As said by FIYERO, " People are so empty-headed, they'll believe anything!" In light of the recent highlights in the second Sandy tragedy in the recent months, I'm writing my next note in this series. This one? What is Mental Health. What is Behavioral Health. Because, frankly, we try to treat behavioral as mental and mental as Wicked, wicked witchcraft.
I'd like to begin this one by explaining a simple process. The ABC's of Behavioral Therapy.
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As a culture, something is not deemed a 'problem' until we see some action or result of an action that becomes and issue to everyone else. It's a natural process. After all, society can only deal with "the devil they know." But you see, to each action, we have the factors that have led to it (the antecedants A), the actions (i.e. Behaviors), and preceeding it, we have the consequences C). It's an easy enough idea, right? ABC's are what leads to the circle of life. The atecedants may or may not be in our control.
Now the tricky part of our ABC's is identifying the RIGHT behavior that's an issue. You see, telling the child to do a chore is ALSO a behavior. Probably prompted by the mother seeing a mess. That may have been prompted by a rough day at work making her testy, which may have been prompted by her boss spilling coffee on himself in the morning!
But the target behavior is the one that mom's working on. The one that mom considers the "problem." She cannot control or work on her boss being a klutz, as much as she'd like to the consequences may result in mommy not being able to feed the kid, so instead, she'll target the complaining, right? Got it? Now onto what I wanted to accomplish in this lesson.
Behavioral Health
Simply, when the B patterns are ABNORMAL to the point where the C causes a DEFICIT the individual's livelihood. Not yours, not mine. To theirs! And yes, if they harm someone else, their is still a consequence directed to them, but if we identify the consequentialproblem as externally directed, well that's a slippery slope to prejudice, no?
Dangerous, No?
These B's can be dangerous. To themselves, to others, etc. But they don't have to be. Think of a kid who sits on a floor lining cars for hours on end. Or needs that record to listen to at night. The moment you stop them before they're ready they scream or throw things around the room, breaking their favorite toys.
What is the target B? Is it the action of lining the cars or listen to music at night that's the problem? I have a white noise machine and my sister color cooridnates her crayons. Being 'odd' does not make a behavioral health problem. It's the screaming when mom says 'it's time to stop' and not having the coping skills and techniques to help the child deal with the A in a better way.
There are two ways to deal with this:
1) Identify the A. Help the child deal with THAT stressor, or antecedant. Maybe they're listen to the music to avoid hearing mommy yell about the klutzy boss ;-)
2) Work on the B. Give the child COPING SKILLS that will demonstrate a betterConsequence to their action.
Really, if you try to focus on the C, it rarely works unless it's positively given. And then, the child only does good for extrinsic motivations. Give them an INTERNAL one. K?
MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health is a completely different system and network of tools. It is not about the behaviors any more. Sure, we identify it based on the consequences of behaviors the client gives up. But it's not the Behaviors you really treat in mental health. Because guess what, this is about the A! And an A that we cannot control, force, or modify at that.
Mental health is a system of chemical deficits, emotional onslaughts, etc. And we can't see thes before they happen. We can't change these without destroying regions of the brain. Yes, drug pushers talk about fixing the chemical antecedants that lead to mental health disorders. And it's a fantastical process that CAN do wonders. But, that is not all that will ever help. Your body adjusts and modifies it's chemistry over the years. So how can we help them? Remember how I said to deal with the antecedants in the last section? Well guess what???
COPING SKILLS. Yes, I said the evil words. Teach a person to identify and accept a problem that is OUT OF THEIR HANDS and NOT THEIR FAULT! Then, teach them how to COPE wtih stress. Cuz believe it or not, they're under a lot, consistently. And it seems hopeless to move beyond it.
Then while you teach them how to cope with their illness (and yes, it's an illness as surely as getting cancer), do what you do with any victim of an illness, treat them as though they're human. Train them to use their bodies as they used to, or teach them skills where they'll feel useful. Capable.
Treat them HOLISTICALLY.
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