. Introduction
Chronic illness rates are increasing rapidly around the world, even amongst adolescent students. The adolescent students and their teachers involved face complex challenges. One of the major challenges these adolescents face is how to socially conform. Another challenge is to help these students interact with ‘normal’ peers. Restrictions related to chronic illness are another challenge. It is also difficult to sustain open communication amongst the adolescents and all others involved such as family, educators, physicians, etc. (Jackson, 2012)
In this report, we discuss the impact of chronic medical conditions on adolescents and identify ways of promoting resilience or positive development.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1 Self-determination theory
To analyse the impact of chronic illness on adolescents, this report first relates how the basic psychological concepts relates to health and illness experience for the individuals and families. For the purpose of this paper, we have looked into self-determination theory and cognitive-behavioural therapy.
Self-determination theory provides a framework to understand individual differences in motivation. According to the theory, proposed by Deci and Ryan (1980), the fundamental reasons for behaviour includes a continuum of self-determination, which covers a wide range from intrinsic motivation or self-regulated reasons to extrinsic or externally controlled reasons.
Intrinsic motivation refers to taking part in an activity without any kind of external crisis. Intrinsic behaviour is often called as self-regulated behaviour, but, in reality, intrinsic behaviour is not the only one that is so. People engage in many behaviors, not just because they are rewarding intrinsically, but also because it helps individuals to reach their self-defined goals. Thus, such behaviors are generally extrinsically motivated, and has basis in the expectations that are imposed on them by their social setup such as their...