Mental Health and Psychotherapies: Analysis of Interventions Report

This report delves into the complexities of mental health and psychotherapies, particularly within the Australian context. It begins by analyzing the impact of government schemes and communication strategies on public awareness and access to mental health services, highlighting the economic and human costs of neglecting mental well-being. The report then examines the challenges faced by asylum seekers in Australia's detention centers, advocating for social advocacy strategies to address their mental health needs. Furthermore, the report provides a detailed overview of various psychotherapeutic interventions, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Reality Therapy, Solution Focused Therapy, and group counseling, discussing their benefits and limitations. Finally, it explores primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions, including psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, providing insights into their applications and effectiveness in managing mental health disorders and addiction.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPIES
Mental health and psychotherapies
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Task 1: 2
Task 2: 4
Task 3: 6
Task 4: 10
References: 14

2MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPIES
Task 1:
The first video focuses on the better mental health access scheme of the Australian mental
health department to manage the fast deteriorating condition of the mental illness in the country.
According to the video this scheme was based on the research that in order to improve the mental
health conditions of the most of the patients, 20 psychotherapy sessions will be required. Under
this scheme, the Australian mental health department allowed only 18 sessions per year which
was helping a lot of mentally ill individual find better care and faster recovery. However by 1st of
January, 2013, the government reduced the number of sessions allowed per year to 10 sessions
which half of the evidenced requirements. It affected the recovery paradigm of many mental
patients in Australia and researchers have stated that it will only achieve 30% of the intended
outcome with this new initiative (Poell & Borra, 2012).
The next video discusses the annual costs of the Australia as a nation is 10.9$ billions due to
just ignoring the mental health issues in Australia. Along with that this video has also uncovered
very systematically that 5 of all Australians are suffering from mental issues as well. The last
information provided by the video is the fact that every dollar invested in addressing the mental
health care needs of Australia will in turn return $2.30. This video of only 30 seconds is a crisp
strategic intervention which utilizes three very impactful data points to attract the attention of the
viewers towards a huge public health priority. The last video focuses on a very important issue
related to mental health, communication and its impact on different individuals. This video
encompassed the views of the impact of communication of various different individuals on their
lives.

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All three of the videos attempted to draw the attention of the public towards the mental health
concerns of Australia and how the public can contribute to the betterment of the issue. The first
video had been very organized and artistic to draw the attention towards the better access
scheme, although it lacked certain impact to move the audience. The last video entertained the
view of the different individuals on the importance of communication, although the message was
not clear as to how mentally ill individuals can benefit from communicating their fears and needs
(Thackeray et al., 2012). The second video however had been crisp, compact and extremely
impactful by pointing fingers at the loss of Australia as a nation, both in terms of finance and
human capital, by ignoring mental health. The message was very clear, easy to understand and
impactful; hence in my views the second video employed a strategy that was most effective and
would have the most impact on general public.

4MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPIES
Task 2:
The influx of asylum seekers is exponentially high in case of Australia, and the nation has
been facing challenges in management of the asylum seekers in Australia, especially for the ones
that arrive by boat. The Australian government has a fixed ideological position that all the
asylum seekers that arrive to Australia illegally have malice and bad intentions. Hence the
treatment of the asylum seekers in the Australian detention centres is immoral and violates the
basic human rights that is entitled to each and every individual has an equal rights to. The
abusive off shore detention system of the Australia has tarnished the human sights system of
Australia and is a public welfare priority for the humanitarian authorities worldwide. The asylum
seekers residing on the offshore detention centres suffer from a myriad of different mental health
issues like post traumatic disorders, anxiety and depression. The asylum seekers do not get the
aid of any sound health care, both physical and mental and do not even get a sufficient supply of
basic necessities of life. Any nation is entitled to effective border management and protection of
their citizens, however the treatment of the asylum seekers in the offshore detention centres
violates the basic humanitarian principles of any civilized society, and hence it is an issue that
deserves social advocacy (Neuner et al., 2010).
Any social advocacy for the greater good of humanity will receive the sympathetic support
from the society. In this case as well, the advocacy strategy will implement charitable workshops
and seminar presentations to draw the attention of the local and national government, for the
funding requirements, charity hosting and internet based donations interfaces can be utilized.
And along with that, personal interaction session will need to be arranged with the social work
agencies of Australia to gain their support in the advocacy campaigning to attract the attention of

5MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPIES
the authorities. Lastly, nationwide educational campaigning will need to be done to ensure that
the entire society understands the plight of the asylum seekers in the detention centres, so that a
huge manpower is generated in support of the cause so tat the authorities are forced to consider
the need for implementation of change in the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia (Crumlish
& O'rourke, 2010).

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Task 3:
Cognitive behavioural therapy:
Cognitive behavioural therapy or CBT can be defined as the Psychosocial intervention used
the most abundantly opted evidence based practice for the management of a varied different
mental health issues, even in case of the addiction patients (Roth, 2016).
The benefits are:
CBT is the most effective psychological treatment that can help the patients with
emerging from the vicious cycle of negatively altered thought process (Bieling et al., 2012).
It has the widest and broadest evidence base for streamlining the practice implementation
with the most benefit.
CBT has been considered as the therapeutic intervention with the greatest efficacy in
symptom reduction and hence has been discovered as the equivalent for pharmaco-
therapeutic interventions (Du, Jiang & Vance, 2010).
CBT has incredible benefits for reducing the relapse rate of the patients with addiction.
The limitations includes:
Without utmost commitment from the patients, the interventions do not work up to its
maximum potential.
This therapeutic intervention is a time taking procedure, it requires a long time for the
interventions to show visible results.
Reality therapy:

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Reality therapy is an unconventional psychotherapeutic intervention that focuses on the three
Rs of psychiatry, realism, responsibility, and right-and-wrong.
The benefits include:
It is a reality based therapy that emphasizes more on the practical aftermath or consequences
of addiction rather than the mere symptoms of altered thought process (Wubbolding, 2013).
It targets the sense of reasonability, responsibility and the sense if right and wrong in the
addiction victims to discover the want or need in the patients to revert to original lifestyle devoid
of any addiction.
In this therapy the clients are encouraged to find the solutions and work towards
implementing the solutions targets their particular issues and needs (Wubbolding, 2013).
The limitations include:
It does not focus on the impact of the internal issues like conflict and trauma in the patients.
Emotions, experience and negatively impacting internal states of the victim’s conscience is
given little importance in this therapy.
Solution focused therapy:
Solution focussed therapy is a goal focussed extremely targeted contemporary
psychotherapeutic intervention for the addiction victims or mental patients by the means of direct
observations of the clients.
The benefits include:
It is a quick fix for the patients, providing a brief therapeutic focus on the identified goals for
the patient and providing immediate improvements for the patients.

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It is very patient centred and goal oriented and the goals for each patients are se on the
basis of the miracle question asked to the abuse victim.
The therapy uses different tools and techniques to discover the sharpening goals for the
improvement of the patient symptoms (Walter & Peller, 2013)
The limitations include:
It is focussed on the wants and the needs of the clients and hence the therapy can go wrong
very easily if the patient assessment is not done properly.
As it is a client focussed therapy, the clients might not comply with the therapy provider and
in turn can terminate the therapy before the need for therapy is over (De Shazer & Dolan, 2012).
Group work and group counselling:
Group counselling or group therapy can be defined as the most important psychotherapeutic
intervention that helps the addiction victims find the strength to overcome their urge to indulge
in alcohol or substance abuse by the means of group therapy and counselling (Velasquez et al.,
2015).
The benefits include:
Supportive assistance from the groups or the peers provides the addiction victims with a
sense of belonging and comfort and helps them fight their urges.
The groups offer to the addiction victims with the sounding board of different perspective on
addiction and the aftermath which helps the patients deal with their addiction better.
The groups help in propelling the victims forward towards the path of recovery, especially in
the crucial phases of relapse (Velasquez et al., 2015).

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The limitations are:
It requires the victims to publicly share their AOD journey, for victims with a history of
trauma it can be a significant disadvantage.
Group therapy sessions are unfocussed and impersonal and are not solution focussed on
centred o the needs of the victims at all (McHugh, Hearon & Otto, 2010).

10MENTAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOTHERAPIES
Task 4:
1.
Primary intervention can be defined as the measures that help in preventing the onset of a
varied range of the different disease process or different kinds of illnesses or injuries before the
manifestation process of the diseases even begins.
On the other hand, secondary preventions can be defined as the preventative measures that
lead to the early and prompt diagnosis of the disease, sickness or any injury. This preventative
measure helps in preventing far severe problems from developing related to the disease or injury
(Lewis, Dana & Blevins, 2014).
Tertiary prevention can be defined as the measures that are aimed at the process of
rehabilitation that follows a severe disease or illness.
An example of the primary intervention can be immunization, an example of secondary
intervention includes blood pressure examination, and example of tertiary intervention includes
rehabilitative health education for following addiction.
2.
Psychotherapy:
a. Psychotherapy can be defined as the an umbrella term encompassing a broad spectrum if
different interventions provided to the alcohol and substance abusers in order to provide a
critically safe and trustworthy support network to the addiction patients and guide them towards

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the path of recovery. There are different types of psychotherapy that can provide the benefits to
the patients, such as the supportive psychotherapy, coping focussed psychotherapy, and growth
focussed psychotherapies (Roth, 2016).
b. The benefits of psychotherapy include:
 Psychotherapy identifies addiction to be a true disease of the brain, and hence it
targets the thought process that propels the individual for opting for addiction in
the first place.
 It helps in targeting the negative thoughts and replacing them with positive
optimistic thoughts as a tool; for motivating the patients and helping them to quit
addiction.
 It provides a crucial safe and reliable network for them to share their struggles and
issues and be motivated by the support of the therapists (Du, Jiang & Vance,
2010).
The limitation of psychotherapy:
 It cannot help in eradicating the physiological impact of the addiction and the
abuse induced physiological manifestations and diseases (Bieling et al., 2012).
c. At the moderate to severe level of AOD journey, psychotherapy can be useful to the patient.
d. Australian counselling association provides the psychotherapy assistance to the AOD patients
Pharmacotherapy:
a. Pharmacotherapy can be defined as the delivery of medication based intervention to the
addiction patients so that the deteriorating condition of the patient can improve. It has to