Certificate in Mental Health Awareness

Understand depression as a clinical condition with a low mood lasting at least two weeks, reduced energy, and loss of interest, contrasted with everyday sadness.

Explore post-natal depression and postpartum psychosis, distinguishing baby blues from longer-term mood changes, exploring prevalence, symptoms, causes, and barriers to seeking treatment.

Explore the different types of anxiety, including generalized anxiety disorder, phobic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and see how fear, worry, and the fight-or-flight response shape daily life.

Explore bipolar disorder by comparing it to a seesaw with depression and mania, noting rapid cycling, mood swings, duration variation, and diagnostic challenges.

Explore how psychosis is a general term for conditions that alter perception of reality, including thought disturbances, auditory hallucinations, and delusions, and learn about related stigma.

Explore how obsessive compulsive disorder involves intrusive obsessions and ritualistic compulsions that can dominate life, with examples of germs, hand washing, and fears of harm.

Identify the three phobia categories—specific phobias, social phobias, and agoraphobia—and how irrational fears disrupt daily life, provoke avoidance, panic attacks, and stigma.

Define substance misuse through dependence and harmful use, explain how short-term and long-term harm affect individuals and others, with examples from cannabis, opioids, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and legal highs.

Explain anorexia and bulimia, including restricting intake and binge-purge cycles with vomiting, excessive exercise, and laxatives, and note their serious health risks and weight distinctions.

Explore key mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and OCD, and learn the seven-step method for handling mental health and reducing stigma in businesses.