Learning and/or ?Cure?? The notion of learning context in the health ambit

HÉCTOR BLAS LAHITTE; MARÍA DE LOS ANGELES BACIGALUPE

International Journal of Psychology and Counseling

Academic Journals

Año: 2020 vol. 12 p. 97 - 104

2141-2499

Mentalhealth is not the object of study of only one discipline, but of differentfields of knowledge including anthropology. If it is considered that (1) mentalillness is related to learning and (2) learning happens in a relational contextbetween the subject and his/her environment, it is possible to assume that achange in the context could mean changes in the subject?s health. Therefore, anapproximation to the concept of ?cure? may include the idea of building and reforminga habit of thought. By modifying a habit of thought, the individual can changetheir situation and improve their relationships with the environment, whichtends to re-equilibration and health. In this work, this hypothesis is developedand empirical evidence was shown with five Wernicke Korsakoff?s Syndromeinpatients learning to solve the Tower of Hanoi that supports the assumptions. Conversely to what is expected to amnesicpeople, empirical results showed that the participants not only learned thetask (proto-learning) but also improved their execution with practise andtraining (deutero-learning) and reached some level of flexibility. It issuggested that this behavioural change depends, at least in part, on thecontext created in the examiner-participant relationship. People are not ill perse but they are ill only in relation to an environment which surrounds andconditions them.