Unit 4: How Is Mental Wellbeing Supported and Maintained?
Mental health, stress, and treatment
Unit 4 applies psychology to wellbeing. Understand mental health as a continuum rather than a binary, and know the biopsychosocial model: biological, psychological, and social factors interact. Be able to define stress as a transaction between demands and resources, and distinguish eustress from distress. Know Selye's general adaptation syndrome (alarm, resistance, exhaustion) and the fight-or-flight response involving the sympathetic nervous system, adrenaline, and cortisol via the HPA axis.
Specific phobia is a useful studied example: it involves marked, persistent fear, is disproportionate, and causes impairment. Explain it using conditioning (classical conditioning of fear, avoidance maintained by negative reinforcement) plus biological preparedness and cognitive factors. Treatments include systematic desensitisation (graduated exposure with relaxation, based on reciprocal inhibition) and cognitive behavioural therapy (identifying and challenging maladaptive thoughts). Know protective factors (social support, coping strategies, exercise, sleep) and risk factors (chronic stress, isolation, substance use).
Traps to watch
- Not all stress is harmful; eustress improves performance.
- Resistance stage is not exhaustion; the body appears to cope while resources deplete.
- Systematic desensitisation uses graduated exposure, not flooding.
- Correlation is not causation in risk-factor research.
- Avoidance reduces anxiety now but maintains the phobia through negative reinforcement.
Rule of thumb
For any treatment question, name the mechanism, not just the technique: desensitisation works through reciprocal inhibition and gradual extinction of the conditioned fear response.
Worked example
A person fears lifts and always takes stairs. Taking stairs removes anxiety (negative reinforcement), so avoidance persists. Treatment would pair gradual exposure to lifts with relaxation so the fear response extinguishes.