General Psychology - Essay

PSYCHOLOGY NEUROSES 04/03/2004 By: Peter Packroff

(ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE)

Every human is unique and so are all variations of disorders and depressions.

Therefore there exist a large number of treatment methods from medical treatment to therapy and healing, to cure the wide range of mental diseases, I will shortly describe the phenomenon neuroses and describe the symptoms on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), Depression and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and the trigger that caused the (udbrud), and give my subjective suggestion to the most effective treatment of two major methods.

Neuroses are an overall description of the mental disorders that are milder than psychoses and often can be treated by psycho therapists and psychologists. The more heavy psychoses often get diagnosed by psychotics who can prescribe the right medicine. Extreme anxiety, which is not actually reflected in reality, is the main symptom in neuroses.

Neuroses can differ from every weak- to strong depressions and obsessions, and therefore the word is about to expire in the terms of psychology and are being replaced with more specific terms and internationalized paragraphs.

Often it is a “trigger� that causes the actual (out brake) of a neurotic mental disorder.

In our modern society many people will experience the trigger as being caused by stress. Depression is about to develop into a (folke sygdom). Every 10% of all people will once in their lifetime suffer from a heavy depression caused by stress, and around 5% will suffer from a milder type of stress 1, and WHO claims more than 400mio people in the world suffer from some form of psychological disorder.

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By time it is common spoken that “you must be ill, if you claim not to suffer from a disorder�.

- However, one must not underestimate the consequences of a depression. Mental disorders cost Denmark estimated 7-9billion a year 2, and can destroy the individuals overall life quality. In a rising numbers of occasions this even cause suicide.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder High levels of stress might cause a chock condition in the individual which leads to extreme anxiety. Many soldiers, whose life have been targeted and in risk, suffer from this disorder as a side effect. Some suffer from extreme levels of hypochondria which are reflected in the fear of dying.

Also maybe unexpected sounds or small shocks might trigger an anxiety attack years later, though the symptoms often appears up to 6 weeks after the accident, Often the patients waits to seek help until they experience that they are no longer able to function on job or in the daily.

The illness is called F43.1 internationally3 Martin had quitted the university in the frustration that he did not know what to do with his life. Instead he wanted to explore Africa, as he had a passion of travelling. A friend from school joined him, as they went into the heart of Africa.

But shortly after their arrival they had to flee to the nearest embassy as uproar broke out, and many white innocent tourists had been killed. On their way they saw a civilian got shot dead of the military, because he shouted at the military.

After a short while the tone between Martin and his friend got extremely bad, but they decided to stay as they had spend much money and effort just to get there.

Few weeks before Martins planed arrival he got caught the malaria and he lay unconscious for a week. His friend had problems to get him to hospital and had to (bestikke) the hospital to take him ill. Few days after his awake, he suffered from another attack with similar symptoms of malaria, and was doped with even stronger pills to kill the expected malaria.

When he returned to his home he was taken ill by ambulance and send to hospital the next day. His symptoms were similar but they did not find any trace of malaria.

However, Martin felled worse and worse, and had a terrible headache. He suffered from cramps, and his anxiety and extreme hypochondria got so bad he had to quit his job and (sygemelde sig). He was given the diagnosis PTSD. The strong malaria pills and even a (unnecessary) double doze in Africa, had affected his symptoms of PTSD even worse. And the long period of stress made him very walnuable.

Depression Some cases of depression might be hard to (diagnositize) and therefore also hard to find the right treatment method against. Is the depression triggered by a single event or shock or is it an ever returning problem? Is it caused by drug- or alcohol abuse? Is guilt one of the main symptoms or even obsessive thoughts of suicide?

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Kristy’s dad had for long time had a strong pain in his arm, so he visited the doctor and had a blood test and x-rays taken. The following week when he returned to the doctor he had the answer that the samples told he had (ondarted) bone cancer and might only have three months left to live in and he should therefore have more tests taken to decide the exact period of time he had left.

The family was in shock, and unprepared for this message. Kristy’s brother was called home from abroad, and when he arrived he started telling stories of what he had experienced and was even capable of laughing in the pressed situation. Kristy could not understand his reaction and criticized his reaction. The relationship between the two went very tense. She felt bad because she made the situation even worse.

After one month being unsure of what the future was bringing the family, the dad had the answer of the tests that it must have been a fingerprint on the (negative) that caused the shadow on the x-ray, from which the diagnostic was decided, and that there was nothing wrong with his arm except from a stretched muscle. Instead of bone cancer it was decided to be lymphatic cancer and he would have maybe even years left to enjoy.

Even though Kristy should be pleased to have that message, she could not celebrate.

She had difficulties believing the positive message. The dad had already long before that planned a jazz band to play for his funeral and they were all prepared for his death.

Now Kristy felt like talking to a ghost, when she talked to her dad, because in her mind he was already dead which she felt extremely guilty about. Kristy felt hate towards the health system that had failed time after time, and was sorry that her parents had no energy to take the system to court and was worried all the time. She could not sleep which elevated her depression when she was awake. She was afraid of going to sleep, because all the thoughts would return. After more months the situation still had not changed, even if she regularly went down to see her dad, and she knew he was ok.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder The main symptom which makes OCD differ from depression is the compulsivity, which makes the illness so complex. Some people can suffer from a depression for a half a life time without people recon it as an illness. But people suffering from OCD can rarely hide their compulsives for long, and therefore not be able to work normally in social (sammenhaeng) When having these obsessive thoughts, the person tries to please the thoughts or get rid of them through rituals of different kind. This means doing a compulsive act.

Usually people think of OCD patients as “those who always wash their hands”. But the illness can in fact differ in all kind of different obsessive thoughts.

Many theorists on OCD believe that an event(s) or struggle(s) already in the child hood had caused some form of disorder which (motors) in the 20tees4.

Biologically the level of serotonin is low in some areas of the brain, like during a depression. This explains why (lykkepiller) sometimes helps the symptoms, but does not explain why this level of serotonin is decreased.

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To be diagnosed as having OCD you have to match following criteria5 You must: •

Not have been suffering from any other psychological disorder which can explain the obsessions or compulsions.

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Have had the obsessions and compulsions for more than 2 weeks.

Know that the thoughts are your own and not influenced by others.

Experience that the obsessions and compulsions continually return as (ubehagelige) (oerdrevede) or not reasonable.

Try to resist or decline the pressure for letting the obsessions flow and do the compulsions.

Not feel any desire having the obsessions or compulsions.

Experience the obsessions and compulsions as so (paatraengende) that you have difficulties or simply cannot function in you daily life.

• • •

John contacted a psychologist two days after he had an anxious-attack. Some weeks earlier his girlfriend had broken up. He had gone drunk which amplified his obsessions that he could not control. He could no longer manage to hold back the compulsions. When he woke up the morning after the attack, he realized he had been cutting him self badly in his arm, and he had called his sister at 6 in the morning, who persuaded him to calm down and go to sleep and seek help as soon as possible.

He decided to take contact to a professional, as he this time got extremely afraid of what he was capable of.

He thought his earlier hysteric-attacks belonged to the past and were long over and gone. But the last few months before this brake up the thoughts had crossed his mind constantly about how he should take his own life, every time he got hurt or angry. He got afraid every time he took the escalator or was near an edge or close to a road, because thoughts kept on plaguing him to jump. As he explained, the thoughts were like detailed “films” on how he saw him self land in a pool of blood and how he would hurt the people he targeted that way. In same way he saw him self punish the people he disliked, and got extremely afraid when those people came close to him as his thoughts would get even stronger.

The thoughts flew through his mind so fast that he got very dizzy every time and totally lost concentration, which complicated his studies and he could not pass his courses.

He explained he had had similar thoughts and compulsions years before, in a similar situation and it actually started back in ground school, when he was about 14 years old. He explained when he used to feel bad, it had been a great release for him to see his own blood and feel the pain. This release made him feel safe and made the thoughts disappear. But the thoughts also felt him with extreme guilt toward his parents, that he could not be happy.

John had put all the incidents behind him and tried not to think about them. But even if he did so, sometimes the thoughts came back if some body in university had a bad attitude he disliked or if he got hurt. He came to the conclusion that all his life had been dark and he wanted to change his life for the better, but needed help.

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Treatment As mentioned there is a range of treatment methods, and most of them are highly expensive. Therefore the social health services in most western countries do not provide financial support to a therapist to treat depressions etc; unless it can be proven that the ill person cannot keep up any kind of work.

Most psychotherapists treatment methods last for at least 20 hours, and might well get paid ÂŁ50 an hour. Often this is so expensive that if the individual on forehand has psychological problems, also the financial situation might well be affected. This explains why (lykkepiller) SSRI today is the most widespread pharmaceutical medicine to treat and prevent mental diseases.

Lately there has been written a lot about the issue in the media, that more and more doctors prescribe these pills to young teenagers who suffer from depressions. One of many critical points are that the young people and people in general should learn how to fight the depressions in stead.

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Bibliography Vanggaard, Thorkild Anxiety, A Psychoanalyse Bernstein, Penner Psychology deCatanzaro, Denys Suicide and Self damaging behaviour A Sociobiological Perspective Toates, Frederick Obsessive Compulsive Disorder What is it, who do deal with it DeSilva, Padmal Obsessive Compulsive disorder The Facts Insel, Thomas R. New findings in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder www.netdoktor.dk www.mentalhealth.com

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http://www.netdoktor.dk/sygdomme/fakta/depression.htm, (counts the Danish population). http://www.biotik.dk/debat/virksomheder/lundbeck/ 3 MentalHealth.com 2

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deCatanzaro, Denys, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder The Facts

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www.netdoctor.dk