Biological Approach To Health And Social Care Essay

Understanding psychological approaches to health and social care.

Biological approach
Health setting
The biological approach can be applied in a health setting through hospitals and schools. Due to the biological approach being centralised around genes, doctors can use this approach to help them detect illnesses that may have been inherited from family members. It is best for GP’s to gain this information from parents in the early stages of a child’s life so that they know in advance whether or not the child is prone to gain any life changing illnesses, if this happens the doctor may be able to give the child treatment for these type of illnesses from an early age.
Social setting
This approach can also be used in schools as it is also very good at helping when looking at the behaviour and physical processes children maybe going through when writing exams, this links with Selye’s stress model and how people deal with stress as well as

the process itself. The SAG syndrome graph being kept is a good recourse to help students understand what is happening to them when they feel stress and also help them find the thing that sets of the alarm in the first stage of stress hopefully leading to them minimizing the stress and also getting rid of the stress as a whole.

Behaviourist approach
Health setting
The behaviourist approach can be applied to numerous health care settings for example people dealing with eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia.
Operant conditioning can be applied when helping someone with an eating disorder, the aim would be for them to gain weight. This can be initiated by a metal health doctor or nurse offering a reward to the patient each time they gain weight this is the positive reinforcement aspect. On the other hand if the patient was to lose weight it would only be right for them to get something taken away so that they strive once again to gain the weight back and reach the desired behaviour. These methods will not always work though.
Operant conditioning can be used to treat those suffering from extreme phobias and addictions for example, drinking. The unconditioned stimulus would be the alcohol itself and the unconditioned response would be the feeling the cigarette gives. Some sort of pain could then be inflicted when the urge to drink kicks in this pain is considered to be the neutral stimulus this pain will then remind you not to drink and act as the unconditional response. This process can then be repeated every time you want to drink this will then teach you to associate alcohol with pain.

Care setting
The behaviourist approach can be applied to many social care settings for example nurseries and schools.
Operant conditioning is often used in schools and to reward children so that they can earn from an early age how they are expected to behave in society. For example a child may open the door for a teacher and another student without knowing it is necessarily a nice thing until the person that walks through the door and almost praises them for it thus letting the child know it is an act of kindness so that the child behaves in this manner again. Negative reinforcement can be applied if a child doesn’t complete a particular task they can get something taken away.
Classical conditioning can also be applied in care settings an example of this would be in schools you have break time at the same time every day and you are expected to bring a snack and eat it. The child can then be conditioned to be hungry at that time every day because they are so used to eating at that time.

Cognitive approach
Health setting
The cognitive approach can be applied when doing cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT is used when dealing with people going through depression and anxiety as well as OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) During CBT the patients are able to speak about their problems and the therapist can then help them manage the problem along with helping them find a solution. It focusses on what is going to happen in the future rather than what they went through in the past.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) particularly recommends CBT for depression and anxiety. CBT is a relatively flexible therapy that can be adapted to meet your particular needs. Evidence suggests it can be an effective treatment for a range of mental health problems.

The care setting.

The Cognitive approach can also be applied in a social care setting as it helps us understand children in terms of their cognitive thinking.

Because some children need extra support as they may find learning certain things harder than others. CBT is learning to stop the cycle of negative thinking.

Humanistic approach
Health setting
Helping those with individual needs. A person centred approach, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is very important when looking at children’s personal need as it helps analyse their psychological needs for example their self-esteem and there self-actualisation
Care setting
This can be applied in various child care setting where the child’s basic needs can be met alongside making sure the child is being looked out for outside of the care setting by family or guardians as well as providing a loving environment they can make friends. Children’s self-esteem can be improved/boosted by giving them prizes and awards when they do something positive or achieve something.

Psychodynamic approach
Health

setting
The psychodynamic approach can be applied in health care setting when using therapy to help support someone suffering from eating disorders. Psychoanalysis can be the type of therapy used, it was created by Freud and he used it a lot. It involves looking into your unconscious thoughts and analysing what is found to try and find the underlying meaning for what is causing the behaviour being expressed by the individual. The only thing is psychoanalysis is a long process and can take a lot of sessions to actually gain any results.
Care setting
The psychodynamic approach can be applied in social settings when a social worker or practitioner is observing a child’s home life and family. This is due to the fact the child’s parent s may not have a lot of time for them because of other commitments like work or if they have other children to care for. The way a child is treated at home is what can effect there school life. They may then find it hard to form an attachment with teachers and find it hard to communicate with others in social settings.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/drugs-and-treatments/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/what-cbt-can-treat/#.WuMmXUHRbYU