Mental Health and Mental Disorders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Mental Health and Mental Disorders - Essay Example He worked out Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. This author stated that emotions derive from "an interaction between events in the environment and beliefs and expectations which we have". (qtd in Clark, p. 130) Sometimes these beliefs are so powerful that they affect person's emotional conditional. The purpose of emotive behaviour therapy is to make these emotions less powerful and not badly influence person's emotional condition. (Clark). According to the concepts of cognitive theory, specialists counseling in mental disorders, should focus on mental condition of the client and investigate his identity, rather than treat his physical body with the help of medicines that may have side effects. Another famous author who worked in the field of cognitive therapy was Aaron Beck. He worked out a special methodology and strategies to treat depression and anxiety that were based upon the conceptions of cognitive theory. Clients are to perform a dialogue within his inner world to define the patterns that are to be changed to improve client's condition. Treatment strategies worked by Beck help a client to find out depressive beliefs and change his way of thinking. The commentators describe the essence of Beck's approach as following: "According to Beck and Emery, the way we process information is governed by structures called schemata. These schemata are made up of rules for explaining incoming information, and for retrieving what we have already learned. They are capable of exerting powerful effects on how we experience and relate to the world. For example, the schemata of a person with a social phobia cause them to become anxious and avoidant by explaining incoming information a nd memories in terms of social threat. Treatment consists of correcting faulty or illogical thinking by repeatedly confronting cognitive schemata with discrepant information from role-playing and homework assignments." (Abela, p.117) Modern medicine includes treating depression and anxiety with psychotherapy or medications, or combining both these treatments. The experiments and researches show that a combination of these two methods is mostly effective, especially because antidepressants rarely result in dependence. Companies that produce medicine encourage doctors to prefer medical treatment to psychotherapy, but there are cases in which referring to a specialist in psychotherapy is necessary. In case the person takes antidepressants and this brings no results, a visit to professional in mental health may be more effective. (Clark) Cognitive theory and therapy based upon it provide for a theoretical basis allowing specialists better understand the reasons for anxiety and depression to appear, to treat them effectively. This theory is regarded as effective even in comparison with other popular theories. To better understand the impact of cognitive theory into modern psychotherapy it is necessary to observe its perspective on mental illnesses and anxiety in particular. According to the cognitive theory, the reasons for depression, anxiety and worries appear due to several reasons: Sometimes it is enough just to see a model of behavior to take it over, when a person expresses intense fears or nervous condition. Sensitive people often answer such behaviour the same way. Sometimes a person inadequately estimates the situation and interactions with people