Assignment

1. Briefly describe Seasonal Affective Disorder. Name and describe the two most commonly used evidence based treatments for the disorder.

Seasonal affective disorder is a kind of depression which affects a person twice in the same season. If somebody is depressed in the winter but in spring and summer he feels better it means he is suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Anyone is prone to this disease but it is more prevalent in areas where days of winter are very short and where daylight changes happen frequently. It is also hereditary and people whose age is between 15 and 55 are more vulnerable to get this disease. Medical experts think that it is caused by lack of sunlight because it disturb sleep-wake cycle and imbalances the serotonin chemical in brain. The symptoms of this disease include loss of interest in activities, craving for food, weight gain and sleepiness during day time.

Treatment of SAD

There are two ways to treat seasonal affective disorder

Light therapy

This requires the patient of SAD to sit in front of the light box for 30 minutes in the morning. It is an effective exercise in treating SAD and many people have used this to get rid of this disease. Light therapy has been used in many cases of the seasonal affective disorder patients to relieve them so that they can get rid of that disease.

Antidepressants

These are the drugs which can improve the level of serotonin level of the brain and help overcome this disease. The drugs are also prescribed by doctors in some extreme cases where the pateient of seasonal affective disorder cannot be treated with light therapy

2. In a paragraph, briefly describe Narrative Therapy. In addition, state why the author suggests it might be a useful method of counselling Aboriginal Australians.

Narrative therapy is composed of simple and short explanations of thinking and therapeutic conversations. Through these conversations therapists engages themselves with the ideas of people. It is the way through which problems of the people and its effects on their lives are understood. They know about the experiences of the people regarding problems which they are facing in their lives. It is an effective counselling approach through which therapists solve the problems of people by listening to it and deducing explanations and conclusions from them. This therapy examines the problems of people differently from them and make efforts to resolve those problems.

Narrative therapy was identified by aboriginal Australians to contain the ...