Introduction to Mental Health and Addictions

Course Info:

Course Introduction

Introduction to Mental Health and Addictions initiates students to the skills and principles of mental health assessment and care. Students learn about anxiety, mood disorders like depression, and the nature of loss and grief. Students explore personality disorders, physical problems with psychological sources, sexual disorders, dissociative disorders, and eating and sleeping disorders. Students also investigate chronic mental health illnesses like schizophrenia and other psychoses. Students discover that client manifestation of mental illness can vary from outward-focused emotions (e.g., violence), to inward-focused emotions (e.g., suicide), or frequently to substance abuse and addiction. This course consists of 10 days (50 hours) of daily, participative learning sessions.

Course Prerequisites

Completion of Sociology and Family Life in Canada.

Course Notes

Students are supplied with textbooks for ongoing reference. In addition to quizzes, tests, and assignments, there is a Final Exam upon completion of the course. Students must achieve a mark of 75% overall and on the Final Exam to successfully complete the course.

Course Breakdown

Skills and Principles of Mental Health Care: Principles of mental health care, and skills for mental health care

Mental Health Assessment Skills: Mental health treatment plan, and about assessment

Managing Anxiety: Anxiety responses, theories relating to anxiety, and anxiety disorders

Loss and Grief: The nature of loss

Depression and Other Mood Disorders: Emotional responses, and characteristics of mental disorders

Physical Problems, Psychological Sources: Role of emotions in health

Eating and Sleeping Disorders: Eating disorders, and sleeping disorders

Dissociative Disorders: Dissociative disorders

Anger and Aggression: Anger and aggression in society, and the cycle of assault

Outward-Focused Emotions: Violence: Social factors and violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation, and mental health disorders relating to violence Creating and Using Macros; Working with Macros; Maintaining a Database; Splitting a Database and Error Checking; Optimizing and Documenting a Database

Inward-Focused Emotions: Suicide: Impact of suicide on society

Substance-Related Disorders: Role of chemicals in society, categories of abused substances, and characteristics of substance use and abuse

Sexual Disorders: Continuum of sexual responses, and modes of sexual expression

Personality Disorders: Theories relating to personality disorders, and personality disorders

Schizophrenia and Other Psychoses: Theories relating to psychoses, and psychotic disorders

Chronic Mental Health Disorders: Characteristics of chronic mental health illness

  • Program: Community Support Service Programs

  • Of interest to: This course is of interest to those actively pursuing CSW training as part of their life-long career journey.

  • Course aim: Students will gain an overview of the fundamentals of mental health as it relates to the Community Service and Social Worker industry. An introduction to addictions is also included in this course.

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