Unit 8 Health And Social Care

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Unit 8 – M1, M2 & D1 – M1 – Analyse the contribution of these different psychological perspectives to the understanding and management of challenging behaviour – The Biological Approach – This approach aims to explain all behaviour and experience in terms of how the body processes. When you feel stressed this usually involves several sensations such as your heart pounding and your palms sweating, these are physical symptoms created by the nervous system reacting. Your experiences, such as stress are caused by a biological process. The nervous system is divided into the central nervous system and the autonomic nervous system which is further subdivided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. The central nervous system the brain and spinal cord contain about 12 billion nerve cells/neurons. Assumptions – 2 – Behaviour is caused by the actions of the nervous system, the brain in particular. The approach considers behaviour as the consequence of a number of chemical and electrical reactions in our bodies. Bio-psychologists believe that there is a need to focus on the body internally to establish the reason for behaviour. Bio-psychologists believe that behaviour is hereditary and carried in the genes. The brain and nervous system are integral to this approach and the chemicals in our bodies such as the neurotransmitters and hormones have a large impact on our behaviour. This can be traced back to the genes and DNA as this is where the chemicals are produced. This approach believes that too much or too little of these chemicals can cause mental health problems such as depression and schizophrenia. 1 – The Biological approach treats mental illnesses as any other illness by labelling it, normally by using the DSM IV or ICD 10 then using drugs to treat the illness (or psychosurgery). This approach has little room for free will as it believes that
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