PSY 101 Assignment: Exploring Personality and Mental Health Treatments

This psychology assignment delves into the complexities of personality and mental health. It begins by exploring the concept of personality, defining it as an individual's consistent patterns of feeling and behavior across various situations. The assignment highlights the trait theory as a compelling approach to understanding personality, particularly focusing on the Big Five personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. It then shifts its focus to mental illness, specifically anxiety disorders, and examines various treatment approaches. The assignment compares and contrasts different psychotherapies, including person-centered therapy, family therapy, group therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy, emphasizing the importance of selecting the most appropriate treatment based on individual needs and the therapist's ability to build a strong, therapeutic relationship. The assignment emphasizes that the right treatments can help individuals develop new skills and effectively manage their emotions. The assignment is a student submission to Desklib, a platform providing AI-based study tools for students.

RUNNING HEAD: PSYCHOLOGY 0
2020
Psychology
Student’s Details-

PSYCHOLOGY 1
Question 1
Personality is regarded as the way an individual feel and behave within a particular
situation (Rothe, 2017). Personality traits can affect the consistencies of the behavior across the
time and the situations. There are several approaches for the personality which are humanistic,
behavioral, psychodynamic/psychoanalytic approach and the trait theorist. Amongst all, the trait
theory is the most compelling theory for the recognition of the personality.
Trait theory recognized as an ongoing approach for studying the personality of humans.
Trait theorist make the measurement of the traits through the habitual patterns of behavior and
emotions (Prentice, Jayawickreme, & Fleeson, 2019). Also, traits are that individual
characteristics which are stable over the time but certainly differs from person to person. Further,
trait theorist is the compelling approach because it describes the important dimensions of the
personality through the recognition of the certain characteristics of the individual. Also, the
identification of the unique traits does not always recognize the personality as the traits are same.
The model of Big Five Personality traits can be explained for the grouping of the personalities
and is also regarded as five-factor model and also OCEAN which defines the five basic
personalities for the identification of the human behavior (Stajkovic, Bandura, Locke, Lee, &
Sergent, 2018).
The five factors are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion,
agreeableness and neuroticism. The first personality trait under the Big Five personality model is
the openness to experience which examines the individual’s actions, ideas, emotions and
imagination. This trait defines the personality of the individual as curious, outgoing and have a
wide range of interests. Further, the second trait is the conscientiousness which elaborates the
personality to be competent, thoughtfulness and are actual goals. The people scoring higher
under this dimension are regarded as hardworking, follow the rules and dependable. Further,
third trait is extroversion which examines the personality to be highly sociable, talkative,
excitement and have social expression (Kayiş, et al., 2016). The people’s personality is warm
when scored higher under this dimension. Fourth dimension under the model is agreeableness
which defines the personality to be cooperative, trustworthy and good natured. These people are
easy going and can get along and give respect to other people’s opinions and choices. Last factor

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under the model is neuroticism have the tendency to experience negative emotions and are highly
impulsive and hostile. They are constantly get affected by the little things and often feel insecure.
The trait theory majorly affects the human behavior as these set of characteristics define
the ways people make responses within the specific situation. There are adaptations of the trait
theory for the recognition of the behaviors of the individual. This can be helpful in the
identification of the real-world behaviors through predicting the performance at the college and
school and also the identification of the physical health which is defined by the personality
(Prentice, Jayawickreme, & Fleeson, 2019). Relatively, this can also be seen in the case of the
identification of the culture as this elaborates the preferences of the individual. Moreover, trait
theory can determine the person to be individualistic and collectivist.
In the whole, trait theory is treated as the compelling theory as this defines the ways for
the identification of the personality in an effective way. Moreover, the model of Big Five
Personality Traits is the useful model which can confirm the personality and the human reactions
associated with each of the personality traits.
Question 3
There are several medical and psychotherapy treatments of the mental illness. Moreover,
use of the psychotherapy for the treatment of the person suffering from the anxiety disorders can
create a quality of life for the individual (Roehricht, 2015). The comparing and contrasting the
various therapies are crucial to identify the treatment given to the individual who has anxiety
disorder.
Psychotherapy is that branch of medicine which provides help people to cope with the
emotional and interpersonal problems to create the quality of life. There are various
psychotherapies which can be used for the treatment of the anxiety disorder (Fox, 2017). One of
the therapies for mental illness treatment is person-centered therapy which aims to solve the
client’s problems through the humanistic approach. Under this therapy, the therapists become a
compassionate listener and understands the point of view of the client by giving
acknowledgement and also make efforts for the determination of client’s negative experience
which led to anxiety (Boyer, 2016). Therapist is required to be highly empathetic and also
attempt to build interpersonal relationship with the client so that client does not feel hesitate to

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share the negative experiences. This can create a motivation for the client to look forward and
solve the problems.
On comparing and contrasting the other therapies, it can be determined that family
therapy can also act as the effective psychotherapy for the treatment of the anxiety disorders.
Under this therapy, family members come together for the solving of the particular issue. As the
patient is close to family members, this can effectively treat the patient by increasing the
interactions between the family members and remove the barriers of communication (Colapinto,
2015). Also, comparatively, group therapy is an effective form of the psychotherapy in which
therapists makes use of the number of participants for the solving of the issue. This can be
effective for treating anxiety as this allows an individual to make use of more persons which
provides support and also helpful in the understanding of struggles. On making comparison with
the other therapies, it can be observed that cognitive behavioral therapy is also one of the
effective therapies for the treatment of the anxiety disorder. This therapy is based on the
identification of behavior of the clients through the examination of the distorted thoughts and
emotions which can lead to the examination of the core beliefs (Roemer, Arbid, Martinez, &
Orsillo, 2017). The aim of the therapy is changing the thinking level and reactions.
Thus, medical and psychological treatments can be used for the person suffering from the
anxiety disorder. Moreover, the recognition of the right treatment and the symptoms is crucial for
the psychotherapist for making the right treatments which can help the client to develop new
skills and manage the emotions effectively. Further, on comparing and contrasting different
therapies, it can be determined that therapist must use the adequate communication skills for
building therapeutic and trustworthy relationship with the client which can later create the sense
of belongingness giving an opportunity to the client to proper management of the emotions.
Moreover, the use of different kinds of therapies can be helpful in meeting the client’s needs and
create the quality of life for the patients.

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References
Boyer, W. (2016). Person-centered therapy: A philosophy to support early childhood education.
Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(4), 343-348.
Colapinto, J. (2015). Structural family therapy. In Handbook of family therapy (pp. 134-147).
Routledge.
Fox, R. (2017). Research in psychotherapy. Routledge.
Kayiş, A., Satici, S., Yilmaz, M., Şimşek, D., Ceyhan, E., & Bakioğlu, F. (2016). Big five-
personality trait and internet addiction: A meta-analytic review. Computers in Human
Behavior, 63, 35-40.
Prentice, M., Jayawickreme, E., & Fleeson, W. (2019). Integrating whole trait theory and self‐
determination theory. Journal of personality, 87(1), 56-69.
Roehricht, F. (2015). Body psychotherapy for the treatment of severe mental disorders–an
overview. Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 10(1), 51-67.
Roemer, L., Arbid, N., Martinez, J., & Orsillo, S. (2017). Mindfulness-Based Cognitive
Behavioral Treatments. In The Science of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (pp. 175-197).
Academic Press.
Rothe, J. (2017). The scientific analysis of personality. Routledge.
Stajkovic, A., Bandura, A., Locke, E., Lee, D., & Sergent, K. (2018). Test of three conceptual
models of influence of the big five personality traits and self-efficacy on academic
performance: A meta-analytic path-analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 120,
238-245.