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Psychiatric or Mental Health

Mental health is an essential component of all occupational therapy interventions. Occupational therapists provide mental health treatment and prevention services for all – children, youth, the aged, and people with severe and persistent mental illness. All interventions focus on improving each client’s function and independence.  Occupational therapists work in mental health settings and they focus on enabling persons to re-engage in useful occupations. How do they do this? They help each client build a variety of skill sets, establish good habits and routines, set therapy goals, apply cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT), and understand and counter physiological influences.

Occupational Therapists and Mental Health and Wellness

An occupational therapist assesses each client holistically. For each client, they will consider various factors such as: Values, beliefs, spirituality, mental function, sensory function, etc., performance skills (or motor, process, and social interaction skills), environment or context, performance patterns (or habits, routines, roles, etc.)

Occupational therapy interventions improve the health outcomes of those with mental health challenges. These interventions are found in the areas of education, work, skills training, health, and wellness, as well as cognitive remediation and adaptation. Some examples of occupational therapy interventions in community mental health include:

Occupational therapists work with individuals, families, groups, communities and organizations to facilitate health, well-being and justice through engagement in occupation. Occupational therapists help their clients work towards a more independent life with the feeling of accomplishment. They want their clients to have the chance to live well and accept whatever problems they have to overcome, by finding new ways to manage them. Occupational therapists are becoming increasingly involved in addressing the impact of social, political and environmental factors that contribute to exclusion and occupational deprivation

• • De-addiction

Millions of Indians use alcohol in unhealthy or damaging ways. Alcoholism and alcohol abuse tend to be progressive illnesses, often getting worse over time. Nearly everyone is aware that unhealthy drinking (or “problem drinking”) can lead to serious problems, but not everybody realizes that there are a few different kinds of dangerous drinking, such as:

• Binge Drinking

Binge drinking refers to the practice of drinking more than the body can process in one sitting. It’s most common among young adults, especially those between the ages of 18 and 21. Binge drinking limits vary between people, but in general, for men it’s over five drinks at once, and for women it’s over three drinks in a sitting. While some people can binge drink without noticeable complications, many binge drinkers suffer from hangovers, injuries, blackouts, and missing or failing classes if they are students also that drugs taking, sexual interest, tobacco smoking, and violence behavior.

• Alcohol Abuse

Alcohol abuse is generally more destructive than binge drinking. This involves a person letting alcohol negatively affect his or her life. While the appearance of alcohol abuse varies from person to person, it can manifest as driving under the influence, not keeping up with responsibilities (at home and at work), issues with relationships, and legal problems as a result of excessive drinking. However, one can abuse alcohol and not face any of these outward symptoms.

• Alcohol addiction or Alcoholism

Alcoholism, or alcohol addiction, involves some level of physical dependency on alcohol. Those with this addiction will often continue to drink despite financial and/or legal consequences. Though some alcoholics are very high functioning and can successfully hide their addiction, others may lose jobs and relationships or face financial problems. 

• Marital Fitness

Common problems that lead to marital fatigue: Poor conflict management, not making time to nurture the marriage, Power differential, Inability or unwillingness to handle differences in expectation following are some common trouble areas. A healthy, lasting marriage draws from abundant wells of positivity as well as a sense of mutual understanding on effective styles of interacting. The following are four strategies for breaking negative cycles in relationships. These four techniques are not merely recommendations but practical enough to be used every day.