INTERVENTION

Gaining quality of life

Quality of Life as:

The degree to which a person enjoys the important possibilities of

his or her life.

Conceptual framework has three life domains, each of which has three sub-
domains.

being who one is

 physical health
 personal hygiene
 nutrition
Physical
Being  exercise
 grooming and clothing
 general physical appearance

 psychological health and adjustment

 cognitions
Psychological  feelings
Being  self-esteem, self-concept and self-
control
  personal values
Spiritual Being
 personal standards of conduct
 spiritual beliefs

belonging connections with one's environments

 home
 workplace/school
Physical
Belonging  neighbourhood
 community

 intimate others
 family
Social  friends
Belonging  co-workers
 neighbourhood and community

 adequate income
 health and social services
 employment
Community
Belonging  educational programs
 recreational programs
 community events and activities

becoming achieving personal goals, hopes, and aspirations

 domestic activities
 paid work
Practical
Becoming  school or volunteer activities
 seeing to health or social needs.

Leisure  activities that promote relaxation and stress reduction

Becoming
 activities that promote the maintenance or improvement
Growth of knowledge and skills
Becoming  adapting to change.
 Levels of Intervention

PRIMARY SECONDARY TERTIARY INTERVENTION

INTERVENTION
Prevention of illness
Promotion of optimum
physical, mental and social
well-being
INTERVENTION
Intervention efforts
Detecting diseases early and
reversing its progress Reestablishing the person’s
health

HEALTH PROMOTION AND HEALTH EDUCATION

Focus is on:

 Increasing positive behavior

 Elimination of health compromising behavior
 Disease prevention
 Vaccination and immunization
 Screening programs

INTERVENTION CAN INVOLVE: Settings

Population

MODALITIES OF INTERVENTION:
ONE-ON-ONE

SMALL GROUP

COMMUNITY WIDE
 PUBLIC POLICY

METHODS OF CLINICAL INTERVENTION

Goal of Treatment: Gaining insight

Changing behavior

Changing cognition

1. GAINING INSIGHT

Developed as a result of Freud’s psychoanalytic and psychiatric contemporaries

Interested in physical as well as mental problems

Insight therapy: psychological treatment that assumes that disordered behaviors, emotions, and
thoughts are due to conflicting needs and drives of which the person in unaware (London, 1986).

2. CHANGING BEHAVIOR

Classical conditioning: used to condition involuntary behaviors. Two stimuli hat occur together
become associated with the same response.

Aversion therapy: An aversive stimulus is paired with the stimulus that elicits an unwanted
response.

Relaxation training: Patient learns the difference between a state of tension and a relaxation in
muscles by alternately and deliberately tensing and relaxing.

Systematic desensitization:

BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION

Operant conditioning: behavior can be increased or decreased depending on the consequences

that follow them.

Modeling: behavior change that result from watching another person perform a behavior.
 3. CHANGING COGNITION

Home work assignment: Devised by the therapist as a follow up and review of therapy sessions
and sometimes to provide additional practice.

Provides the useful record to monitor therapeutic progress, involves the client in therapy, allow
them to take responsibility, and increase their self control.

Self-conditioning: Also called self-reinforcement. A method of behavior self control in which

client reward and punish themselves following certain behavior.

Cognitive restructuring: Approach to self-control cognitions which involves modifying

cognitive processes.

Skills training: Skills are taught to eliminate maladaptive behavior and stay skillfully in society.

4. FAMILY INTERVENTION

Modify health habits of the entire family system, thereby improving the health of its members.
Allowing the family a chance to talk through and organize coping strategies to help the patient
and other family members.

5. GROUP INTERVENTION

A number of people are treated simultaneously.

6. MEDITATION
 Non Structured Meditation
 Structured Meditation

Social Skill Training

It is important to remember that, although SST can be very effective in helping people learn the
necessary skills, it is very rare for SST to be a stand alone therapy. There are always underlying
reasons why people are experiencing social difficulty and these too need to be treated, either with
drugs or a combined psychotherapy.

The diagram below will help explain this. The arrows represent symptoms that negatively affect
one another:
There are many factors that contribute to worsening social skills, which in turn impair many
other aspects of our lives. For example, social skill deficits cause social isolation, and social
isolation worsens social skills. These are just some examples of the many vicious cycles that we
see in psychology.

Treating only one aspect of the cycle without treating the other would be pointless; the condition
will simply arise again and again. For example, there is no point learning the social skills if you
are too anxious to use them!

Steps

1. Identifying the problem

2. Setting the goals
3. Modelling
4. Roleplaying
5. Feedback
6. Homework!

Assertive skill training

Assertiveness Training ("AT") was introduced by Andrew Salter (1961) and popularized by
Joseph Wolpe. Assertive communication involves respect for the boundaries of oneself and
others. It also presumes an interest in the fulfillment of needs and wants through cooperation.

1. Styles of communication
2. Assertive style