Ways of Considering Mental Wellbeing
Mental wellbeing is an individual’s psychological state including their ability to think, process information, and regulate emotions
How can the biopsychosocial model be used to explain causes of specific phobia?
Define mindfulness meditation
Mindfulness meditation is the practice of meditation in which an individual focuses on their present experience to promote feelings of calm and peace with acceptance.
Define specific phobia
Specific phobia is a type of diagnosable anxiety disorder that is categorised by excessive and disproportionate fear when encountering or anticipating encountering a particular stimulus
What is a controlled experiment?
a type of investigation in which the causal relationship between two variables is tested in a controlled environment
How can an individual's level of functioning be used to determine their levels of mental wellbeing?
Level of functioning is the degree to which an individual can complete day-to-day tasks in an independent and effective manner. This can be used to determine level of mental wellbeing as healthy people (with high levels of mental wellbeing) have high levels of functioning, where they can carry out tasks and adapt to their changing environment, whereas people with low levels of mental wellbeing struggles with these tasks.
Outline the possible two biological causes for specific phobia.
1. GABA dysfunction: insufficient neural transmission or reception of GABA in the body - individuals with specific phobia may have low levels of GABA, meaning that GABA cannot regulate their experience of anxiety, therefore their FFF response is more easily activated (there is a lack of inhibition due to a lack of GABA).
2. Long-term potentiation: long-lasting and experience-dependent strengthening of synaptic connections due to regular co-activation. Frequent activation of the phobia reaction, causes the strengthening of these synaptic connection, making it easier for this reaction to occur and a stronger phobic reaction
What are the two important components of psychoeducation?
1. Challenging unrealistic or anxious thoughts
Often the individual overestimates encountering the phobic stimulus and underestimates their ability to cope. Family and supporters can therefore play and important role in helping a person to cope with or overcome a phobia by encouraging them to recognise and challenge unrealistic or anxious thoughts
2. Not encouraging avoidance behaviours
Important that family and supporters understand that avoidance behaviour perpetuates a phobia and therefore encourage the individual to deal with/ confront the issue. Avoidance can provide short term relief but long-term harm
Explain the two cultural determinants of wellbeing.
Cultural continuity: the passing down and active practice 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
Explain the difference between beneficence and non-maleficence.
Beneficence is the commitment to maximising the benefits and minimising risks and harms involved in taking a particular position or course of action, whereas non-maleficence is the principle of avoiding causing harm.
How does SEWB represent wellbeing? Outline two dimensions of wellbeing that are part of this model.
SEWB is a multidimensional and holistic framework that includes all elements of being and therefore wellbeing, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It is made up of multiple connection points and considers the whole person including their mental, physical, spiritual and social needs.
2 examples include, connection to:
•Body - physical body and health
•Mind and emotions - effectively manage thoughts and feelings
•Family and kinship - connection to immediate and wider family/community
•Community - connection to wider social systems
•Culture - sense of identity, values, traditions
•Country - connection to lands of particular language group (geographically and spiritually)
•Spirituality and ancestors - connects all things and shapes beliefs, value and behaviour - ancestors watch over and guide.
Outline how both the behaviourist models of learning can contribute to the development of specific phobia.
Both the behaviourist models (classical conditioning and operant conditioning) are psychological factors that contribute to the development of phobia.
Classical conditioning precipitates phobia - triggers the acquisition of specific phobia.
•The process by which a stimulus with no significance (NS) becomes by associated with a stimulus that naturally produces fear (UCS) and a UCR. The NS becomes a CS or phobic stimulus which causes a phobic response (CR)
Operant conditioning perpetuates phobia - continues or maintain the phobia after acquisition has occurred
•Choosing to avoid the phobic stimulus can negatively reinforce it and heighten the response when the stimulus is encountered
•Or if someone gives you a positive e.g. comfort when you avoid it, it can be positively reinforced
Cognitive Behavioural therapy (CBT): a form of psychotherapy that encourages individuals to substitute dysfunctional cognitions and behaviours with more adaptive ones. Focuses on helping the individual to change negative thoughts and behaviours into more positive ones, as cognitive factors change these influence behavioural factors and vice versa.
Systematic desensitisation: a therapeutic technique used to overcome phobias that involves a patient being exposed incrementally to increasingly anxiety-inducing stimuli, combined with the use of relaxation techniques. (it involves learning a relaxation technique, create a fear hierarchy, systematic and graduate pairing of items of relaxation, continue until there is no more phobic reaction)
Outline the biological protective factors for maintaining mental wellbeing.
•Adequate nutrition: the type and amount of food meets their physical needs
•Adequate hydration: drink that an individual consumes meets their physical needs
•Adequate sleep is important for wellbeing, good sleep likely reduces the likelihood of mental health disorders and promotes mental wellbeing
How can standard deviation be used to show the variability of a data set?
Standard deviation shows the distribution of the data around the mean.
•A smaller standard deviation suggests that the values are close together
•A larger standard deviation suggests that the values are spread far apart
Distinguish between internal and external factors that impact mental wellbeing, provide an example of each.
Internal factors are factors that arise from with the individual, whereas external factors are factors that arise from the individual’s environment.
Internal examples - biological and psychological - stress response, thought patterns, genetic predisposition
External examples - social - loss of relationships, level of education, access to support
Explain cognitive bias and outline two types of cognitive biases, providing an example of each.
Cognitive Bias: A predisposition to think about and process information in a certain way
Two types are:
1. Memory Bias: a cognitive bias caused by inaccurate or exaggerated memory - better recollection of negative over positive information - "The spider was as big as my hand"
2. Catastrophic thinking: a cognitive bias in which a stimulus or event is predicted to be worse than it is. "If I see a spider I will die"
Benzodiazepines are short-acting GABA agonists that increase the effectiveness of GABA’s inhibitory effects, meaning that it decreases the likelihood of the post synaptic neuron firing an action potential, helping to slow down the CNS. Individuals with a specific phobia, such as of a bedroom, may be experiencing a GABA dysfunction where their brain does not produce and/or receive enough GABA to regulate brain activity, leading to activation of fight–flight–freeze response that cause increase symptoms of anxiety, thus precipitating the bedroom phobia.
Benzodiazepines can be used to treat people with phobias of bedrooms by administering them prior to bedtime, which will promote feelings of calm and reduce the physiological symptoms of their phobia, allowing them to be calm in the bedroom. However, benzodiazepines are an evidence-based intervention that only deals with the effects of the phobia, not the cause, meaning that by itself, they are not an effective treatment and should instead be paired with other treatments, like systematic desensitisation.
Provide two similarities and two differences between anxiety and specific phobia
- Both involve sympathetic NS dominance
- Both cause symptoms of distress
Differences:
- Phobias are often in response to a known stimulus whereas anxiety is often in response to an unknown stimulus
- Phobia is always categorised by low levels of mental wellbeing, whereas anxiety can fluctuate from high to low depending on severity and length of time of anxiety experience.
- Phobia is a feeling of fear that is disproportionate and excessive, whereas anxiety is a feeling of apprehension, unease or worry.
Compare and contrast random and systematic errors.
Differences:
- Random errors occur when the data varies from the true value by a random/changing amount each trial, whereas systematic errors occur when the data varies from the true value by a consistent amount.
- Random errors decrease the precision of the results, whereas systematic errors decrease the accuracy of the results.
Similarity:
Both are errors that involve equipment, therefore they need experimenters to ensure they are effectively calibrated.
Emotional Wellbeing is the ability to control emotions and express them appropriately as well as understand the emotions of others
Social Wellbeing is the ability to have and maintain satisfying relationships and interactions with others and to adapt to different social situations
Resilience is the ability to cope with and manage change an uncertainty to restore positive functioning
Examples:
Emotional wellbeing - aware of emotions
Social wellbeing - strong support network
Resilience - be flexible in changing circumstances
A specific environmental trigger evokes an extreme stress response leading to the development of a phobia.
Isabella is scared of magpies. Her specific environmental trigger was watching a magpie swoop her friend while she was at university. This incident would have causes an extreme phobic reaction and would have impacted her deeply.
Breathing retraining is biological intervention used when an individual is experiencing a phobic response as this often involves short shallow breathes as their sympathetic nervous system becomes dominant.
A doctor must teach this technique and the learner applies it in the presence of their phobia stimulus.
Using the language of classical conditioning explain how a phobia of balloons could be precipitated.
1. Before Conditioning:
NS (the balloon) causes no response and the UCS (the sound of the balloon popping) causes the UCR (fear response)
2. During Conditioning
NS (the balloon) is presented prior to the UCS (the sound of the balloon popping) causes the UCR (fear response) - this only happens once as it was traumatic
3. After Conditioning
CS (the balloon) causes the CR (fear response)
Explain an advantage and a disadvantage of using placebo drugs in the testing of anti-anxiety medication like benzodiazepines.
Advantages:
- Enables a fair comparison of the active and the inactive drug (placebo vs. benzodiazepine)
- Ensures that participant expectation is controlled for - the placebo effect suggests that an extraneous variable is participants expecting to get better after taking a drug
Disadvantage:
- Deceives participants - participants are unaware of the true drug they are taking.