Page 38 - Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

38 | Complementary and Alternative Medicine Treatments in Psychiatry

responsibility for their lifestyle and specifically mental health.
One important factor is self-efficacy, a concept introduced by
psychologist Albert Bandura (Bandura 1977) that indicates one’s
level of ability to accomplish a specific task. Two research
reports examined numerous studies looking at self-efficacy as a
predictor of health behavior and found not only strong
correlations between self-efficacy and promotive health
behaviors but also that self-efficacy could be enhanced with
proper guidance (O’Leary 1985) (Strecher 1986). One study that
investigated the relationship between depression, obesity, and
self-efficacy found gender differences. Self-efficacy has been
shown to have a negative relationship with depression (Gecas
1989) especially in the fact that self-efficacy seems to mediate
between some forms of stress and depression.

Motivational Interviewing
Regarding lifestyle choice, self-efficacy speaks to a person’s
given response to a situation. The other component that plays a
key role in this is motivation. Clients may state that they desire
to make the change but then they may fail to do so. One way to
address this issue is to assess the client’s readiness to change. A
scale is available (Prochaska 1986) to determine if the individual
is completely ready to make the changes or if he is only in the
initial and more ambivalent stages ranging from pre-
contemplation to action. Once motivation is assessed the
provider could implement motivational interviewing (Miller
2002). This is a fairly easily taught psychotherapeutic technique
where a series of questions and interactions lead a client to
greater awareness about her level of motivation for change and
assist in increasing that motivation. A provider would likely
refer the client to a professional trained in motivational
interviewing or to a psychotherapist either for motivational
interviewing or longer-term psychotherapy to address the self-
defeating thoughts and beliefs.