Applied behavior analysis refers to the direct application of the principles of behavior modification in natural environments such as home, school, and community. ABA uses behavioral principles to improve the individual’s ability to participate effectively in various situations.
Source: Center for Autism & Related Disabilities (CARD)
Qualified mental health practitioners or mental health providers practice mental health therapies. Practitioners include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses. They also include addiction counselors, art therapists, marriage and family therapists, religious counselors, and sex therapists.
Individual treatment linked to community support can save lives. Stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness, in addition to the disorder itself, can cause severe emotional pain. Persons may feel hopeless and shunned. They may be unable to secure or hold a job. Even after beginning treatment, it may take considerable time to feel better.
But community support, from family members, caregivers, other concerned persons in the community, and help lines, for example, makes a difference. And reducing the discrimination and stigma associated with mental illnesses is the business of everyone in the community. Community support can fill a number of critical gaps. In some countries providing community support is a natural feature of the culture. In others, certain programs, including peer-support initiatives emerging in many countries, offer connections that can pierce through loneliness and provide encouragement, psychosocial support and often training in life skills, all of which can point to hope for more productive lives. When medications are administered, support from families and/or others in the community can help bridge the gap before the drugs take effect. In some areas in the world that lack sufficient primary or mental health care personnel, even in developed countries, community support may represent the state-of-the-art treatment available.
Counseling can be helpful when you have lots of stressors in your life and you have no unbiased person with whom to talk. Counseling is also recommended if what you want to talk about needs to remain confidential.
If you notice that your levels of stress, depression, and or anxiety are escalating, then counseling is recommended. Some indicators are an increase in sleep problems; an increase or decrease in appetite, an increase or decrease in weight, a decrease in your ability to concentrate, a decrease in your ability to motivate yourself, a decrease in enjoyment of leisure activities, and suicidal ideation.
During your first session the counselor should be getting to know you and learning about the issue you are coming to counseling for. This first session should be about answering any questions you have about the process and helping you feel comfortable with your counselor. Most sessions last about 50 minutes.