Introduction to Mental Health and Addictions
Course Introduction
Introduction to Mental Health and Addictions initiates students to the skills and principles of mental health assessment and care. Students learn about anxiety, mood disorders like depression, and the nature of loss and grief. Students explore personality disorders, physical problems with psychological sources, sexual disorders, dissociative disorders, and eating and sleeping disorders. Students also investigate chronic mental health illnesses like schizophrenia and other psychoses. Students discover that client manifestation of mental illness can vary from outward-focused emotions (e.g., violence), to inward-focused emotions (e.g., suicide), or frequently to substance abuse and addiction. This course consists of 10 days (50 hours) of daily, participative learning sessions.
Course Prerequisites
Completion of Sociology and Family Life in Canada.
Course Notes
Students are supplied with textbooks for ongoing reference. In addition to quizzes, tests, and assignments, there is a Final Exam upon completion of the course. Students must achieve a mark of 75% overall and on the Final Exam to successfully complete the course.
Course Breakdown
Skills and Principles of Mental Health Care: Principles of mental health care, and skills for mental health care
Mental Health Assessment Skills: Mental health treatment plan, and about assessment
Managing Anxiety: Anxiety responses, theories relating to anxiety, and anxiety disorders
Loss and Grief: The nature of loss
Depression and Other Mood Disorders: Emotional responses, and characteristics of mental disorders
Physical Problems, Psychological Sources: Role of emotions in health
Eating and Sleeping Disorders: Eating disorders, and sleeping disorders
Dissociative Disorders: Dissociative disorders
Anger and Aggression: Anger and aggression in society, and the cycle of assault
Outward-Focused Emotions: Violence: Social factors and violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and mental health disorders relating to violence Creating and Using Macros; Working with Macros; Maintaining a Database; Splitting a Database and Error Checking; Optimizing and Documenting a Database
Inward-Focused Emotions: Suicide: Impact of suicide on society
Substance-Related Disorders: Role of chemicals in society, categories of abused substances, and characteristics of substance use and abuse
Sexual Disorders: Continuum of sexual responses, and modes of sexual expression
Personality Disorders: Theories relating to personality disorders, and personality disorders
Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses: Theories relating to psychoses, and psychotic disorders
Chronic Mental Health Disorders: Characteristics of chronic mental health illness