Analysis of Theoretical Approaches to Mental Illness & Therapies

This report provides an overview of mental illness, examining the signs and symptoms of depression and schizophrenia. It analyzes behaviorist and biological theoretical models to explain these disorders, highlighting the strengths and limitations of each. The report further discusses three therapeutic approaches—behavioral therapy, cognitive therapy, and interpersonal therapy—providing fact sheets that detail their critical features, treatment methods, and ethical considerations. The conclusion summarizes the key insights gained regarding mental illness and its various theoretical and therapeutic perspectives.

Theoretical approaches to
mental illness

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Sign and symptoms of two psychological disorder:....................................................................3
Two theoretical models of disorder:............................................................................................4
Strength and limitations of two theories:.....................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
CONLUSION..................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Mental illness means poor or bad condition of mind which effect the human being, this
often decrease the activeness of person and make them feel weak (Cho, et.al., 2019). Mental
illness is very dangerous for a person because this can even lead to some serious issue or even
can cause loss of life. In this report we will discuss sign and symptom of two mental illness and
examine two theoretical models to explain each disorder. Later we will analyse strength and
weakness of useful therapy for two disorder. At last, we will discuss three therapeutic approaches
in treatments of mental illness with separate fact sheet.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
Sign and symptoms of two psychological disorder:
Depression: depression is one of the most common psychological disorder and often most
dangerous one for human being. This creates unhappiness in mind of person, they started to loss
interest, feel tired and sadness remain throughout the day. There are certain signs and symptoms
of depression such as:
Sign of depression:
Sudden sadness: Depression often make the person feel sad at every part of their life, the major
sign of depression is a person suddenly become sad (Gross, Uusberg and Uusberg, 2019). This
happened because an individual suddenly remember something from the past from which they
were effected badly.
Hopelessness: a person who is suffering from depression may feel hopeless, this is major sign of
depression which state that person might feel hopelessness in certain tough situation and try to
end life.
Symptoms of depression:
Sleeping problem: lack of sleep or sleeping problem is the biggest symptom of depression, some
people over sleep and some do not get proper sleep. High level of depression can lead to sudden
wake up in midnight and finding it difficult to sleep again.

Anxiety: anxiety is major part of depression, these both are connected with each other. If a
person get anxiety which include nervousness or sudden panic while catch depression in no time.
Symptom of anxiety may include increased in heart rate, sweating and finding it troubles to
concentrate and focus.
Schizophrenia: schizophrenia is one of the most dangerous mental illness which create
abnormal reality, this might result a person to fall into hallucination which effect the daily life of
a person.
Sign of schizophrenia: the major sign is that a person feel hallucination in daily function of life
and effect their mental stability.
Symptom: the major symptom of schizophrenia is delusion and disorganized speech. This is one
of the major symptom which can be easily notice by a normal person.
Two theoretical models of disorder:
Behaviourist theory state that environment play an vital role in shaping person's
behaviour, this highlight the condition from which a person might learn behaviour such as,
classical condition, operant condition and social learning condition.
Operant condition: operant condition means a person might fall into depression if the positivity
is removed from the environment. This happened because a person suddenly loss something for
example losing job (Vigo, Thornicroft and Atun, 2016). These type of depressed people reduce
energy of their surrounding people. In operant condition a person loss the interest or positive
reinforcement because of losing someone or something that have been providing positivity to the
person.
Classical condition: classical condition means a person might reactive depression after the cure.
This often happened when a person suddenly become sad for no reason, however this theory
have nothing to do with endogenous depression which influence the mood of a person, mood of a
person changes after a negative hit.
Social condition: social learning theory means a person might learning negative things from the
social environment, if the person is concern about being socially connected with people around
them but only get the negative energy. This type of depression often happened because of over
observation of social behaviour, this includes observing people and reinforcing the negative
point in the state of mind. Depressed people are not socially active that is why it is easy to spot
them.

Biological theory: biological theory state that a person might be depressed because of genetic or
body chemical. Some depressions occur through genetic bounding such as family problem or
past case which effect the mental stability of a person. This mental illness theory state that
depression is inherited which occur through biochemistry. The example of biochemistry means
very less mono amines in a human body through genetic default.
Strength and limitations of two theories:
The behaviourist theory explain that a person might feel depressed through changing
behaviour or through change in the surrounding. There are certain limitations and strength of
behaviourist theory such as:
Strength: this theory help in identification of depression and cause of depression, some people
find it beneficial to use behaviourist theory to cure their depression.
Limitations: behaviourist theory fail to underpin the mood of an individual, this theory state that
a person have nothing to do with bad thing and depression is endogenous which is proven wrong
by researcher.
Biological theory: biological theory means a person might get depression through biological
concern, there are certain strength and limitations of biological theory such as:
Strength: biological theory provide clear understanding about the cause of depression, this state
that people might get depression through genetic or inherited concern.
Limitations: biological theory is not completely true, some theory state that a person get
depression through their own life experience not through the past of their parent. Which fail the
biological theory.
TASK 2

Fact sheet 1
Behavioural therapy
Brief overview:
Behavioural therapy: behavioural therapy is one of the best therapy in treatments of mental
illness, this help a person to reduce maladaptive behaviour with adaptive behaviour. This theory
help person to change the behaviour and reduce fear that cause mental illness.
Critical features:
Behavioural therapy help a person to change the behaviour to solve half of the problem.
This therapy is most used therapy to treat the mental illness patient.
How the therapy treats:
Behavioural therapy: the behavioural therapy in the treatments of mental illness, this theory
treat the mental illness with a sense of creating positive behaviour (Horwitz, 2020). If a person
have depression as a mental illness then behavioural theory will help them to treat the problem
while changing the behaviour whereas if a person have schizophrenia then they have to be
treated on daily basis means they need to behavioural theory support in the treatment.
Ethical issue:
The behavioural therapy have certain ethical issue such as exposer of confidentiality of person
while getting the treatment, the major ethical issue in behavioural therapy is conflict.
Strength and limitations:
The strength of behavioural therapy lies in the effectiveness of this therapy. And allow person
to focus on single goal and make those improvements.
The limitation of behavioural therapy highlight that a person might find difficult to address
some situation.

Fact sheet 2
Cognitive therapy
Brief overview:
Cognitive therapy: cognitive therapy means a person might identify internal distortion and
understand who this effect the mental health. This therapy target the core belief of a person and
allow them to rethink certain belief and assumption.
Critical features:
How the therapy treats:
Cognitive therapy: cognitive theory in the treatment of mental illness help person to remove
certain failure from the feeling or personal life (Lysaker and Klion, 2017). If the person have
depression then they to take cognitive therapy which help them to reduce the fear of failure.
Whereas if the person have schizophrenia then they have to take treatments from cognitive
therapy on daily basis to reduce symptom and bring improvement in the behaviour.
Ethical issue:
The ethical issue faced by this therapy is this therapy is vignette and make the mental ill person
more unhappy. The major ethical issue in cognitive therapy is person might feel selection bias
in the treatment.
strength and limitations:
The strength of cognitive therapy lies in the effectiveness, this therapy is very beneficial in
some case as they allow a person to be happy in some stages of treatment.
The limitation of this therapy is, this can not be applied to all mental illness cases, some people
might find difficult in the treatment of mental illness with this therapy.

3 therapy
Brief overview:
Interpersonal therapy: interpersonal therapy means a person with depression will be treated by
improving the psychological area. This help them to better the relationship to reduce the chance
of depression.
Critical features:
How the therapy treats:
Interpersonal theory highlight the treatments of mental illness through sense of interpersonal.
These treatments are done through creating a sense of togetherness to make a person feel safe
with other (Varshney, et.al., 2016). Many people who find it difficult to interact with other
might fall into mental illness and this can even cause serious problems. To overcome this,
interpersonal theory is the best.
Ethical issue:
Ethical issue means those problems that might occur in the treatments of mental disorder
through therapy, the ethical issue in interpersonal therapy is, interpersonal therapy is not
possible in some cases which face serious ethical issue. The IPT can be very effective in
treatments of mental illness but this is for short term which sometimes not very beneficial.
strength and limitations:
The strength of interpersonal therapy of treatments of mental illness is this method of
treatments is one of the most effective because this help person to create a sense of safety and
security.
The limitations of interpersonal therapy is it can not be used in some serious mental illness or
disorder. This may be very effective in mental illness like depression but this is limitation in
terms of schizophrenia.

CONLUSION
In this report we have discussed mental illness and explained two psychological disorders. Later
we have discussed strength and limitation of these two psychological disorder. At last, we have
discussed three different therapeutic approaches and provided fact sheet for the same.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Cho, et.al., 2019. Review of machine learning algorithms for diagnosing mental
illness. Psychiatry investigation, 16(4), p.262.
Gross, J.J., Uusberg, H. and Uusberg, A., 2019. Mental illness and well‐being: an affect
regulation perspective. World Psychiatry, 18(2), pp.130-139.
Horwitz, A.V., 2020. Creating mental illness. University of Chicago Press.
Lysaker, P.H. and Klion, R.E., 2017. Recovery, meaning-making, and severe mental illness: A
comprehensive guide to metacognitive reflection and insight therapy. Routledge.
Varshney, et.al., 2016. Violence and mental illness: what is the true story?. J Epidemiol
Community Health, 70(3), pp.223-225.
Vigo, D., Thornicroft, G. and Atun, R., 2016. Estimating the true global burden of mental
illness. The Lancet Psychiatry. 3(2). pp.171-178.
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