Sample Essay on:
Substance Abuse Among The Mentally Ill

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Essay / Research Paper Abstract

10 pages in length. Learning to live with one mental disorder is more than enough of a challenge for most people; having that reality intensified by adding substance abuse to the mix makes one's existence on earth a struggle at best and a life threatening confrontation at worst. The coupling of mental illness and substance abuse represents a situation where one disorder leads to the other by virtue of being out of touch with reality; engaging in drug use often occurs when mentally ill individuals drift toward other subgroups where such abuse is a common denominator between and among the members. In order to address the duality of mental illness and substance abuse, cognitive behavioral therapy is a recommended approach to reconstruct the way in which the individual perceives his or her entire external and internal environment. Bibliography lists 10 sources.

Page Count:

10 pages (~225 words per page)

File: LM1_TLCSubAbMnt.rtf

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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:

on earth a struggle at best and a life threatening confrontation at worst. The coupling of mental illness and substance abuse represents a situation where one disorder leads to the other by virtue of being out of touch with reality; engaging in drug use often occurs when mentally ill individuals drift toward other subgroups where such abuse is a common denominator between and among the members. In order to address the duality of mental illness and substance abuse, cognitive behavioral therapy is a recommended approach to reconstruct the way in which the individual perceives his or her entire external and internal environment. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Dual diagnosis is indicative of individuals diagnosed as being both mentally ill and drug addicts; while it is wholly possible to be dually diagnosed with a different secondary disease, drug abuse ranks high on the list where mental illness represents the first problem. Research findings indicate that mental illness inherently leads into drug abuse, inasmuch as the mentally ill partake of recreational drugs no differently than their mentally stable counterparts. Hatfield (1993) notes that what does separate the two groups, however, is termed downward drift, meaning that "as a consequence of their illness they may find themselves living in marginal neighborhoods where drug use prevails" (Hatfield, 1993). Inasmuch as the mentally ill individual has difficulty creating bonds with mainstream society, he is involuntarily guided toward the segment of society most likely to have substance abuse problems, which ultimately establishes a cyclical arrangement for both living and socializing. "Families who have mentally ill relatives whose problems are compounded by substance abuse face problems of enormous proportions. Mental health services are not well prepared to deal with patients having both afflictions. ...

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