PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH

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PSYCHOSOCIAL HEALTH

• Chapter 2

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Introduction

• All of us go through times of difficulty and
  times of joy.
• Times of difficulty can sap energy, drain
  emotions, and break the spirit
• Times of joy lift our spirit, boost self-esteem,
  and raise the awareness of our capabilities
  (self-efficacy)

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Defining Psychosocial Health

• Includes 4 of the 6 Dimensions of Health
• Mental (Intellectual)
• Thinking
• Emotional
• Feeling
• Social
• Relating
• Spiritual
• Being

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Defining Psychosocial Health

• Elements shared by psychosocially healthy people
• Feel good about themselves
• Feel comfortable with other people
• Control tension and anxiety
• Able to meet the demands of life
• Curb hate and guilt
• Maintain a positive outlook
• Enrich the lives of others
• Cherish the things that make them smile
• Value diversity
• Appreciate and respect nature

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Defining Mental Health

• Mental Health
• The thinking' part of psychosocial health
• Includes values, attitudes, and beliefs
• Ability to reason, interpret, and remember
• Ability to sense, perceive, evaluate what is
  happening, and to solve problems
• Healthy vs. Unhealthy
• Healthy people respond positively
• Unhealthy people respond irrationally

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Defining Emotional Health

• Emotional Health
• The feeling part of psychosocial health
• Includes love, hate, anxiety, and joy
• An interplay of 4 components
• Physiological arousal
• Feelings
• Cognitive processes
• Behavioral reactions

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Defining Emotional Health

• From R. Lazarus 4 basic types of emotions
• Emotions resulting from harm, loss, or threats
• Emotions resulting from benefits
• Borderline emotions such as hope and compassion
• Complex emotions such as grief, disappointment,
  bewilderment, and curiosity

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Defining Emotional Health

• Emotionally healthy people respond appropriately
  to upsetting events
• Emotionally unhealthy people are overwhelmed and
  overpowered by upsetting events and feelings
• Emotional health affects social health
• Warm, welcoming vs. hostile and moody

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Defining Social Health

• Social Health
• The relating part of psychosocial health
• Interaction with others
• Ability to adapt to social situations
• Ability to listen, express opinions and beliefs,
  form relationships, and act responsibly
• 2 key aspects are important
• Social bonds
• Social supports

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Defining Social Health

• Social bonds
• Reflect the general degree and nature of
  interpersonal contacts and interactions
• Serve 6 major functions
• Intimacy
• Group integration
• Opportunity to give or receive nurturance
• Reassurance of ones worth
• Assistance and guidance
• Advice

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Defining Social Health

• Social supports
• Structural and functional aspects of social
  interactions
• Refer to relationships that bring positive
  benefits to individuals
• Can be
• Expressive? emotional support and encouragement
• Structural? housing or money

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Defining Spiritual Health

• Spiritual Health
• The being part of psychosocial health
• A difficult-to-describe need for meaning and
  purpose in life (spirituality)
• Can involve music, nature, one or more gods
• Perhaps a belief in a unifying force that gives
  meaning to life
• Perhaps a belief in something greater than our
  personal and physical existence

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Defining Spiritual Health

• From Dr. N. Lee Smith
• Peace with oneself and the environment
• Feeling of empowerment and control
• Connectedness to oneself and others
• Sense of purpose
• Enjoyment of personal growth and potential
• Sense of hope

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Defining Spiritual Health

• Spiritual Health continued
• 4 main themes
• Interconnectedness? connections involving
  relationships with ourselves, others and purpose
  in life
• Mindfulness? awareness and acceptance of the
  reality of the present moment (in the zone)
• As part of daily life? embodied in faith, hope,
  and love
• Communal harmony? realization of lifes goals,
  desires and values and how they impact others

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Factors Influencing Psychosocial Health

• External factors
• Most reactions are a direct result of experiences
  and expectations
• 3 important external factors
• Family influences can be healthy and nurturing or
  dysfunctional showing negative behaviors and/or
  physical abuse
• Environmental influences include schools, health
  care, socioeconomic status
• Social bonds and social supports

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Factors Influencing Psychosocial Health

• Internal factors
• Include hereditary traits, physical health and
  fitness, and mental/emotional health
• Self-efficacy
• A belief in ones own skill
• Past success or failure leads to an expectation
  of further success or failure in that particular
  task or skill
• Positive self-efficacy gives a sense of personal
  control

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Factors Influencing Psychosocial Health

• Internal factors continued
• Self-esteem
• Refers to a sense of self-respect or confidence
• Different from self-efficacy in that it refers to
  the whole individual, not simply task-related
  confidence
• Evaluation of oneself as worthwhile and cared
  about by others
• People with poor self-esteem do not like
  themselves and lack confidence

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Factors Influencing Psychosocial Health

• Personality
• Determined by heredity, environment, culture, and
  experiences
• Is not static and changes through life
• Traits of psychosocially healthy personalities
• Extroversion
• Agreeableness
• Openness to experience
• Emotional stability
• Conscientiousness

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Enhancing Psychosocial Health

• Develop and Maintain Self-Efficacy and
  Self-Esteem
• Find a support group
• Maintain friendships and contact with family
• Get involved politically, join a club or
  recreational association
• Complete required tasks
• Create a history of success
• Form realistic expectations

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Enhancing Psychosocial Health

• Develop and Maintain Self-Efficacy and
  Self-Esteem continued
• Make time for you
• Maintain physical health
• Examine problems and seek help

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Self-EfficacyIndividual Activity

• Think of two different tasks or skills
• One in which you have a high level of
  self-efficacy
• One in which you have a low level of
  self-efficacy
• List several reasons why self-efficacy is more
  positive in the higher ranked task
• List several reasons how you can raise
  self-efficacy in the lower ranked task

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Enhancing Psychosocial Health

• Sleep
• Serves 2 biological purposes
• Conservation of energy
• Feeling rested
• Restoration
• Re-supply of neurotransmitters
• How much?
• 7-9 hours

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Enhancing Psychosocial Health

• Sleep continued
• Establish a sleep schedule
• Establish a good sleep enviroment
• Exercise regularly
• Limit caffeine and alcohol
• Avoid heavy meals before bedtime
• Establish a nighttime ritual
• Nap only in the afternoon, if at all
• Get up if unable to fall asleep

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Mind-Body Connection

• Happiness
• Experts not entirely clear how to achieve
  subjective well-being (SWB)
• Otherwise know as happiness
• Composed of 3 central elements
• Satisfaction with present life
• Sociable, outgoing, willing to share
• Relative presence of positive emotions
• Generally see the world as a positive environment
• Relative absence of negative emotions
• Experience less anger, depression, anxiety

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Mind-Body Connection

• Happiness myths debunked
• Age doesnt matter
• Gender doesnt matter
• Race doesnt matter
• Money doesnt matter

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Mind-Body Connection

• Laughter is the best medicine
• Limits negative effects of stressors
• Positive coping mechanism
• Helps battle depression and anxiety
• Brings people together (especially with those
  having shared experiences)

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Depression
• Major depression is one of the most common
  psychiatric disorders
• It is normal to feel down or depressed following
  traumatic loss
• Those with major depressive disorder experience
  extreme, persistent sadness, despair and
  hopelessness, feelings of intense guilt, and
  worthlessness
• Approximately 15 attempt suicide

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Depression continued
• Women experience depression almost twice the rate
  of men
• It can strike at any age, but generally the first
  experience occurs before 40
• Risks
• Biology (genetic history)
• Poor learned behavioral responses
• Cognitive factors (the way one thinks)

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Facts about depression
• True depression is a categorized psychiatric
  disorder, not the normal reaction to lifes low
  points
• Those with depression cannot simply stop being
  depressed
• Frequent crying does not signal a depressed
  person
• Depression is not an emotional reaction but a
  physiological one
• There is no one-size-fits-all therapy

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Anxiety disorders
• Number one mental health problem
• Strikes 13 of all adults
• Costs nearly 50 billion per year in medical
  bills and lost worktime
• Include generalized anxiety disorders, panic
  disorder, and phobias
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
• A constant worrier who becomes debilitated by the
  worrry

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder contd
• Diagnosis from 3 of 6 symptoms
• Restlessness or feeling keyed up or on edge
• Being easily fatigued
• Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
• Irritability
• Muscle tension
• Sleep disturbances

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Panic Disorder
• Severe anxiety attack in which a particular
  situation, often for unknown reasons, causes
  terror
• Symptoms (pages 46-47)
• Specific Phobias
• Irrational fear of a specific object, activity or
  situation
• Social Phobias
• Characterized by fear and avoidance of social
  situations

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
• Strikes during winter months
• Sufferers experience irritability, apathy,
  carbohydrate craving, weight gain, increased
  sleep, and general sadness
• Those 20-40 are most at risk
• Light therapy, improved diet, exercise, stress
  management, and improved sleep habits can help

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Psychosocial Disorders

• Schizophrenia
• a mental illness with biological origin
• Characteristics
• Alterations of the sense
• Inability to sort incoming stimuli
• Altered sense of self
• Radical emotions, movements, behaviors
• Commonly appears in late adolescence
• Treatment includes medication and psychotherapy

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Suicide

• 35,000 to 100,000 cases per year
• Third leading cause of death
• Results from poor coping skills, lack of social
  support, self-esteem, and hope
• College students at high risk
• 75-80 give warning signs
• Best way to prevent suicide is to eliminate risk
  factors (page 50)

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Suicide

• Taking action to prevent suicide
• Monitor warning signals
• Take threats seriously
• Let the person know you care
• Listen
• Offer alternatives
• Tell the persons relatives and friends

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Seeking Psychosocial Help

• See pages 51-52 for list
• Mental health professionals
• Psychiatrist
• Psychologist
• Psychoanalyst
• Social Worker
• Counselor
• Can offer individual and/or group therapy

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Psychosocial Health Small Group Activity

• 1. Why do you think the college environment may
  provide a real challenge to your psychosocial
  health?
• 2. Think of someone you know who has high
  self-esteem. What characteristics does this
  person have? Do you enjoy being with someone who
  has high self-esteem?
• 3. What role does laughter play in your daily
  life?
• 4. How have psychosocial disorders been portrayed
  in movies? What are some specific examples?
• 5. How do you react to bad news? Do you think
  about how your reactions affect your mental and
  emotional health?
• 6. What is spirituality to you? Can your group
  agree on three factors associated with
  spirituality?