The Youth Mental Health and the Place of Psychosocial Interventions Essay

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social and psychological interventions are important in youth mental health

The most productive and creative generation of any nation are the youth, Australia included. Nations largely depend on the youth for almost everything hence the need to be in the best shape physically and more importantly psychologically. The mental health of the youth has been widely viewed as a subject of concern among the medical fraternity and one that needs constant and continuous intervention in order to have a sound mental health. This paper will delve into the prevalent mental disorder and the different ways in which they manifest themselves and the relevant social and psychological interventions that are appropriate in the intervention especially among the youth. Through understanding of these mental health conditions or disorders and the available interventions, one is able to evaluate whether the interventions have been sufficient and if not, interrogate the inefficiencies and the possible additional steps that need to be taken with the Australian youth in mind.

Background to the mental health in Australia

According to Mental Health Australia (2015), 20% of the Australian population will experience one form of mental illness or the other in any given year. The mental health services are under pressure and yet quality services are important for this population that can easily be marginalized and disadvantaged. Each minor mental health needs to be handled in a professional manner to avoid the chances of it escalating into chronic mental illness. The mental health problem is more pronounced among the youth where 12% of the Australia youth between 13-17 years of age having thought of suicide and another 4.2% having actually made suicide attempts. The health-risk behaviors among these youth with mental health problems is also noted to be relatively higher than the adults with 23.1%noted to be smoking, 18% having used marijuana and 36.7% noted to be drinking. The youth living in low-income families, sole-parent and blended families exhibited higher rates of mental health issues. Yet, amidst this staggering statistics, only one out of every 4 youths with mental health challenges had received professional care. Of greater concern is that even in cases of most severe mental health problems, only 50% of them received professional help (Hunter Institute of Mental Health, 2014). These are indicators that the mental health services are stretched and there is need to initiate interventions that would help prevent the youth from falling victims of the mental health problems or help those many cases that are note severe to be back to normal, such measures include the psychosocial interventions.

It is imperative to understand the various mental or psychiatric disorders that prevalent particularly among the youth and the accompanying symptoms. The youth suffering from anxiety disorder constitute the largest group of those suffering any form of psychiatric disorder. Some of those common anxiety disorders among the youth are; panic disorder which can be seen through the recurrent fear symptoms and multiple somatic symptoms. Agoraphobia is the second psychiatric disorder that most youth suffer and it is the fear of experiencing panic especially ion places that present the individual no chance to escape. The third yet rampant is the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which comes in the form of past disturbing memories that distress the individual who hitherto underwent traumatic events who will avoid activities that caused the trauma and any that are related to it and will be easily aroused. The fourth psychiatric anxiety disorder is the generalized anxiety disorder which comes with excessive uncontrollable worry and muscle tension. The other psychiatric disorder that is common is the social anxiety disorder which makes the individual to avoid social events and activities with the fear of being negatively evaluated. The sixth condition is the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) which is shown by the individual being so obsessive and displaying compulsive traits. Seventh is the specific phobia whet the youth shows excessive fear and avoidance of the particular category of items (Mathew S. et.al., 2008:Pp81). Anxiety disorders are considered to be serious disability and a medical condition that cannot be overlooked but an immediate and appropriate intervention is recommended depending on the particular disorder the individual is suffering from.

There are various measures that have been taken or instituted to handle the psychiatric disorders mentioned above. Some of the interventions involve drugs prescription to the patient to help in the balance of chemicals consistency of the body that is believed to be responsible for the disorders and behavioral changes displayed by the individual. Most of these drugs are administered in the clinics in the quantities deemed appropriate at the time depending on the psychological disposition of the individual and the intricate observations made by the psychiatrist.

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There are however some drugs that are long-term-based hence given to the patient on a regular basis to take while at home and a support system is advised by the medics to help the patient adhere to the medication process and the recovery journey as a whole. A god number of youth have undergone this medical process, some with success but a significant majority either display symptoms of reliance on the drugs yet some relapse to the mental health issue that they hitherto had been suffering from.

This failure by the drugs based intervention forms the pillar of this paper as it discusses the alternative social and psychological interventions that the youth can get to help them transcend from the psychiatric conditions back to the normal life that they had been living there before. This does not mean exclusion of the drug-based process, but the support that the immediate family, friends, neighbors and colleagues can bring in to support the individual in the process of recovery. The psychosocial support also refers to the recommendations that the psychiatrist and the medics can give the patient concerning the social environment they need to maintain, the behaviors to avoid, the psychological dispositions they need to maintain in order to recover from the particular psychiatric disorder they are suffering from. It is noteworthy that, just as the medical approaches are different on each individual depending on the particular disorder they could be suffering from, so are the social and psychological therapies administered to the youth to help them recover.

The psychosocial interventions

The cognitive rehabilitation is one psychological intervention that has proven to be more effective than the psychiatric pharmacotherapies directed towards eradicating cognitive deficits. Largely used here is the operant conditioning procedures aimed at helping the patient recover the cognition without use of drugs. This has over the years evolved to be cognitive remediation (CR) which is more thorough and involves drill and practice, as well as compensatory strategy learning, therapist facilitation as well as computer training. The CR intervention as a psychosocial intervention has found relevance in helping the youth regain themselves particularly in the case of substance use disorders. This psychosocial intervention has also proven to be effective in the improvement of neuro-cognition especially in the early onset of psychosis as well as early-course schizophrenia among the adolescents and the effectiveness is seen to be higher among the younger individuals and the youth as compared to the older patients.

Another social and psychological intervention that has proven beneficial to the youth is the psycho-education program which is aimed at creating the awareness of the cognitive deficits and also improving insight into schizophrenia. This is a paramount social intervention since it works in conjunction with the CR above and makes CR more relevant. Through the psycho-education program the youth will be more aware of the ways through which they will benefit from CR. The youth need to fully understand the reasons for the therapies they are undergoing and the importance of adhering to the therapies and these can easily be achieved through the psycho-education program as a social intervention (Lee R.S.C., et.al, 2012: Pp1161-1162).

Another report of a study compiled by Peters A.T & Nierenberg A.A., (2011) gives a comparative study in the use of medical approach to treating bipolar depression and the use of psychosocial intervention on the same. Use of antidepressants and mood stabilizers were experimented on a good number of individuals and on the other hand adjunctive psychotherapy was employed on another set of patients suffering from bipolar depression. At the end of the experiment, it was realized that those who underwent the psychosocial treatment reached recovery within a shorter period as compared to those who were subjected to the drugs. Those who underwent the intensive psychosocial treatment had better functioning in social relationships, better satisfaction with life as compared to the time they were suffering depression. This is a clear indication that the psychosocial intervention among the youth is bound to get better results and higher rates of youth not relapsing to the previous psychiatric disorders that they were undergoing before. The result of the psychosocial intervention being that they are able to revert to their social life and carry on with the expected societal responsibilities like any other person in the society, without necessarily being….....

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