Humanistic, Behavioral, and Psychodynamic Approaches to Mental Term Paper

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humanistic, behavioral, and psychodynamic approaches to mental illness, and associated therapeutic modalities. Mental illness is one of the most important health issues in North America today. It can have an enormous impact on personal and professional lives of millions of individuals. As such, an understanding of the three most common models of mental illness is important to understanding the concept of mental illness as a whole.

The humanistic model of mental illness derives from existential philosophy, and first emerged in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. This model is centered on the idea that a person's reality comes from their unique perception of the world around them. Freedom of choice means that individuals are able to make choices and be responsible for their personal decisions and actions. The humanistic model focuses on the actualizing tendencies of humans to grow and explore personal potential.

In the humanistic model abnormal behavior and mental illness come from several different factors. Mental illness can come when society begins to see certain people or groups of people as more valuable or powerful than others.

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Further, in the humanistic model, mental illness can come from the individual's unhealthy need to derive self-regard from other people. Thus, a state of incongruence develops from the difference between inherent self-worth, and self-worth as measured through the perceived opinions of other people (Carson).

The principle therapeutic modality that came from humanistic models of mental illness is humanistic psychotherapy (sometimes referred to as experiential, Gestalt, or existential therapy). Humanistic therapy focuses on the immediate feelings and experience of the patient, rather than the past or on thoughts or behaviors. The relationship of the therapist and patient is crucial in this form of therapy (Surgeon General).

The behavioral learning model is shaped largely on the concepts of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The classical conditioning model came from the work of Ivan Pavlov's famous work on salivating dogs, and is a largely mechanistic description of stimuli and responses that lead to….....

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