Psychological Approaches to Care: Analyzing Jenny and Dave's Case

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PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CARE
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Contents
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................................................... 3
BODY..................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................................................... 9
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................................................ 10
INTRODUCTION
This assignment will discuss the case of Jenny and Dave, who has been suffering from mental trauma due to illness. Their
growth and development have been affected adversely. The main aim of this assignment is to focus on the impact of
change on individual development and behaviour. We will be going to discuss various theories that explained the growth
and development of an individual. Maslow's hierarchy of need explained the needs of an individual in the form of a
pyramid. People must satisfied lower needs in order to succeed in higher needs. Theory of adolescence address
developmental stages between the periods of 11 to 23 years (Lester, 2013). The theory of psychodynamic explained that
feeling and behaviour is governed by unconscious motive. The event that has been associated with childhood memories
is reflected in adult life in the form of problem or issue. Social learning theory explained that individually acquired
behaviour through observing others.
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BODY
The growth of human being can be explained by an increase in the size where is development can be explained as a
process of expansion of psychomotor skills. Growth curves are generally used to measure growth (Furnham, 2012).
Human growth and development is a lifelong process of emotional, cognitive, behavioural and physical changes. In every
step of life enormous changes take place. The world health organization has explained health as a combination of overall
psychological, bodily and social wellbeing of an individual without the absence of any disease (Furnham, 2012). The
mental aspect of life can greatly influence the overall wellbeing of the individual and the way of living. Although this
theory is not being practically approved because it is not possible to attain the combination of social, psychological and
bodily wellbeing all the time (Lester, 2013). The growth of human include full of liberty, have the capability to do
anything not is present only but also in future.
According to the case scenario, Jenny had a difficult pregnancy and has between spent several weeks in the hospital
post-natal depression and pre-eclampsia. She has been in mediation. She is coming up with this situation as her husband
Dave was so supportive and caring. Later on, she was diagnosed with breast cancer which is malignant and now she has
been broken emotionally (Lester, 2013). She has decided to not to tell anyone and keep it secret. Jenny has been
suffering from emotional problems. Dave was very fortunate and does not regret his hasty plans (Lester, 2013). He has
worked for around 20 years as a builder but now he has been suffering from back injury (Lester, 2013). In his workplace,
it has been seen that there is redundancy and he is going to affect. He has been suffering from mental trauma due to her
wife illness and job pressure. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory was developed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 (Lester,
2013). It is a motivational theory consists of the five-tier model of needs of human depicted as hierarchical levels in the
form of a pyramid. This theory o very useful in order to understand how motivation and drive are correlated when
addressing the behavior of an individual. Every person must contain some amount of internal sensation in order to meet
hierarchy (Cao et al., 2013). He described the term physiological, belongings and love, safety, esteem or social needs
and self-actualization. Form the bottom to upward the needs of a human are physiological, safety, love and belonging,
esteem and self-actualization (Cao et al., 2013). He explained that people must be satisfied with the lower level need in
order to progress upward level need. Later on, he clarified that the need for people is not an "all-or-none" concept (Cao
et al., 2013). The physiological need is the first need of the individual if these need is not fulfilling the body of a human
cannot function optimally. Second is safety needs as it protects from the law, order, security, stability and security. The
first need is love and belongingness, Jenny has been suffering from health crises and hence she needs love and feeling of
belongingness (Taormina and Gao, 2013). She needs mental support in order to deal with the situation. The
interpersonal relationship can help her to motivate behaviour to fight in a difficult situation. Esteem needs depend on
oneself and respect from others. It indicated that the need for reputation or respect is important for people and precede
dignity or self-esteem (Taormina and Gao, 2013). Self-actualization needs seeking personal growth and experience, self-
fulfilment and realizing personal potential. He examined that order to need can be flexible and is based on the individual
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difference or external circumstances. He has been concluded that an individual is motivated through the hierarchy of
needs (Taormina and Gao, 2013). Needs of an individual are arranged in a hierarchy pattern in which more basic needs
are less met as compared to higher needs. The order of needs can be flexible and depends on the priorities of the
people. The behaviour of an individual is multi-motivated and can be determined by more than one basic need. Every
individual is unique and hence their needs are different from one other (Taormina and Gao, 2013). The motivation of
self-actualization can lead individual in a different direction. Maslow explained that every individual is being capable and
has a desire to move towards the level of self-actualization. However, progresses often affected due to failure to meet
lower level needs. Health and illness, life experience, relationship status may cause a person to fluctuate between five-
stage models. However, everyone will not move in a uni-directional manner, some can move in back and forth direction
in order to succeed in different types of need (Taormina and Gao, 2013).
Theory of adolescence explained the developmental stage between infantile and maturity. The period starts from the
onset of puberty and the appearance of secondary sexual characters. It is usually between 11 to 23 years of age
(Colarusso and Nemiroff, 2013). It is a period during which the individual experience various biological changes. It is a
period of stress and storm. The various author described adolescent as fickle in their desire, lacking in sexual self-
restraint, impulsive and passionate. During the middle stage, the adolescent has been ignoring mostly as a life stage and
children have been viewed as a small adult (Vetter et al., 2013). Agitation in adolescence is universal and has not been
affected by social context and time. Puberty can be considered as to initiate adolescence. Biological changes in the
adolescence contribute to mood changes or disruptions. Various research evidence that high levels of gonadal and
adrenal androgens are linked with mild delinquent behaviour, irritable rebelliousness and sad effect in boys. Hormonal
changes during the puberty have been associated with emotional volatility and negative mood in early adolescence
(Arnett, 2014).
The psychodynamic theory is based upon the interaction of forces and drives within the individual, particularly
unconscious and the various structure of the personality (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). Sigmund Freud in the early 20th
century has proposed a psychodynamic theory (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). He explained that the feeling and
behaviour of an individual are powerfully affected by unconscious motives. The unconscious mind includes mental
processes that are unreachable to consciousness but can influence behaviour, feeling or judgment (Frederickson, 2013).
The unconscious mind is one of the primary sources of the behaviour of the individual. Like an iceberg, the most
essential part that is mind cannot be seen. The feeling, decision and motives of Jenny are powerfully influenced by her
past experience and have been stored in the unconscious mind. The feeling and behaviour as an adult can be rooted due
to childhood experience (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). The event that has been occurred during childhood can greatly
influence adult lives. The event or issue occurs in childhood has been stored in the unconscious mind and may create a
problem in adult life. The personality of an individual has been shaped or drive through different conflict that occurs
during childhood (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). All behaviour has been associated with some cause even the slip of
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tongue and hence all behaviour can be identified. This theory is strongly deterministic as it explained that the behaviour
of an individual is governed by unconscious factors and has no control over it. Unconscious feeling and thought can be
transfer into the conscious mind in the form of Para praxe (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). Sigmund explained that
personality depends on three-part that is id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the most instinctive and primitive component
of personality the ego has been developed in order to facilitate between the external real world and unrealistic id
(Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014). The superego incorporates morals and values of society and has been acquired from one
parent to others. Freud, later on, modifies his theory and state that the tendency to loss internalize object is normal and
the depression is mainly due to severe super-ego. It has been seen that the depressive phase occur generally when
conscience or superego is dominant (Rutan, Stone and Shay, 2014).
Social learning theory was developed by Albert Bandura in 1977 (Akers, 2017). He explained two important ideas. First is
the mediating process occur between responses and stimuli. Other is, behaviour has been learned from the
environment by observing others (Jarvis, 2012). People that are observed others are called model. In a community,
children have been influenced by many models such as a character on TV, parents within the family and teacher at
school (Terrie, 2018). Generally, children pay attention to some of the models and they encode their behaviour. In later
life they copy their behaviour. Children are more likely to imitate the behaviour of others and try to perceive as similar
to it. Social learning theory often describes as the bridge between the cognitive approach and traditional learning theory
(Brauer and Tittle, 2012). This theory focuses on how mental factors has been involved in the learning process. Bandura
ha proposed four meditational processes:
Attention: the extent to which the behaviour of an individual is being noticed or exposed. The behaviour to be copied
has to grab attention. However, many behaviours have been noticed on a daily basis and many of these are not worthy
(Lampard and Sharbanee, 2015). And hence attention is very important in order to acquire the behaviour of others.
Retention: how well the behaviour can be retained. Sometimes the behaviour has been noticed but not remembered
always which may prevent imitation.
Reproduction: this is the ability of the individual to reproduce behaviour that has been observed. This can influence the
decision. However, we have noticed various behaviour on a daily basis but this is not always imitated (Lampard and
Sharbanee, 2015).
Motivation: sometimes motivation can help to imitate certain behaviour. Rewards and punishment can change the
behaviour of an individual.
People learned through observing others. Jenny and Dave have been suffering from mental trauma and hence their child
Chantelle will imitate behaviour from his parents (Lampard and Sharbanee, 2015). Bandura explained that children learn
violence, aggression and other social behaviour through watching or observing other behaviours. People acquired
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behaviour either through punishment or reinforcement. Reinforcement can be positive or negative and can be external
or internal. External reinforcement is when children want approval from peers or parents while internal reinforcement is
when children being happy about approval (Lampard and Sharbanee, 2015). A child also take account to know what
happens to other people in order to decide whether to copy or not someone action.
Behaviour theory emphasizes that environmental factors play a great role in influencing the behaviour of an individual
(Lampard and Sharbanee, 2015). Jenny behaviour has been influenced by the environmental factors as she thinks that
telling her condition to her family, would also affect the life of them and hence she thinks itself to deal with the problem.
Certain environmental factors influence her to know to share her condition to anyone even her husband also. This might
can affect her mental condition. The new behaviour can be learned through operant or classical conditioning (Lampard
and Sharbanee, 2015). It is based on the idea that the behaviour of an individual has been acquired through
conditioning. Environmental stimuli can shape the action of the individual. The behaviour of an individual can be studied
in an observable and systematic manner irrespective of internal mental states (Lampard and Sharbanee, 2015). An
individual can be trained potentially in order to perform any task irrespective of internal thoughts, personality traits and
genetic background. Classical conditioning technique is used to trained behaviour. Naturally, the occurring stimulus is
being paired with a neutral stimulus. Operant conditioning is a process of learning that occurs through punishment and
reinforcement (Sarason, 2013). This theory is based on observable behaviour and hence it is easy to collect and quantify
data in order to conduct research. This theory clearly measures and observe the behaviour of an individual. The
theoretical goal of this theory is to control and predict human behavior (Sarason, 2013). Skinner explained that the
behaviour of an individual is followed by pleasant consequence and it is more likely to repeated while behaviour that
follows unpleasant experience are less likely to get the repeat. Skinner recognizes three responses that follow behavior
(Payne, 2015).
Neutral operant: environment influence response that neither decrease nor increase the probability of individual
behaviour that could repeat.
Reinforces environment influence response that increases the chances of a behaviour that can be repeated.
Reinforcement can be negative or positive (Payne, 2015).
Punishers: environment influence responses that decrease the probability of a behaviour being repeated. Punishment
often weak behaviour.
Skinner explained that positive reinforcement can strengthen the behaviour of an individual. It is due to an individual
may find rewarding (Payne, 2015). The behaviour can be strengthened by removing unpleasant reinforcement. It can be
able to remove an adverse stimulus.
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CONCLUSION
Mental trauma adversely affects the growth and development of an individual. There are various theories such as
Maslow's hierarchy of need, social learning theory, behavioural theory, a theory of adolescence and psychodynamic
theory explained the impact of changes on development and behaviour of person. These theories are used to predict
the behaviour of the human being as well. It has been analyses that the behaviour of the individual has depended on a
variety of factors such as environmental factor, emotional factor, psychological factors and physical factors. Every theory
describes various methods in various ways and all have a different point of views in terms of positive or negative. People
imitate some behaviour by observing others. Maslow's explained the five-tier model of the behaviour of an individual.
According to him, Jenny needs love and belongingness in order to deal with health crises. It has been analyses that if all
these theories have put in a correct and efficient way, it could help to demonstrate the behaviour of an individual who
has been suffering from a variety of illness.
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