Mental Health Services Case Study

Introduction

This section explores the intervention in a care plan use to resolve or minimize the needs and issues of a 35 years old man of an Afghanistan origin identified as Vahid who went into the UK a year ago. Vahid has been granted asylum and placed in a one-bedroom house following a period in bed and breakfast and hotel accommodation. However, Vahid has a diagnosis of depression and is currently experiencing several issues linked with his physical and mental health. Several interventions in Vahid's care plan have been used to help with his problems. Still, for this assignment, intervention applied to social isolation, depression, and trauma, with a focus on social work dissertation help, will be discussed and analyzed.

Depression issue

Lean et al. (2019) argue that people with severe mental conditions are likely to succumb to poor physical health and psychological well -being as opposed to the general population. To this end, putting interventions in place is vital in helping Vahid with the issues he is likely to encounter. Vahid lives in a hotel room that is invaded by mice in the UK. Still, he fails to disclose the matter to the housing association, fearing to cause problems for himself as he perceives that it might be impossible to secure another place to live. Grob (2019) links fear with mental illness in diverse ways. Grob argues that fear drives the contemporary mental health systems. Mental health policies promote legally constraining freedoms and civil liberties with safety currently emphasized over support. Notably, with the introduction of Community Treatment Orders in the UK, contemporary mental health services have become increasingly averse. Crumb, Mingo & Crowe (2019) claims that such coercive practices fuelled by fear and stigma of dangerous service users prevent people from accessing support. For instance, coercive treatment is a significant barrier to mental health services seekers from seeking help.

Crumb, Mingo & Crowe (2019) conceptualizes fear has al as a causal factor in mental distress. In the UK, people are becoming more fearful, impacting on collective experiences of mental distress. The socio-historical context in which people live inclusive of social and material relations, dominant culture, and institutions fuels these fears.

The care plan suggested for Vahid is overcoming his fears by talking therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and counseling (Sperry & Binensztok, 2019).Also, Vahid can seek more help from his general practitioner by sharing his fears and the issues that he is going through. In this context, Vahid can inform his GP about the mice invading his hotel room and his fears to disclose the matter to the housing association. The GP would be of much help to him as he will advise Vahid on how to address the issue of mice based on the health risk associated with mice as well as the right to good health policies in the UK.

Vahid can also obtain help from support groups. This is achieved by seeking advice from people who have experienced health challenges (Batchelor et al., 2019). The local support groups unify people with similar experiences to enable them to hear stories from each other, share tips, and encourage each other to adopt new ways to manage themselves. Vahid can obtain details of support groups near him from his general practitioner, local citizen's advice bureau, and library.

Social isolation issue

Vahid explains that he spends much of his time in tears as he knows no one in the local area. Vahid also lacks the confidence to practice English with strangers as his practice English as a second language in the UK. Stanton, Slatcher & Reis (2019) argue that social relationships are fundamental elements of human life. Positive social relationships network provides a source of support, guidance, and meaning which influences health outcomes long-term trajectories. The absence of social network relationships leads to social isolation. Stanton and colleagues argue that various people experience social isolation at some point in their lives with potential implications for their well -being and health.

Moreover, people perceive social isolation in different ways. The feeling that an individual's desired quantity and quality of social connections are unfulfilled characterized by loneliness and adversity on its right. In Vahid's case study, social isolation and loneliness and differential associations with depressive symptoms are examined.

According to Stanton, Slatcher & Reis (2019), social isolation is a state of estrangement in which social connections are absent or limited. On the other hand, loneliness is a subjective distress feeling arising from inadequacy or unfulfilled social connections perceptions. Social isolation and loneliness usually co-occur, but they are independently experienced. Batchelor et al. (2019) argue that public fear of mental health service users has consistently been identified as a major cause of discrimination, thus creating a barrier in seeking mental health services support. Rejection and avoidance of people with signs of mental illness is a universal phenomenon. People who have mental illness feel that their words and actions interpreted in the lens of their diagnosis.

The care plan suggested that Vahid to overcome social isolation is psychological therapies. According to Uphoff et al. (2019), mental treatments are interventions utilized recognized therapeutic approaches delivered by trained health professionals and therapists. This is a robust plan that helps in stress and mindfulness reduction. Humour therapy, reminiscence group therapy, mindfulness and stress reduction, and cognitive and social support interventions are successful measures in reducing loneliness, thus creating a positive impact on a range of outcomes such as life satisfaction, happiness, and social support. The one on one interventions, for instance, mentoring and group therapy that involves lonely people like Vahid and more comprehensive community interventions for reaching out to the lonely people for reviews, mitigate loneliness .Additionally, increasing social interaction opportunities for Vahid would significantly reduce his isolation. Vahid can also be taught how to master his social skills as an approach to reducing loneliness. This technique is useful for people lacking social skills.

Dagan & Yager (2019) highlights that loneliness is common emotional distress among the new immigrants in the UK and highly contributes to depression cases. For many migrants moving to the UK are usually accompanied by drastic dynamics in diverse life aspects. The process of assimilating to the new surrounding in the UK and cultural practices leads to substantial levels of acculturative stress, which is subsequently linked with psychiatric disorders, for instance, depression. Newly arrived immigrants in the UK are likely to be susceptible to developing depression. Imperatively more measures in the form of increased assistance and preventive strategies need to be incorporated to ensure improvement in their mental health outcomes and psychological well-being. According to Shioda et al. (2016), social isolation, which is being experienced by Vahid, is common among new immigrants in the UK, which affects the quality of life and sometimes contributes to suicide. To this end, a care plan that recommends social activities outside the hotel room is vital. Low self- esteem, incompetence for community life, social isolation, and lower level of community integration leads to loneliness (Moreno-Poyoto et al .,2018). As an approach to decreasing and preventing loneliness, there is a need to use techniques to assist them in cooperating with community resources and educational institutions as well as a community activity. The empirical evidence links loneliness with adverse effects on people with mental health issues, though; no much work has been done to establish how to minimize isolation among this group of people. However, according to Patel, Wardle & Parikh (2019), there are diverse interventions already in place in the UK that can help to reduce loneliness majorly in the new immigrants and support their mental health conditions. Therefore, Vahid was encouraged to attend peer group communities and also advised to seek psychological therapies.

Trauma

Boelen et al. (2019) link traumatic grief with sudden bereavement, and the grieving reactions and thoughts last over two months. Vahid undergoes traumatic grief after learning that his family members killed in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan. As a result, Vahid suffers from recurrent nightmares and experiences difficulty in sleeping. Boelen and colleagues argue that excessive irritability, anger, and bitterness, continued nightmares and insomnia, feeling of unfairness at the death or the issues around the death, and a strong feeling of personal responsibility for the death characterizes traumatic grief. Vahid encounters recurrent nightmares and insomnia after losing three of his family members to a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan.

The care plan suggested for Vahid to overcome traumatic grief is therapy, and sometimes it is identified as counseling (Little & Akin-Little, 2019). This involves using cognitive behavioral techniques tailored to individual needs. This implies that Vahid needs to talk through things with a therapist or a counselor in a string of one on one session, between 10 and 25 sessions lasting at least for one hour per session. In these sessions, Vahid will address the event or try to come into terms with the death of his family members and can be achieved through writing and talking. Also, Vahid will speak about the painful upsetting aspect presumed, and talk of any unfinished business with the dead family members, for instance, lost plans or feelings of guilt. Finally, Vahid will talk about the future and find a positive way to think about the future.

Worth noting the therapist assigned to Vahid needs to be both qualified and experienced in traumatic grief therapy provision. Therefore, it is imperative to enquire from a therapist the number of times they have worked with suddenly bereaved people and the success of their work (Little & Akin-Little, 2019). Additionally, the bereaved person and in this case, Vahid, need to feel they have a positive and trusting relationship with their therapist. If Vahid doesn't like the therapist, it is possible to change, and suddenly Vahid should be encouraged to continue trying therapy with a different therapist.

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References

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Dagan, Y., & Yager, J. (2019). Addressing Loneliness in Complex PTSD. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 207(6), 433-439.

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Little, S. G., & Akin-Little, A. (2019). Trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy.

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Stanton, S. C., Slatcher, R. B., & Reis, H. T. (2019). RELATIONSHIPS, HEALTH, AND WELL-BEING. New Directions in the Psychology of Close Relationships, 118.

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