Mental health is the state of mental wellbeing in which an individual is capable of enjoying life and makes use of the mental abilities to become productive. However, the goal of sound mental health is difficult to achieve due to the threats of mental disorders. It is an unfortunate fact that there is no way to completely cure the mental health issues like mental retardation, depression, anxiety and panic. Mental health treatment is the term actually used for the management of various mental conditions to make the life as normal as possible. What does this management involve?
Medications
The medical experts rely on drugs and medications in different categories to help in mental disorder management. Some of them include:
- Antidepressants: Different types of depression, panic disorders and phobias can be managed with these medications.
- Anti-anxiety Medications: Generalized anxiety disorder symptoms like insomnia and disturbance can be improved.
- Antipsychotic Medications: Useful in managing schizophrenia, bipolar disorders and other similar mental conditions.
- Mood-stabilizers: Medications used to stabilize moods in different mental conditions.
Psychotherapy
Mental health treatment using medications is not enough and there is need to follow one or the other form of psychotherapy simultaneously. It is the practice of counseling between a mental health expert and a mentally ill patient. Some of the most popular types include:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: To address the abnormalities in behavior and emotions and to improve the cognition processes.
- Psychoanalysis: Helping the patient to communicate about his or her dreams and fantasies to understand the unconscious state of mind.
- Psychodynamic: To help the patients release their psychic tension with verbal communication.
- Brief Therapy: It is an approach in which a particular problematic area is focused on.
Knowledge Enhancement
This particular option is applicable for mental retardation treatment in which medications and psychotherapy don’t play significant roles. The aim of this approach is to make the patients as knowledgeable as their mental ability (intelligence quotient in precise) allows. This includes:
- Special signs training
- Communication in the verbal or written form or with the help of pictures
- Demonstrations and so on
Options to Stimulate Brain Functions
Brains of mentally ill patients need to be stimulated in order to make it function normally and also to relieve certain extremely undesirable symptoms. The methods involved include:
- Electroconvulsive Therapy: It is the procedure of applying electric shock therapy to improve the level of brain neurotransmitters.
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: It involves the use of magnetic field instead of electric shocks.
Participation of Different Individuals and Groups
The mental health treatment is not the responsibility of mental health professionals alone. It involves a number of individuals (like parents, friends and family members) and groups (like community mental health centers, crisis teams, support teams and social workers). Rehabilitations centers and institutes offering residential programs for the patients should be available, especially for the purpose of mental retardation treatment.
Proper diet, physical exercises, brain exercises, love, care and emotional nourishment are among the important parts of dealing with mental health problems. Participation of the patient in self-improvement should be encouraged to make all these treatment options work.
Author bio: This article is written by Vladimir Bestic. Vladimir is the owner of PDC – Psychological Disorders Center which talks about different Mental health Disorders . You can also learn about different depression treatment options by going through the different posts in the blog. If you want to share something with Vladimir, please use the comment feature.