May is Mental Health Awareness Month, so let’s explore a few therapeutic strategies.

There are many therapeutic strategies in mental health, and each depends on the patient and the diagnoses.

For example, therapist will often use what is known as eclectic technique therapy for group meetings. The focus of this therapeutic strategy is to get the patient to stay focused, voice their values and beliefs freely without feeling threatened, learn to pay attention, teaching the patient to accept responsibility and so forth. In most events, the groups consist of Interpersonal, Psycho educational, support, and psychotherapy groups. Many of the patients that attend each of the groups have difficulty socializing, staying focused, trusting others, and are often emotional immature or underdeveloped.

Most of the patients were subjects of harsh society and impractical parent/educational up bring. The patients were probably ridiculed, mocked, punished, and so forth. The point then is to bring the patient to a point of survival that does not include fear.

Another strategy used in therapy is the life-picture map which is a method used to bring a person back to the current times. Often the patient will draw pictures that link to their past finally focusing on their status in life, and then onto their goals in life. For example, what do you see in the picture? I see myself standing on a bridge and a car is nearby but I cannot see the man’s face. It is evident that this bridge, car and man is outdated and may have brought forth fear in the individual. Therefore, we can ask the patient did this man hurt you. I am not sure, I feel uncomfortable, but I do not know why?

Ok, let us move on and look at the picture drawn that illustrates you status in life. What do you see in the picture? I see a person confused and hurt. We can see that the person was hurt from this experience, so our next step is to bring the patient to the point of acceptance after opening up the doors to the past. Next, we move onto the goal intended, which is the patient’s future. What do you see in the picture? I see a person striving to obtain his goals. I see that the person has obstacles that he must overcome to reach those goals. Great, now we are on the road to recovery. The patient sees hope. We must achieve this goal. 

Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy is a strategy utilized in therapy to bring the patient (s) to a level of feeling and understanding his or her inner being and what caused the areas of trouble. For example if a person has a pattern of self-destructive behaviors, such as outrageous outbursts. This means the patient was taught to shout, scream, kick, fight or what-have you and the therapist needs to reconstruct the patient bringing him or her out of the habit and helping them to relate to a new way of dealing with the problem. It is obvious the patient was taught incorrectly and he or she may have endured pain and suffering related to abuse, neglect, and/or violence.

Systematic Desensitization is geared to help patients that are diagnosed with anxiety disorders and/or symptoms. The technique is a trigger-anxiety strategy that helps the patient sees where the triggers are in his or her attacks. For example if the patient has difficulty when the phone rings, since he or she is behind on the bills, it may cause an attack for the patient. The patient obviously does not know how to deal with the problem and is threatened by the sources on the other end of the phone.

The patient will need to learn management skills that will help him or her find a method that works best for him or her to relieve the problem area. The patient also has an issue with avoidance, so therefore we need the patient to take responsibility and face up to his or her problem. We can also see that the patient has suffered a degree of abuse, neglect, and/or underdeveloped growth. Therapy is proving far more achieving than medications and today more strategies and techniques are in development, helping the mentally ill to the road of recovery.   

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