Domains of Past, Present, and Future and Their Importance in Mental Health Assessment
The mental health of Chung is characterized with a low mood following many negative factors at home, school and work place. It could be described as sad hopeless, helpless, lonely and worthless. Signs of mental illness like restrictiveness, and sadness are portrayed by Chung. Chung is tearful and has a flat mood. This means that he is psychologically struggling with something. His affect is a strong evidence towards the same because his posture is that one of being slumped in a chair with rounded shoulders, confusion (staring at the floor aimlessly for long), and poor eye contact (Pollard, 2018).
Mental illness is confirmed when a person shows hesitation in thinking and speaking (Taylor, 2013). The thinking process could be vague or totally blocked. Speech is an expression of thinking and all thinking processes are mental processes. Chung expresses a slow speech pattern to imply that his thinking coherence is impaired. He stares at the floor for long and the nurse has to repeat a question for him to give a reasonable answer is another proof. A mentally ill person experiences a flight of ideas (Taylor, 2013). The content of Chung’s thought is a misinterpretation of reality like in other mental illness cases. He feels worthless and has suicidal thoughts, plans and intentions, because he feel like a failure to his wife and daughter
Anxiety disorders are characteristic aspects that one is mentally unhealthy (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Fear is one aspect of anxiety (Ressler, Pine & Rothbaum, 2015). Chung expresses anxiety disorders because of working in the ever busy emergency department, long working hours. For him having suicidal thoughts confirms anxiety (Kanwar et al., 2013). Chung is has internal fears concerning his wife and child and that contributes to his increased anxiety. Chung still have classes to attend to makes it even worse considering that he sometimes work at night and maybe during the day, attends some lessons. Mental illness comes with lack of sleep problems, an aspect of anxiety like Chung (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
This disorder is characterized by poor eating related traits that leads to ingestion and absorption of food leading to physical health impairment (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). This confirms why Chung has lost 5 kilograms. Low self-esteem is one of the factors leading to poor eating disorders. All these aspects confirm mental incapacitation. Chung is reported to dislike food. His mentally ill condition does has affected his appetite and he has been missing meals. Poor eating disorders confirms depression too. Depressed people eat less or don’t eat all (Stice, Marti & Rohde, 2013). It affects eating a habits by creating an apathetic in the brain about food. Eating disorders are also interrelated with anxiety, and it is confirmed that Chung is anxious (Walsh, Attia, Glasofer & Sysko, 2015).
He is distressed because he has no meaningful input towards the growth of his child and staying for quite a long time without seeing his parents and siblings. Chung lacking of time for his marriage is another factor considering that besides his busy schedule of work at duty, he also pursing more education. He is literally desperate for a promotion. His wife, experiencing pain at the birth canal means that Chung does not enjoy his sex life anymore. These are reasons why Chung wishes to take away his own life (Rubin, Trawver & Springer, 2013).
Chung’s Mental Health Status and Symptoms
According to a study by OECD (2014), workers who are mentally ill work in jobs strained environments which consequently affect their mental health.
Chung’s place of work is the busy Accident and Emergency department. He has to work for long hours. The continuous practice of working at night has affected his sleeping pattern and now he lacks sleep or wakes up very early (at 3 am) (Sohn, Choi & Jung, 2016). Sleep and mental health are interrelated. Lack of enough sleep affects the psychological state of the mind and consequently mental illness. The vice versa is also true in that people with mental health problems have sleep disorders. (Harvard Medical School, 2018).
The place of work is very strict despite having poor working conditions and allowances and that could have contributed to Chung’s mental illness (Sohn, Choi & Jung, 2016). The management seems unsupportive by making Chung work for long hours (OECD, 2014). Again, the management made Chung goes through tough time 2 years ago because of making a drug error without considering that he had been overworked and therefor tired-having been on call of duty to see different patients on the night of the incident. Moreover, the management only allowed Chung one week maternity leave towards the birth of Charlotte.
Chung is living in a foreign country away from his parents and siblings home. It has been 4 years since he last saw them. Wedding Harriet without them led to his emotional distress. He seems to love his Chinese culture and the involvement of his family as culture dictates, during marriage. To make it worse, his mother is sick of arthritis in her hips. This is an issue of loss of sense of identity has an impact on the psychological wellness. The love and attachment to one’s blood family is an important factor towards good mental health (Schwab, Stephenson & Ice, 2013).
Chung is anxious for a promotion, as maybe he believes that will relive him of the many duties and long durations of work. His devotion to work surpasses his devotion to marriage and fanily and that is a contributing factor (Schwab, Stephenson & Ice, 2013). But he does it with hope that he will be elevated to a higher position and have enough money to enhance his parents to travel to Australia or him travelling to China.
Recovery puts emphasis on withholding from medication, remission of symptoms and return to normal condition (Marton, 2016). The policy context of evaluating the recovery from mental disorders comprises of 3 comprehensive classes of definitions for recovery which are; clinical, research and consumer. It is from this consumer definitions that three positive strength-based aspects of recovery; respect hope and empowerment are derived (Marton, 2016).
Respect during recovery applies mostly in the use of language when addressing the mentally unhealthy person. It also applies when the person makes some decisions, essential dignity, as per his wishes. The patient’s private life is also to be respected and is right for every patient (Weller, 2013). The approaches taken in recovery practices should be that of respecting his individuality and they should be flexible within the circumstantial framework (Silverman, 2015). A mentally unhealthy person if a delicate person to deal with and unless you accord him the respect he deserves during recovery, the outcomes might not be positive. Considering that the person suffers depression and anxiety, he may act wildly if not shown respect, should his decisions, values, beliefs and culture overlooked. Being courteous and honest is also important respect aspect during interactions (Australian Government Department of Health, 2018).
Factors Contributing to Chung’s Mental Illness
A circle of care and hope is described as the foundation of the mental recovery exercise (Vansiea, 2016). Mental illness comes with despair. That renders the recovery process difficult especially when the patient has no motivation or willingness to collaborate with the medical team. Chung for example is hopeless to the extent he wants to die. He has lost meaning of living because he is unsupportive to his ailing wife and has no ample time to stay with her daughter. He has no faith in treatment. Such a person is extremely desperate and unless the recovery process incorporate hope, it will all be for no use. The hope should be accompanied by humor, love and pride to make the patient realize the other phase of life other than desperation (Mizock & Russinova, 2016).
Empowerment for people with mental illness is an important measure towards their recovery (Vansiea, 2016). Empowerment entails facilitation of one to express his wishes, needs or wants. It boost the self-esteem of the depressed people to enhance that they are comfortable enough to express their feelings fearlessly. Empowerment involves aspects of hope, respect and being non-judgmental. The recovery model for empowerment should be that one of full acceptance of the person under care without any attitude that would impose a feeling of insufficiency (Vansiea, 2016). The recovery process for a consumer should involve himself in the plan of the care as he is the driving force behind the recovery process. Empowerment is important for such people to promote personal acceptance. It gives an allowance for the concerned to provide recovery care for self, decision making and interacting with diverse services to get the best psychosocial care (Australian Government Department of Health, 2018).
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5®). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Australian Government Department of Health. (2018). Department of Health | Principles of recovery oriented mental health practice. Retrieved from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-n-servst10-toc~mental-pubs-n-servst10-pri#4
Australian Government Department of Health. (2018). Department of Health | Empowering consumers and their families and carers through participation and partnerships. Retrieved from https://health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-p-mono-toc~mental-pubs-p-mono-inc~mental-pubs-p-mono-inc-emp
Harvard Medical School. (2018). Sleep and mental health – Harvard Health. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/sleep-and-mental-health
Kanwar, A., Malik, S., Prokop, L., Sim, L., Feldstein, D., Wang, Z., & Murad, M. (2013). THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN ANXIETY DISORDERS AND SUICIDAL BEHAVIORS: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS. Depression And Anxiety, n/a-n/a. doi: 10.1002/da.22074
Marton, K. (2016). Measuring recovery from substance use or mental disorders;Workshop Summary (p. 13). National Academies Press.
Mizock, L., & Russinova, Z. (2016). Acceptance of mental illness (pp. 18-75). Oxford University Press.
OECD. (2014). Mental health and work (pp. 92-93). Paris: OECD Publishing.
Pollard, C. (2018). Fundamentals of the psychiatric mental health status examination (pp. 36-42). [S.l.]: Canadian Scholars Pr.
Ressler, K., Pine, D., & Rothbaum, B. (2015). Anxiety Disorders (pp. 59-61). Cary: Oxford University Press.
Rubin, A., Trawver, K., & Springer, D. (2013). Psychosocial treatment of schizophrenia (p. 56). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
Silverman, M. (2015). Music therapy in mental health for illness management and recovery (p. 290). Oxford University Press.
Sohn, M., Choi, M., & Jung, M. (2016). Working conditions, psychosocial environmental factors, and depressive symptoms among wage workers in South Korea. International Journal Of Occupational And Environmental Health, 22(3), 209-217. doi: 10.1080/10773525.2016.1200212.
Schwab, J., Stephenson, J., & Ice, J. (2013). Evaluating Family Mental Health: History, Epidemiology, and Treatment Issues Critical Issues in Psychiatry (p. 205). New York: Springer Science & Business Media.
Stice, E., Marti, C., & Rohde, P. (2013). Prevalence, incidence, impairment, and course of the proposed DSM-5 eating disorder diagnoses in an 8-year prospective community study of young women. Journal Of Abnormal Psychology, 122(2), 445-457. doi: 10.1037/a0030679
Taylor, M. (2013). The neuropsychiatric mental status examination (pp. 48-50). New York: Pergamon.
Vansiea, J. (2016). Judy E. Vansiea’s circle of care and hope (pp. 6-83). [Parker, Colorado]: Outskirts Press.
Walsh, B., Attia, E., Glasofer, D., & Sysko, R. (2015). Handbook of assessment and treatment of eating disorders. American Psychiatric Pub.
Weller, P. (2013). New law and ethics in mental health advance directives (pp. 32-128). East Sussex [UK]: Routledge.
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