Discuss about the Skills To Develop Self In The Treatment Of Mental Illness.
A mental illness can be defined as the disorders that can result in mild to that of severe disturbances in thought as well as behaviours. These result in an inability for coping with ordinary demands and routines of life. Healthcare professionals among service users witness different types of mental illness (Halter, 2017). These disorders include depression, dementia, and schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, psychosis, social withdrawal, substance abuse disorders and many others. Mental health problems are also seen to relate to different types of excessive stress that may result from particular situation as well as events (Schimdt et al., 2016). Mental illness may be caused by genetic factors, environmental stress, biochemical imbalances or combination of the disorders. Researchers are of the opinion that with effective care and treatment, every healthcare centres may learn to cope as well as recover from mental illness as well as emotional disorders (Townsend & Morgan, 2017). Therefore, healthcare professionals have a great responsibility to develop the quality of lives of such people. They should try their best to make them feel socially included, empower them and modify the aspect of stigmatisation that associated with mental health illness. The assignment will mainly portray how the concept of self within different models of practice, relational aspects with practice, policy and legislation and others associated effects should be practiced so that high quality service can be provided to the patients.
As a mental health nurse, it is the duty of each of the professionals to work closely with the patients who have different kinds of mental health issues. Every individual should put their efforts to become experts in assessment, diagnosis as well as treatment of people with the different type of psychiatric problems. They are mainly seen to work as a part of the team so that they can provide total medical care for the patient. They should put their self in the evaluation of the mental health needs of the patients, come up with different types of treatment plans for the patients and also try their best to provide the correct psychotherapy services (Varcarolis et al., 2016). They should also provide personal care to the patient and thereby work in coordination with the families, doctors as well as other healthcare professionals. Giving proper medication is also another important responsibility. The professional needs to develop his self as ways by which he can collaboratively work with the healthcare team members so as to develop an individualised plan. Skills To Develop Self In The Treatment Of Mental Illness Essay Paper Often overcoming certain barriers of self-centred actions and thought procedures one should work collaboratively with the members so that the patients can be provided total care as well as attention in order to make them live a productive life (Lo-biondo et al., 2017). Professionals also need to help patients dress, groom, and take their medications and many others that in turn may become strenuous for the professional. However, they have to develop strategies by which they can undertake stress management and continue providing quality and safe care to mental health patients.
In order to develop one to provide the best customer service to mental health service users, every professional need to develop certain important skills that would help them to provide expert care to patients. In order to develop self, each of the professionals should develop excellent observation skills. They should also develop excellent communication as well as listening skills (Dreisen et al., 2018). They should develop the ability to gain trust of the patient and therefore internal genuineness is required. The professional should develop the empathy as well as the ability to relate with people of all ages and from different backgrounds. They need to develop the ability for staying calm in the difficult situations and should develop assertiveness. They should be able to develop the ability of representing the patient’s needs as well. He should also develop himself so that he can manage stress and at the same time provide day-to-day activities like proper assessment and support of the patients. They should be encouraging the patients and thereby take a part in role play, art, drama as well as discussions including therapies 9Goncalves et al., 2015). The professionals also need to prepare themselves in ways by which physical care is to be given to patient in cases where the patient is too old as well as frail or cannot look after him or herself. Therefore, it can be seen that professionals need to make themselves mentally prepare themselves to provide unconditional physical as well as mental support that might be highly stressful and many burn out professionals. However, proper resilience is one of the most important attribute that nursing professionals should develop so that they can provide high quality care. Researchers state that every individuals in the healthcare centre serving the mental health patients should develop the ability for recovering and recuperating quickly from any difficult situations as well as challenging situations (clement et al., 2015). This quality should not be confused with that of stress management. Resilience mainly helps individuals to incorporate self in modifying the thinking patterns as that stress is bound to happen and thereby should be treated as a part of normal part of the day. Stress management is mainly seen to typically require a breakdown of the situation so that proper resolving of the issues can be done. Therefore, to develop as a self for providing effective care, these attributes are must in every healthcare professional caring for the patient.
One principle that the healthcare professional should be aware of is the concept that every individuals has an intrinsic worth as well as dignity. They also possess the potentialities to grow. The first principle that needs to be developed is that each patient is unique and therefore they should be accepted as the way he is. The self of the professional should be well accustomed with the importance of acceptance as this attribute conveys the service users that the healthcare professional respects and care for them. The self of the professionals should be developed in ways by which acceptance does not mean complete permissiveness but mainly means the setting of different positive behaviours that helps in conveying the respect that the patient deserves as individual human being (Thornicroft et al., 2016). The healthcare professionals should develop a self that would be non-judgmental as well as non-punitive. The professionals should be such that the behaviour of the patient is not judged as right or as wrong. The self of the professionals should be such that it would never allow to punish the individual for his undesirable behaviour. The direct as well as indirect methods of the punishments also need to be avoided. The self of the patient should be such that it would never reject the patient even when the patient is seen to behave contrary to her expectations. The development of self should be such that the professionals are sincerely interested in the patient. The professionals should study the behaviour of the patient, allow him to make his or her own decisions, being aware of his like as well as dislikes, being honest with him, taking time as well as energy to listen to what the patient is saying and avoiding sensitive subjects (Telenius et al., 2015). This minute buy important actions would help the profession to develop therapeutic relationship with the patient. Moreover, the healthcare providers should make sure that when the patient is talking, the professionals should not only provide importance to the conversation but should also provide importance to the feeling behind the conversation. Developing the self of a healthcare professional should also include providing importance to the needs, wants as well as interests. The nurse should provide importance to the effective listening to the patient with time and energy being a sympathetic listener and showing genuine interest. This makes the patients feels that they are cared by the professionals and hence feel significant in their lives. Researchers are of the opinion that strong emotions which, when bottled up are seen to be potentially explosive and thereby dangerous (Price et al., 2015). Therefore, it is better for the professionals to develop their caliber in ways by which they can influence the patients to express their strong feelings without disapproval and thereby punishment.
Researchers advise every healthcare nurse to develop a realistic self-concept and therefore should be able to recognise their own feelings effectively. Such professionals should have the ability to be aware and at the same time to accept his or her own strengths and limitations. This would in turn help her to realise the strengths and limitations of the other people and thereby develop interventions accordingly. At the same time, there should be a consistency that would be maintained in the attitude or staff, ward routine and in defining the limitation that are placed on the patient. Importance of reassurance is also important where the professional would be interacting with the patient (Hockenberry, Wilson & broggers, 2016). Reassurance should be done in a subtle as well as acceptable manner. The nurse needs to understand and thereby analyse the situations and thereby gives reassurance about how the situation is affecting the life of the patients. The self of the professionals should be well developed in a manner where he understands important aspects of the care. The behaviour of the patient is altered through emotional experience and not by rational interpretation and therefore development of emotional intelligence is extremely important. The major focus should be made on the feelings and not on any intellectual aspects. Researchers are of the opinion that advising as well as rationalising with the patients does not provide any effective outcomes in changing behaviours (Stuart et al, 2014). Self of the nurses should be strictly under control where the nurses do not cross their boundaries of professionalism or provide unethical care to the patients. Self-awareness and self-regulation are therefore said to be extremely important factors that should be practiced by the nursing professionals. The nurses should be such that they would never show their own anxiety, should never focus and be attentive to the deficit of the patient, never allow the patient to face repeated failures, placing demands on the patient which he cannot meet and many others. Prevention of these actions would help the patient to not feel demoralised or dependent and these should have positive impacts on the health (Spijkerman et al., 2016).
The Australian Health Ministers advisory council has put a national framework for recovery-oriented mental health services forward. This policy has been provided for the practitioners as well as providers to help them follow effective guidelines by which recovery oriented care can be provided to the patients. One of the most important domain where the development of self is extremely important is the promotion of culture and language of both hope and optimism. The processionals should develop selves where they could promote the culture as well as language of the recovery oriented mental health service. They need to communicate positive expectation and at the same time promote hope as well as optimism (Benett et al., 2015). This results in making the person feel valued, important, safe as well as welcome. Another important domain where the professionals should try to develop their skills are to provide the person centred holistic approach. Another domains where the researchers have also stated professionals to be actively included is the supporting of personal recovery. Skills To Develop Self In The Treatment Of Mental Illness Essay Paper The professionals mainly focus on the strengths as well as the personal responsibility of the patients and thereby engage in collaborative relationships as well as reflective practices. One more domain of the policy that the professionals should provide importance is called the Organisational commitment as well as workforce development. The professionals should advocate on the behalf of the patients, helping the organisation to develop culture of commitment, vision as well as culture, acknowledging the value and learning from lived experiences, recovery promoting service partnerships as well as workforce development and planning (Hercelyinski et al., 2014). The last domain where the professionals should provide most importance is the action on social inclusion and even the social determinants of physical health, mental; health as well as the well-being. Professionals should develop themselves in ways by which they can support social inclusion as well as advocacy on social determinants. They should also challenge stigmatising attitudes as well as discrimination and should strike effective partnerships with communities.
The self understanding of the mental health act that was published in the year of 2015 helps professionals to conduct practices that are not only ethical but also legally accepted thereby preventing themselves to get involved in any legal obligations. In the provision of care to patients, often professionals are found to suffer from ethical as well as legal dilemma as they cannot understand the activities that should undertake for a particular situation. Therefore, it becomes extremely important for every healthcare professionals to develop knowledge and self understanding about the different laws so that they can maintain the human rights of the patients and ensure high quality care (Heller et al., 2015). Eight important areas where the healthcare professionals need to focus so that they can gain knowledge and ensure practice that would prevent occurrence of any issues. The important arenas are the involuntary treatment as well as commitment criteria in the Australian as well as the New Zealand domain. The second domain would mainly include the criteria of the informed consent to psychiatric treatment. The third domain mainly shows the legislative regulations that professionals should follow during the application and use of electroconvulsive therapy. Important arenas regarding the special provisions governing informed consent to ECT should be properly followed so that the patients’ self esteem are not harmed but in turn, their autonomy and dignity are respected. Effective knowledge about the seclusion as well as restraints domains should be developed so that the professionals can ensure beneficence, non-maleficence as well as justice (Muskett, 2014). Effective following of the ethnic groups preferences and providing care to the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and M?ori should be ensured so that effective care is given and the patients feel empowered. Definition of forensic patients should also be properly known.
Conclusion:
From the above discussion above, it becomes clear that the mental health professionals have to develop his self in ways by which they can emotionally connect with the service users. Moreover, it was also seen that development of skills is entirely dependent on the self awareness of the professionals. Better they are aware of the principles of mental healthcare, better will be there development of skills. They should consider patients to be unique, ensure they accept the patients as they are, and provide therapeutic treatment in a holistic approached trying to find the source of the disorders and many others. Connecting with the patient emotionally and providing support of all kinds may make the professionals develop stress. Hence, stress management and resilience are important. Self-awareness and self-regulation are found to be also important in striking effective relationship with patients. All these have positive impacts on both the mental as well as the physical health of the patient. Following polices and legislations would help individuals to ensure that they are providing effective care to patients ensuring them a better quality life.
References:
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