Reference no: EM133681739

Case study

Part 1

By Catherine Fry

In five days I turn 21. Due to my psychotic illness which is again under consideration of a re-diagnosis, I don't have much to show for it.

I'm sure I've said this before - I repeat it as often as possible because it makes me look fantastically smart - but I graduated from high school at 16. By now I should have at least completed an Arts degree with honours or be close to finishing a medical degree or perhaps law. Due to my struggles with concentration and the medication side effects effectively making me a zombie - well, not an actual zombie, so don't worry about me eating you (I'm vegetarian anyway) - I've had difficulties with study.

To complicate things further, attending university has quite a social side to it; an aspect I have also struggled with. I first attended university straight out of school. I began an Arts degree in 2007. First semester I did okay (despite refusing to do my major sociology essay, I still somehow passed all subjects easily) but things became harder in semester two. Due to some other life circumstances, I began to struggle with my illness. This affected my standard of work of course, but also my social life. I started being bullied again for no reason apparent to me at the time, though I must have been doing some strange things. You'd think this kind of thing would not occur in a post-high school environment; you'd be surprised at how often it does. Due to my circumstances, I'm not exactly sure how many of my subjects I passed.

I took a year off, tried moving in with my boyfriend, but that didn't work out, so I moved back in with my parents. My only friend was starting psychology in 2009, so, being completely bored and lonely from doing nothing for a year (aside from a quick stint teaching music), I decided to enrol in the same course.

Unfortunately, after a certain university lecturer, who I believe was head of the department, went on a rant about people with schizophrenia, my ambitions of becoming a psychological researcher waned. It was shattering to be faced with stereotypes like that from 'important' people.

I did well in semester one but began a psychotic episode in semester two. I lost a month; apparently, I didn't show up for university in that time. I was too far behind to keep up from that point, so I applied for special consideration to discontinue all my units. This process was far more difficult than it ought to have been, leaving me in tears on the phone to someone who clearly had no understanding of mental illness and who refused to let my mother speak on my behalf.

My third attempt at university was second semester 2010, by distance. I knew what I wanted to say in my written work, but I couldn't put it down on paper. I had no words for what I wanted to say. So again, I decided to discontinue all units due to medical reasons. This time it wasn't so difficult, except they didn't quite understand that my psychiatrist recommended withdrawal from all units, not just one. Eventually this was fixed.

In all this time I've had one, maybe two real friends. So next week I turn 21. While most people have extravagant parties, or at least head out on the town with a bunch of friends, I am having dinner with my parents. Nobody else. One friend may come and visit in a couple of weeks.

Mental illness almost always leads to social isolation due to the lack of acceptance, not only in society but in personal relationships where there is also prejudice. Personally, I do all I can to try to break down these prejudices. No matter how rude people are to me, I try to calmly explain what schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are about. I have a blog of my own where I essentially try to give people not only a better understanding of the illnesses I have but try to make the 'scary' terms of psychosis and schizophrenia more of a friendly attachment than the prejudice. I try to show people that assumptions and stereotypes about schizophrenia have absolutely no basis (more on that some other time), that people with these disorders are not violent or bad people, and we are certainly not (as I have often come across) possessed by demons.

While mild depression and anxiety are becoming more understood there is still a long way to go. Even more needs to be done for the other mental illnesses. Gosh, most people may not have even heard of dissociative disorders and they're becoming quite prevalent.

It has recently been suggested that I might have a dissociative disorder (like I really need another disorder) so I began my research on a very popular mental health resource site; a site I've donated to, bought books from, and all round supported. I looked for a section on dissociative disorders. Nothing there. I tried others. Nothing there.

In my opinion, there needs to not only be more information available but we need to be pro-active about it. We need to not just be advocates, but activists. We need to get this information out there so that hopefully more people, young and old, can reach their full potential, regardless of whether they develop a mental illness.

Catherine Fry has many active psychiatric diagnoses including schizophrenia and PTSD. She enjoys reading philosophy and history as well as playing the occasional video game.

Questions:

1. What roles do social and environmental factors play in Catherine's experience of mental illness?

2. If you were Catherine's support worker how would her understanding of her mental illness contribute to your professional understanding of her situation? What implications would this have for your work practices?

Part 2

Read the following extract "What do you mean by a holistic approach?" and answer the questions below.

A holistic view means that we are interested in engaging and developing the whole person. You can think of this as different levels, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It's the concept that the human being is multi-dimensional. We have conscious and unconscious aspects, rational and irrational aspects. We are a body mind. Not just intellect, but emotion, instinct, intuition, as well. We support people in using all of their 'multiple intelligence' that means insight, rationality, logic, emotion, hunches, gut feelings, creativity, a sense of harmony and rhythm. We believe there are more than five senses, and we wish people to use the information from all their senses, and assist them in developing 'uncommon sense'.

Our vision of the holistic leader means somebody who acknowledges and honours their own complexity, who recognises that we all co-create our world, and who takes responsibility for their own part in this process. It is a vision of a leader who draws on their inner and outer natural resources... all their inner resources as a human being: intellect, insight, intuition, imagination and so on. And who also draws on the outer resources in their natural, social and political environment.

Questions:

1. Reflect on the extract above and write interpretation of its meaning.

2. As a support worker it is your role to ensure that you provide holistic support to an individual. Describe how you ensure that your work practices reflect this.

3. What would be the likely outcome for an individual's health and wellbeing if you did not work from an holistic approach.