ability for an individual to form and maintain meaningful bonds with others, and adapt to different social situations

Emotional wellbeing

The ability for an individual to appropriately control and express their emotions in an adaptive way, as well as understand the emotions of others

Social determinants

The circumstances in which people grow, live and work, and the systems put in place to deal with illness, socioeconomic status, impact of poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, etc.

Historical determinants

The ongoing influence of events, policies and trauma on groups of people (colonisation and it’s legacy, impact of past government policies)

Political determinants

Political policies that shape the process of distributing resources and power to individuals and communities, and create or reinforce social and health inequalities (unresolved issues of land, control of local resources)

External factors

• Originate outside a person

• Social factors: the conditions in which people live and grow (eg relationships, income, social support, employment)

Internal factors

• Come from within a person

• Biological factors: the functioning of a person’s body, which is often outside the control of the individual (eg sex, genetics)

• Psychological factors: the influence that comes from mental processes and may relate to prior learning experiences and memory (eg styles of thinking, emotion, focus)

Biological factors

• GABA dysfunction: insufficient neural transmission or reception of GABA in the body (can cause comeone’s FFF response to be activated more easily)

• LTP: development of phobias by strengthening the association between neural signals involved in percieving a phobic stimulus, and neural signals involved in activating the fear response

Psychological factors

• Precipitation by classical conditioning: precipitation refers to a factor that contributes to the occurrence of developing a MH disorder

• Perpetuation by operant conditioning: a person with a phobia will generally avoid their phobic stimulus at all costs- by avoiding confrontation, a person is negatively reinforced and this strengthens/maintains the phobic response

• Cognitive biases: a tendency to think in a way that involves errors of judgement (memory bias: inaccurate/exaggerated memory, catastrophic thinking: a stimulus is predicted to be far worse than it is)

Social factors

• Specific environmental triggers: direct confrontation with a traumatic stimulus/event, observing another person having direct confrontation with it, ect.

• Stigma: leaving one’s phobia untreated also contributes to the development/maintainence of specific phobias

Biological interventions

• GABA agonists: benzodiazepines bind to GABA receptor sites and mimc the effects of GABA to increase the inhibitory response

• By inducing inhibitory responses, the rapid excitatory communication between neurons in the fear response is reduced, relieving the anxiety it causes and leading to relaxation of the muscles

• Breathing retraining

Psychological interventions

• Systematic desensitisation: a therapy technique used to overcome phobia involving a patient being exposed incrementally to increasingly anxiety-inducing stimuli, combined with the use of relaxation techniques (operates on the principles of CC)

• CBT: cognitive- identifying negative thoughts, replacing them with positive ones, behavioural- identifying negative behaviours, developing more positive ones

Social interventions

Psychoeducation: educating family, friends and supporters of an individual with a MH disorder about it

Biological protective factors

• Adequate nutritional intake and hydration: allows your body to carry out all processes required to maintain high levels of physical and mental wellbeing

• Sleep: people who have adequate sleep are likely to be less irritable and less likely to become ill

Psychological protective factors

• Cognitive behavioural strategies: techniques that utilise traits of CBT, particularly recognising and changing dysfunctional thought and behavioural patterns

• Mindfulness meditation

Social protective factors

Support from family, friends amd community

Cultural determinants

• Cultural determinants of wellbeing are cultural factors that influence health and wellbeing

• Cultural continuity: the passing down and active practise of cultural knowledge, traditions, and values from generation to generation

• Self determination: the rights of all peoples to pursue freely their economic, social and cultural development without outside interference