EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN MENTAL HEALTH: ARE YOUR CLIENTS SEEING THE WHOLE PICTURE? – JAY CARTER
A Practical Approach for Successful Interventions & Therapeutic Responses
Executive functions enable us to have insight, foresight, hindsight, and the ability to see context. When these abilities are diminished or non-existent, it causes problems for those individuals, along with others in their lives. In extreme cases, it is indicative of a mental health problem.
Understanding executive dysfunction in a practical way leads to successful interventions and therapeutic responses. Children, in general, have not developed their executive functions yet; we know how difficult their behaviors can be due to this lack of insight and inability to see the bigger picture. Many adult mental health issues stem from lack of development, frozen development, or physiological damage that inhibits development of insight, foresight, hindsight, and the ability to see beyond the current situation. In the absence of these abilities, interventions can be initiated that develop executive function or substitute for lack of executive function.
This comprehensive recording will give you a better understanding of executive dysfunction in these various disorders and a wealth of applicable new knowledge.
- Develop a clinical treatment plan to assist clients with executive dysfunctions
- Determine the therapeutic intervention which best matches the diagnosis to improve clinical outcomes
- Examine and discuss evidence-based case studies of clients with executive dysfunctions, and relate the information to the clinician’s choice of treatment intervention
- Identify insight, foresight, hindsight, and the bigger picture of executive functions for the purposes of client psychoeducation
- Outline the mental health manifestations of executive dysfunction and how this informs clinical intervention selection
- Assess problematic executive dysfunction in the general population to improve client engagement
Executive Function Development
- Brain development
- Prefrontal lobe
- “Mylienates” back to front
- Last to develop, first to go
- Highly successful people
- Caterpillar to butterfly
- Do you SEE yourself?
Related Mental Health Issues
- Bipolar
- Attention deficit
- Autism
- PTSD
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Dementia
- Conduct Disorder
- Addiction
- Schizophrenia
Treatment Approaches
- Therapies
- Psycho-social
- Plans and routines
- Medication
- Environmental context
- Exercises
- Journaling
- Meditation
- Rules
- Guidelines
Research and Case Studies
General Population Executive Dysfunction
- Bosses
- Elected officials
- Corporations
- Dealing with people who lack executive function
