1. Work-related stress is concerned with the conditions, practices and events in the workplace which may give rise to stress. Describe and evaluate methods used to reduce stress and promote well- being in a setting of your choice. Support your answer with reference to the literature and research evidence.
Stress management refers to the interventions that are supposed to take place and ensure the employees experience an effective work environment. The intervention categories are either primary, secondary, or tertiary. The primary interventions are supposed to prevent the occurrence of stress in the workplace through removal of the sources of stress and ensuring the employees’ wellbeing is enhanced (Janssen et al., 2018). These primary interventions are more likely to enhance employee performance in the workplace and give them better approach to gaining knowledge and skills. The secondary approaches are the interventions that aim at reducing the severity of the stress that is already occurring in the workplace. It aims at preventing the stress levels from becoming problematic and affecting the performance of the employees. The tertiary interventions are meant to rehabilitate the employees that have undergone through stressing moments and hence help them to continue functioning normally and prevent them from suffering from the psychological ill-health.
Some of the techniques used to reduce stress in the workplace is the relaxation technique. The techniques targets the employees that have negative states of wellbeing that are highly aroused. Therefore, it makes the employees to be less relaxed and effects their performance. The relation techniques help to increase the levels of relaxation and lower the stress levels (Burton et al., 2017). It can include the use of response focused emotion regulation to reduce the stress levels. It can also be the muscle relaxation and meditation to improve on the breathing techniques and to ensure relaxation. The second technique is cognitive behavioral therapies that are used to ensure the maladaptive problematic behaviors are dealt with. It aims at identifying the misconceptions on the causes of stress and testing the thoughts in order to develop certain new behaviors that helps to cope with stressing situations. The other technique is mindfulness training which is used to promote mindfulness. The employees are able to overcome the negative emotions in a non-reactive way and develop new responses to the negative thoughts that arise in the workplace.
2. Clinical psychology supports individuals with a wide range of presentations, including behavioural and mental health difficulties. Please choose one of these areas (behavioural or mental health) and discuss how psychological approaches, and interventions, are used to treat complex human problems and promote positive change (APA, 2014).
Mental health is a problem that affects majority of the people. The substantial progress in the situation results to the escalating of the disorders and hence making the people suffering from such conditions to face great problems. The efficacy of the psychological interventions are determined by how well the clients respond to the problem (Dang et al., 2018). Therefore, some of the psychological interventions in place for dealing with mental problems include the psychosocial interventions. These are the interventions that include the use of medication in order to treat a given disorder. These interventions are not supposed to treat the mental problems alone but to also deal with the psychosocial problems. Therefore, individuals that adhere to the medical prescriptions are able to deal with issues of interpersonal problems and the social challenges they face when recovering from the problem. The use of psychosocial interventions can be combined with others such as the therapy to ensure an individual comes out of the problem completely.
Other forms of interventions that are applicable in case of mental problems is the behavioral therapy. Mental problems affect the behaviors of the individuals. As a result, it is important to ensure they are treated to behave in an effective way. The behavioral therapy is used to deal with the problematic behaviors and the feelings and emotions the clients are experiencing. It is important to make them feel comfortable and less judged in order to share their experiences and help to replace the negative behavior with a positive behavior (Kotera et al., 2020). The second approach is the use of cognitive behavioral therapy. It is the approach that is used to identify the client’s maladaptive behaviors and the cognitions that are negative and influence them to bring positive thinking and behavior. The use of cognitive behavioral therapy in mental illnesses ensures that the client does not only get better but also adopts better behaviors that can be maintained in the long run.
3. Positive psychology is understood as an approach to human functioning that addresses human flourishing and well-being and the factors that contribute to them. Critically evaluate the role of positive psychology to your clients’ well-being and quality of life. Support your answers with examples from the literature.
Positive psychology main aim is to ensure the clients are encouraged in order to discover and nurture characters and strengths that enhance their efforts and overcomes their shortcomings. The reason clients want psychological help is because they face challenges that are beyond their control. As a result, they turn to the help of the psychologists who are supposed to help them, decipher the reason they are in such a situation and the best way possible of coming out of it. The positive psychology is thus used to shift the negative outlook held by the clients and to make them more optimistic in order to have an improvement in life. Positivity is the main factor that drives the life of a human being (Donaldson et al., 2019). Therefore, the good and the bad experiences of the people makes them to feel negative or uneasy and hence they forget to harness the goodness of life. When the clients focus on the negative aspects, they turn into problems that make them less competitive. Therefore, the clients need to have the right help that starts with a proper diagnosis of the condition followed by the mitigation measures. The diagnosis helps to ensure the clients are given the right help to prevent the case of a mistreatment.
Positive psychology is good because it helps the clients to live a better and meaningful life. It helps to translate into strategies of dealing with mental illnesses and correcting the negative and unimpressive behaviors that affect the people, their happiness and productivity. As such, positive psychology follows the path of encouraging the clients to adopt better behaviors for their benefit and to ensure proper performance (Lomas et al., 2020). As such, building or creating the positive aspects in a client’s life is important in creating conditions that make them happier and able to live better. The clients start to view life from a different perspective where they cannot only build good memories from the pleasant experiences but also when they are living meaningful and fulfilled life.
5. Forensic Psychologists conduct forensic and clinical psychological assessments (e.g. cognitive and social evaluations) of individuals involved with the legal system (APA, 2013). Describe the factors, identified by research into youth crime, which increase or decrease the likelihood of offending behaviour.
Several factors increase or decrease the likelihood of offending behaviour among youth. The factors include the impact of society, education, peer influence, drug and alcohol use, family structure, and unemployment.
Impact of society
The structure of society is essential in influencing different criminal activities and behaviours. This is influenced by the different political modus and compositions operating globally. The economic orders in different societies, employment rates among the youth, availability of education and training opportunities for the youth, social facilities and the legal system governing the society are critical in influencing the youth because they shape and structure youth in different ways (Beckley et al., 2018). The availability of these factors in society decreases the likelihood of youth engaging in offending behaviour, while the absence or inadequacy of the factors may cause increased offending behaviours among youth.
Education
There is a direct relationship between education and offending behaviours among the youth. Education is essential in shaping youth behaviours because most educational facilities are closely supervised, continuously checked, and mostly oriented through informed decision-making (Hollin, 2019). School drop-outs are highly associated with increased criminal behaviours and are mostly prosecuted in juvenile courts.
Peer Influence and Drug use
Peer influence is among the most influential factor in youth offending behaviours. This involves the behaviours associated with increased interaction and socialization with unlawful youth continuously engrossed in felonies and other related unsociable behaviours (Silke et al., 2018). Increased interaction with youth in criminal activities increases the likelihood of offending, while decreased association decreases offending behaviours. This is because increased interactions promote easier peer influence through coercion. Drug and alcohol use is a common predicament for youth offences. Youth associated with drug and alcohol use are more likely to engage in criminal or offending behaviours than their counterparts that do not use drugs. This can also be escalated by increased addiction among the youths
Family structure
Family structure is essential in explaining social bonds, which are influential in shaping the behaviour of youth. Numerous aspects of family structure are associated with youth offending (Silke et al., 2018). For instance, imperfect parenting, youth mistreatment, and inconsiderate guardianship are likely to increase youth offending. Youth from large family dimensions are also associated with increased offending.
References
Beckley, A. L., Caspi, A., Arseneault, L., Barnes, J. C., Fisher, H. L., Harrington, H., … & Moffitt, T. E. (2018). The developmental nature of the victim-offender overlap. Journal of developmental and life-course criminology, 4(1), 24-49. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40865-017-0068-3
Burton, A., Burgess, C., Dean, S., Koutsopoulou, G. Z., & Hugh‐Jones, S. (2017). How effective are mindfulness‐based interventions for reducing stress among healthcare professionals? A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Stress and Health, 33(1), 3-13. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smi.2673
Dang, H. M., Weiss, B., Lam, T., & Ho, H. (2018). Mental health literacy and intervention program adaptation in the internationalization of school psychology for Vietnam. Psychology in the Schools, 55(8), 941-954. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pits.22156
Donaldson, S. I., Lee, J. Y., & Donaldson, S. I. (2019). Evaluating positive psychology interventions at work: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 4(3), 113-134. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41042-019-00021-8
Hollin, C. R. (2019). Forensic (criminological) psychology. In Companion encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 1231-1253). Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315542072-36/forensic-criminological-psychology-clive-hollin
Janssen, M., Heerkens, Y., Kuijer, W., Van Der Heijden, B., & Engels, J. (2018). Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction on employees’ mental health: A systematic review. PloS one, 13(1), e0191332. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191332
Silke, C., Brady, B., Boylan, C., & Dolan, P. (2018). Factors influencing the development of empathy and pro-social behaviour among adolescents: A systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review, 94, 421-436. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918301889
Kotera, Y., Green, P., & Sheffield, D. (2020). Roles of positive psychology for mental health in UK social work students: self-compassion as a predictor of better mental health. The British Journal of Social Work, 50(7), 2002-2021. https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article-abstract/50/7/2002/5647325
Lomas, T., Waters, L., Williams, P., Oades, L. G., & Kern, M. L. (2020). Third wave positive psychology: broadening towards complexity. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-15. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2020.1805501
