Aspects of Mental Health Disorders and Implications of Social Policy

Please respond to this classmate's post.
Please use the course reading as the main source.
Course reading: Lally, M., & Valentine-French, S. (2017). Lifespan development: A psychological perspective.
C's post:
Question One
Based on the reading, I'd say three key ideas that the authors of positive psychology present about this field is it promotes an important understanding of mental health disorders that focuses on the good parts instead of emphasizing the cause of the illness itself. Another thing that adds the extra spark of the understanding aspect would be that it also highlights the personal characteristics a person may have, like their strength and resilience. Lastly, they heighten the perspective of how necessary it is to have a community. (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This would contain more institutions that can help individuals who need treatment that may or may not be in depth. It would have programs where they can specialize in substance abuse, PTSD, sexual harassment, behavioral disorders, mental Illness and even at times psychical therapy as an alternative to talk therapy. It helps stimulate their cognitive response to be able to receive treatment positively. These three perspectives are mentioned in the reading in the beginning stating that social sciences impact the world tremendously and by making it a topic that's educating and sustainable, it emphasizes the focus of humanity through the fundamentals of life (work, school, religion, community, etc).
The author makes an important note stating that shifting psychology's focus from preoccupation to healing and happiness is the main body of scientific research. Studying areas that induce well-being, satisfaction, and contentment. (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). They continue to mention that as much as the field of study is dedicated to categories, you are essentially working with individuals who may present as so and so, but they are still their own person. Positive psychology focuses on a personal level to applying methodology. In the reading we are given a personal background of one of the authors, who stumbled upon the theory of personalization by his own daughter. Seligman's daughter Nikki had a hobby with her father and that was gardening. One day Nikki was just being a kid trying to help her dad, naturally she was just stumbling around and having fun and her father yelled at her for it. Nikki went away for a while and her father kept at it. The his daughter came back around and asked to speak to him and she tells her father, daddy do you remember from ages three through five I was a big whiner and that when she reached age five she deciding on her own to stop whining, to which she then said If I could stop that on my own dad, so can you, so stop being a grouch! (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). This is where Seligman realized life wasn't just all about papers and research and ethical guidelines, but recognizing that psychology stems from people, all types of them and that it is our duty to enhance those brave qualities one might carry before quickly hasting to a diagnosis or research article. I liked that he mentioned the foundation of how psychology came to be after WWII. He said that a good living was made on the studies of mental illness if it was devoted to pathology. Which he then pointed out the important aspect, which in retrospect in a time before he had that encounter with his daughter he would have thought that was the most important aspect too, but this is why he states community and qualities are an important basis for psychological studies, as for they account the humanistic characteristics of a person and not just the neurological disorder.
Question Two
Their implications of their social policy, promotes a realistic movement. They want to instill policies where they don't just discuss the reality of a positive environment in psychology but to put into practice ideologies in ethics and legal guidelines to have professionals who treat people in this field, aid in their client's progress. The second author also realized the seriousness of implicating a process of positive psychology surrounding the aftermath of WWII. Mihaly expressed that in his search for a better world he could not find his interests and theological concerns in religion, history or philosophy, he considered his home to be science and in that he found the answers he was looking for through the writings of Frued and Jung. (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). There were three topics explored in developing the ideology of positive psychology. Each one went according to the three ideas mentioned above. The first one was what distinguishes a moment of happiness from the next to which leads to the second thread of what is the positive personality and lastly the third thread that runs through these contributions is the recognition that people and experiences are embedded in a social context. (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Basically, to sum it up, their ideas of social policy applying to everyday life, including my own, is improving the work environment. They mentioned that identifying where workers feel satisfied can help create policies that enact change through the headquarters where people will actually want to be a part of implementing policy change. They also want everyday families to be examined in children who are successful, happy and flourish on their own. Much like when we got a sneak peak into Seligman's personal life which led to his discovery of these theories for psychology. Studying families like this help provide communities and resources for parents who struggle, say financially, or single parent households, or overworked and first time parents. There would be a space for all types of parents. I'd even go as far to say teenage parents because that is still a thing. There should be a space safe for them too, not everyone who has a child at the bare age of them still being a child due to them just being kids, some have extremely complicated circumstances. Regardless it is not our place to judge but like the authors have positively mentioned through the article to engage in an environment where psychologically there is treatment and to remember that we are all humans. We are not all limited to just what professionals diagnose us as. But are functional and creative even with limitations. This creates a civic environment for the well-being of society as a whole. That understanding by history and political ethics we are separated by social class, income, even cultural, coming together in diversity brings among education and real life changing policies. People in positions of power who can really impact the mental health association and how treatment should be moving forwards. Especially in this generation where technology is advancing intensively. Technology can aid in our future professions. Matter fact, professionals already in the field should be working on a policy for this too! We have a new "category" of a mental disorder called "social media addiction". Now, it isn't that easy to fix, cause you know constitution, amendments, ethics, all that good stuff protects our rights to freedom of speech and practically free will as it is, but if we really investigate this, we can see technology addiction is getting out of hand for teenagers and even adults in their twenties. We have to go back to the basics and continue to instill the fundamentals of psychology in a positive and adaptive manner,
Source
Seligman , M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000, January). Positive Psychology: An Introduction . SUNY Empire State College.