Different Mental Disorders

There are many different mental disorders that are outlined within the book of importance to mental health clinicians, including PTSD. How individuals feel, think, and behave are what help drive different perspectives to derive. From researching combat veterans suffering from PTSD, I found similarities and differences between the different psychological perspectives that was focused upon. When comparing and contrasting the behavioral and cognition perspectives in terms of evaluating PTSD among combat veterans, they are more similar, while on the other hand, comparing the biological perspective to the other perspective there were hardly any similarities but more differences.
Between the psychological perspectives of cognition and behavior, I found the similarity that both used therapy as a treatment component and not a medicinal approach.

I think that this is important because instead of turning to medications to fix the problem, using exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, both help to work through the issue rather than pushing it aside and taking a pill. Also, therapy was found to be more effective than the medicinal approach and I think this is due to the fact that with medications, the efficacy and confidence was expressed in a negative manner due to the fact that side effects of a medication can occur and dependence upon it can accumulate.

When looking at the biological approach and trying to connect it to the cognitive approach and behavioral approach, it is not easy to do so. The biological approach focuses its attention on the endocrine system of the human body, expressing that the problem originates from out of balance hormone levels, when the cognitive approach focuses on thoughts within the find and the behavioral approach focusing on the actions elicited from the combat veteran.

When getting an education, it is learned that biological factors focus on genetics and hormones, which holds true here. On the other hand, the cognitive approach concentrates on the negative thoughts and acting upon them to realize they are just thoughts and don't need to be drawn out into actions. The cognitive perspective focuses more so on the psychological aspect, whereas the biological perspective focused more so on the physiological aspect.

I found no perspective better than another one, but rather found that different perspectives add more knowledge to understand the topic as a whole. There are different ways human thoughts and behaviors are elicited. New treatments and etiology may develop from the different types of psychological perspectives if research is continued onward regarding a topic with not much data like this one. The older name of posttraumatic stress disorder, shell shock, represents this type pertaining to combat veterans because it places a shell around them, to hide in, and not want to get help in. With the advancements in technology that continue each and every day, the research that is continued onward with this topic, and the more awareness that accumulates regarding PTSD among combat veterans, treatment for these victims is essential.

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