Week 10 | Day 2 | PSYA02

Access to Treatment

• Getting access to treatment is one of the biggest challenges in mental health
  • 20% of Canadians suffer from a moderate to serious mental health disorder at some point in their lives
  • Only ~40% of these individuals seek treatment
    • ⅓ of those that seek treatment are unsatisfied with the level of treatment they receive

Why do people fail to get treatment?

• People don’t realize they have a disorder
• Psychological beliefs prevent people from seeking treatment
• Structural barriers to seeking care (not knowing where to look, not enough clinicians, cost)

Differing Approaches to Treatment

• Biological treatments for the brain
  • Eg. Psychopharacotherapy
  • Used by psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners
• Psychological Intervationtions
  • Eg. talk therapy
  • Used by psychologistst and other therapists
• SocialEnvironmentt
  • Used by social workers

The Basics of TreatmentDiagnosissPsychologicall treatment or biological treatment

Psychological Treatments

• Many types of psychotherapy

4 major movements of psychotherapy

1. Psychodynamic therapy
2. Humanistic therapy
3. Behaviour therapy
4. Cognitive therapy
5. Psychodynamicc therapy

• In a session, topics being discussed could be
  • Dream analysis
  • Childhood events
  • Subconscious thoughts & urges
  • Projective techniques (eg. inkblot test)
• This therapy iscentredd on the belief that psychological problems come from
  • Ineffective repressing urges (often starting in childhood) that leads to fixations
  • Problematic use of defencee mechanisms
  • Conflict between parts of the dynamic subconsious
    • “What I want to do” vs “What I should do”
  • Psychoanalysis attempts to give the patient insight into these conflicts → Insight is the goal

1. Humanistic/Existential Therapies

• Humanistic Theory and psychologist emphasize: Thee importance of striving for personal improvement
  • Free will
  • The positive aspects of the human experience
• Person-centered therapy assumes that the individuals have a tendency toward growth, centers on acceptance and genuine reactions from therapist
  • Congruence (word, body language, etc.)
  • Empathy
  • Unconditional positive regard (accepting no matter what)