Explain Different Pyschological Approaches to Health

1720 Words7 Pages
Explain different psychological approaches to health practice This essay will describe the different approaches to health practice that are used within psychology. Such as changing and shaping behaviour, and the promotion of anti-discriminatory practices. Various people will use these techniques in health and social care, such as psychiatrists and trained councillors. Within the behaviourist theory, professionals can use a variety of ways to gain the desired results in therapy sessions. The first of which is changing an individual’s behaviour, someone who requires this therapy could be any age and suffering from a variety of different problems, for example a child may be unable to visit a park because of their fear of dogs. Classical conditioning can be applied to everyday life to alter the way someone behaves, systematic desensitisation is a method commonly used to achieve this, and it involves creating an order of the individual’s fears. For example if the feared object was an animal, they would start to be introduced to the animal, slowly decreasing the distance once they have overcome the anxiety, e.g. starting with an image and then progressing onto a real animal that is within touching distance. The aim of this therapy is to help individuals achieve relaxation whilst in contact with the feared object. Aversion can also be used to change someone’s behaviour, for example an alcoholic wanting to get over their problems may be given this treatment. Aversion therapy involves exposing the individual to a stimulus whilst simultaneously exposing them to a negative response, for an alcoholic they could be given medication which makes them vomit violently when they have taken in alcohol, this would put the individual off wanting to drink alcohol. Shaping behaviour is also under the behaviourist theory; operant conditioning can be used to alter someone’s behaviour.
Open Document