Last week we started social psychology. Social psychology is defined as the branch of psychology concerned with the way individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others. It therefore scientifically studies how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.
How does out perceptions and thoughts impact how we see other people?
How does other peoples' actions impact us?
How does the way we interact with others impact us?
Cognitive Dissonance:
This video starts off giving an example: Your parents tell you that people with blue eyes are bad, so you grow up with the idea that people with blue eyes are bad people. Later in life, you begin to meet and interact with people with blue eyes and you realize that they are not so bad. Since you must listen to your parents, you convince yourself that people with blue eyes are, indeed, bad.
Then the video goes on to explain to us the experiment of Leon Festinger: he had people come in and did a boring job. After they did the job, they would have to convince another person to also do the job. One group was offered $1 to do the job and the other was offered $20 to do the job. The people who got $20 said that it was kind of boring, but they got $20. The other group, who got $1 said that it was kind of cool and pretty fun. If they can't change their actions, then they will change their attitudes. The people convince themselves that they are telling the truth and that they enjoyed it.
Impact of role-playing on attitude and action:
As I was watching the other video, the beginning reminded me of another video that I (and I think many of you) have seen before. For an experiment on discrimination a teacher told students that one day was a special day for people with blue eyes and the next day is a special day for the people with brown eyes. Whichever color eyes you had, and whichever day it was, you were either seen as greater or lesser. The kids got to act greater, but really they began to feel greater and made the other people with the bad color eyes that day, feel much worse. They became the role that they were acting, like what happened in Phillip Zimbardo's prison experiment.
When I read the definition of antisocial personality disorder, the first thing that popped into my head was "politicians." Of course not all politicians are legitimate psychopaths, but for some reason the description of this disorder seems to fit your stereotypical picture of a politician - charming, manipulative, will do anything to ensure their power.
In an Huffington post article, Dr. Martha Stout, a clinical psychologists and author of popular books on emotional disorders, said that despite the lack of statistical evidence on the matter:
"Yes, politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths. I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy, psychopathy, anti social personality disorder who would dispute this... That is a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow -- but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly, deceitful political behavior being one."
Dr. Stout proposes that to avoid admitting sociopaths to office, political candidates should be able to prove their psychological health, through perhaps something like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.
I know, for one thing, that Vice President Frank Underwood from the show House of Cards must be a sociopath. All he cares about is rising up the ranks, and he does that through his southern charm, deceit, manipulation, and even murder. (Spoiler) Take for example when he pushes a reporter in front of of an oncoming train when she mentions her suspicion that he was responsible (which he really was) for the murder of another politician (which was staged as a suicide). Fun!
Role Playing got be totally intrigued. The whole concept kind of freaked me out.
We all know about Phillip Zembardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment. We all know that it was proven very quickly that people can begin to actually feel and do things like the thing they are acting out, even when they know they are acting.
If you speak to mostly any actor, they would most likely say that when they are acting in a movie it is like there whole life becomes that character. In order to truly play the role you are acting well, you have to actually feel like that person.
I was thinking about this whole concept and brought it to a whole other level. What if everything we do, work, play, study is all really role playing. We start of thrown into a school and we are told how to act and what to do. We are like actors, but then it becomes who we are. We do not have to think twice about how to act or what to do, because it is us, we becomes student. Then slowly through out life it is all about first just role playing. Role playing at your job. Role playing when you get married. Role playing when you have kids. It eventually turns into who we are.
So then maybe you can throw anybody into any situation and they will eventually be fine. If someone who thinks they are unkabable of running a company, yet it suddenly gets placed on their shoulders that they must do it. So they act all CEO like and start running it. Until eventually they feel like someone who is running a company, that is who they are.
If this is true. I wonder if you think so. Then wouldn't we all be able to do anything we set our minds to. We just need to pretend long enough until it become what we can and feel. I think this can be a scary thing as well, However I do believe that this proves, you can do anything if you try hard enough. What do you think?
This past week, we started learning about social psychology and about how attitudes influences actions and actions influence attitudes. We briefly mentioned the Stanford Prison Experiment, saying that our buddy Philip Zimbardo conducted a week-long experiment at Stanford to test the influence of roleplaying on actions and attitudes. His findings were astounding: within one day, the "prisoners" actually started acting like prisoners and the "guards" actually starting acting as if they had all of the power and that they could abuse the prisoners. Remember that all of these people knew they were taking part in a psychological study and got so engrossed in the role play that they actually started behaving as if they were their roles. The prisoners exhibited a lot of learned helplessness in terms of escaping punishment and warding off the guards. Actually, the new behaviors got so out of control that Philip Zimbardo had to call off the experiment after only two days in order to prevent any major psychological damage.
The first time I heard about this experiment was at NCSY National Yarchei Kallah this past winter break. After Maariv one night, I attended an optional session led by one of the rabbis there. Although I have since forgotten the title of the session, I remember that it was all about whether or not a person could actually be as evil as the Nazis were towards other human beings. The rabbi there, also a psychologist, started the session by asking us if we thought it was possible for a regular person to suddenly act like a monster when put in a role play situation. The vast majority of the kids present, including myself, said that we thought it was possible but unlikely because role play is just that: pretend. We thought that people would be able to snap out of it when their behavior or attitudes got overly immoral. Then, the rabbi brought up the Stanford Prison Experiment. Everyone was flabbergasted and truly shocked. No one thought that this type of situation could bring out the "monster within" and none of us thought that the monsters would be that evil. In conclusion, it's incredibly interesting to see how role play played such a huge role in one of the biggest collective tragedies that the Jews have ever faced because the Nazi guards were put in a situation of power over the helpless Jews and were commanded to use their power. I don't feel pity for the Nazis, but I think this gives some insight into why they did what they did and why the atrocities tended towards the extreme.
Here's a video of the experiment. Viewer Discretion is Advised.
Oops! Have you ever agreed to a really big job because you already involved yourself in it on a smaller scale? I know that I have! This is commonly known as the Foot in the Door Phenomenon. When salesmen used to make door calls, they used to just try and get their foot in the door and that would have the customer hooked. By letting the salesman in, you were agreeing to something small with implication of agreeing to something larger later.
If you ever try and ask someone to do something big at first, they are going to most likely say no, but if they have been involved in the project recently or been asked to do something smaller for it, they are more likely to say yes. For example if I ask you to make 200 cookies off the bat, you are most likely going to say no. But, if I ask you to go shopping for the ingredients with me, you feel like you are obligated to do something with those ingredients and soon you will have made 200 cookies.
It happens to all of us. When have you experienced the Foot in the Door Phenomenon?
I know this is a bit of a throwback, as I'm about to talk about emotional intelligence, something we studied way-back-when in Chapter 11, but I recently stumbled on a TED talk given by Daniel Goleman, entitled, "Why Aren't We More Compassionate?" and found it super-interesting and somewhat related to social psychology, as it talks about how we interact with others, so I thought I'd share. So, let me begin first by reviewing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, based off of Sternberg's ideas, essentially says that academic intelligence is necessary for rigorous professions but once you get to a certain level of academic intelligence where everyone possesses similar qualities, it is social and emotional intelligence that dictates success. Peter Salovey and John Mayer coined this idea with the MEIS (multi-factor emotional intelligence scale) in 1995. However, it was popularized by Daniel Goleman, who also produced the term EQ, or emotional quotient, a play on words.
Goleman believed that EQ indicated social intelligence. It is the ability to perceive emotions (recognizing them in faces, music, and stories, reading the tone of a room, recognizing emotion in others), express emotions (to enable adaptive and creative thinking, the ability to be empathetic, and give people the sense that you are listening to them and understanding them), understand emotions (predict them and understand how they change and blend, and internalize what surrounds you), and regulate emotions (know how to express them in varied situations, such as remaining calm in the face of a stressful context). The emotional intelligence scale is designed to assess the appraisal, expression, and regulation of emotion in the self and others and the utilization of emotion in solving problems.
Goleman begins his talk by mentioning a critical study done at Princeton Theological Seminary that seems to explain why it is that when we have the opportunity to help, sometimes we do, and other times, we don't. The experiment was done as follows: A group of divinity students at the Princeton Theological Seminary were instructed that they were to give a practice sermon, and were each assigned a sermon topic. Half of the students were given, as a topic, the parable of the Good Samaritan, the man who stopped to help a stranger in need by the side of the road. The other half were given random Bible topics. Then, they were told that they would need to switch to another building to deliver the sermon. As they walked from the first building to the second, they each passed a man who was clearly in dire need. The question is: Did they help? And moreover, did the fact that they were mulling over the parable of the Good Samaritan affect their actions? However, what determined whether or not these students stopped to help was how much of a hurry that believed themselves to be in.
There is a new emerging field in brain science, called social neuroscience. It examines the circuitry in two people's brains that activates while they interact. And the findings concerning compassion from the social neuroscience perspective is that our" default wiring" is to help. This means that if we attend to another, we automatically emphasize and feel with them, due to our mirror neurons. However, when we're preoccupied or focused on ourselves, we don't feel this click, and don't completely notice one another, thus preventing us from stopping to help.
Goleman then mentions an interview his brother-in-law conducted with a famous killer, known as the Santa Cruz strangler. The most morbid part of the experience was figuring out that this murderer had an IQ of 160, a certified genius. But there is no correlation between IQ and emotional empathy, as they're controlled by different parts of the brain. At one point, Goleman's brother-in-law asked the man how he could have done it. And the response he received was: "Oh no. If I'd felt the distress, I could not have done it. I had to turn that part of me off. I had to turn that part of me off."
This idea, of turning emotions off, is a frequent theme of the popular television show, The Vampire Diaries. In the supernatural world of vampires, they are given the ability to quite literally "turn their emotions off," and as a result, feel no remorse for their actions.
What do you think of Goleman's conclusion?
For your viewing pleasure, the video is below.
This week in AP Psychology we discussed social psychology. *sniff* It's our last chapter unit! We learned that social psychology includes social thinking, social influences, and social relations. Within social thinking, we discussed attribution process and attitudes. I was most interested in the attitude portion, in which we learned how attitudes affect actions and how actions affect attitudes.
"Actions affect our attitudes" simply means that the way we act impacts the way we think. Many phenomenons arise with this concept, including that of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. This is the tendency to agree to something larger after originally agreeing to something smaller. For instance, you ask someone to get you some water because you happen to be extremely busy. Oh, you know what, you really need caffeine, so they could just go on a Starbucks run really quick, right? Once you get your foot in the door, it's easy to get someone to agree to something bigger.
The opposite of this phenomenon would be the door-in-the-face phenomenon, which is the tendency to agree to a smaller request if the original one was larger. For instance, using the same example, you first ask someone if they could go run out to Starbucks to get you something. They say no, as they don't really want to go all the way out there now, so you sneak in a smaller request- could they just grab you a cup of water quickly then?
Then comes brainwashing. Overtime, when forced to repeatedly act in a way that goes against your values or beliefs, you will change your beliefs. This has to do with cognitive dissonance, where conflict between action and belief causes you to either change your actions or your beliefs.
Another concept that arises is the impact of role-playing on attitude and action. If you act in a certain way, it will affect your attitude. Even when understanding that you are simply playing a role, you can still change the way you behave. When learning this, I had a flash back to a book I read a while ago, in 8th grade I believe, called Home for the Holidays. It is part of a series called The Mother-Daughter Book Club, which I was obsessed with. Anyway, in this particular book, one of the main characters, Becca, decides to take on an alter-ego to feel more confident. She pretends to be playing the role of Rebecca, someone who exudes confidence and charm. Eventually, she begins to act as snottily as Rebecca would, which ruins many of her relationships with her friends and family. Even though she knew it was just a role, she eventually began to take on the attitude of her alter-ego.
Cognitive dissonance is the last phenomenon that arises. Leon Festinger came up with the idea that when you act in a ways that you cannot justify, it creates dissonance. This conflict comes up between your actions and your attitude. You've acted in a way that goes against your attitude of it. This unpleasant state of tension can only be relieved by either changing your actions or changing your attitude.
When looking up examples of cognitive dissonance to make it more applicable to everyday life, I found one that actually directly relates to what I did today. On psychohawks.wordpress.com, Sam Eddy gives everyday examples of how cognitive dissonance arises. One being that Sarah buys a new car that cost a lot more than she could really afford. However, instead of feeling the uncomfortable emotions of regret and embarrassment at spending more than she should have, she convinces herself that the new car is in much better condition than her old one, and will save her a lot of money in the long run. Today, I went to Stein Mart and bought some clothes for Pesach. Although I do need some snazzy things for the holiday, I did feel like I could have spent less money. But, of course I'll where the clothes all the time, so it was totally worth it.
The last few weeks, Divergent--the movie slated to be the next Hunger Games--has been on all over the media. Interestingly, the movie was inspired by psychology! I was reading my People magazine, as I often do on a Friday night, and I saw the words "fear" and "anxiety," so of course I stopped to read the article. The article was on Veronica Roth, the author of the best-selling book, now movie. She talked about how she battles chronic anxiety and has occasional panic attacks. As her own therapy, she wrote about a "character who meets her fears head-on."
Roth started writing Divergent as a senior at Northwestern where she was taking a Psychology 101 class. The topic we just finished learning about, psychotherapy, is what really inspired her. She was studying exposure therapy and thought that it was fascinating. Exposure therapy is a part of behavioral therapy and counter-conditioning. Counter-conditioning is using classical conditioning to replace an unwanted response to a (scary) stimulus to the desired response to that same stimulus. Exposure therapy may consist of systematic desensitization and progressive relaxation. This basically means that to overcome a phobia, the patient will be gradually exposed to the thing they are scared of while in a controlled setting and while being consistently relaxed between exposures.
In the book, the city is made up of factions. One of these factions, Dauntless, values courage and fearlessness. As part of their training, they must go through simulations where they face their each of their fears. This is like an extreme version of exposure therapy without the systematic desensitization and progressive relaxation. They are just thrown into situations where they must face their fears. Roth says that she wanted to write about people who used exposure therapy not just to get rid of unwanted phobias, but to become completely fearless.
Roth was also inspired by the study of obedience in social psychology. We have not gotten up to it yet in class, but one of the most famous experiments dealing with social psychology is Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience. His goal was to test people's willingness to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform actions that conflicted with their personal values. His results were that people are likely to go to almost any lengths to if a person of authority demands them to--even if conflicts with their personal values (in the experiment, they had to punish someone with an electric shock--65% were willing to give a 450-volt shock to the participant). This concept of disregarding our own moral principles in order to comply with the demands of a person in authority is something Roth is constantly exploring throughout the series.
We previously learned about bulimia, anorexia, and binge eating, disorders where people's eating habits become harmful and abnormal. We also learned that these disorders may stem from a need for control, and are also almost primarily found in Western cultures. Recently, we also learned about another Western phenomenon: Dissociative Identity disorder. Formerly known as Multiple-Personality disorder, this is when a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. Skeptics believe that this may be a cultural thing, of which eating disorders are a part of as well. DID goes along with the theory about hypnosis that it stems from a person's desire to basically put on a good show, and when urged by therapists, to create another side to themselves.
What is up with our society that we do things like this? Why in the world does this happen? Perhaps, it has something to do with a loss of control, as suggested by those knowledgeable about eating disorders. Westerners have it all; the technology, the wealth, the free time, etc. We think we control ourselves, and in a way, we do. We are, after all, more focused on the good of the individual, as opposed to communal welfare. This may be the very root of the problem. We are so plugged into everything else around us, and so focused on climbing up the ladder of life, that we lose part of ourselves in the process. The world, our culture, and our society essentially control what we do in our lives, what choices we make, and who we become. This may give a person, when and if they consider this idea, the feeling of a loss of control. Another way to look at this is to visualize the size of an ant compared to the size of a mountain. We would be the ant. In a culture such as ours, the disparity between the amount of control we have in our lives, and the actual amount of control we have in our lives is immense. Perhaps this is why Western cultures have disorders such as these; perhaps this lack of control is too much to bear, and these disorders are a way of expressing this feeling.
For some reason, OCD has been colloquially mixed up with OCPD. For some altogether different reason, this greatly bothers me. There is a large difference between the two, other than just one letter. I am here to disprove some of the incorrect ideas people have about the disorder OCD.
1. OCD has to do with germs.
Not necessarily. People with OCD would not be your typical neat-freak. They would be your neat-freak to unfathomable extremes. Consider this: would washing your hands roughly and repeatedly until the skin is painful and peeling be considered a trait of a neat-freak? NO. Neat freaks may be obsessive, but they do not have the compulsions associated with actual OCD. Next time you go on a cleaning spree, remind yourself of this.
2. It is a term to describe unusual behavior.
It really depends on what behavior you're talking about. As far as abnormal psychology is concerned, it qualifies. However, labeling someone who collects raw noodles, or something else "odd", as OCD is not accurate.
3. People with OCD are ok with their behavior.
No, they most certainly are not. People with OCPD very well may be. However, a large component of OCD is frustration about the obsessions that lead to compulsions to combat a certain anxiety, in which this behavior feels unstoppable and out of a person's control.
4. People who are super sports enthusiasts or obsessed with a certain celebrity are OCD.
Try again. These people may be obsessed, but this alone does not mean a person is OCD. They just really like something to the point that it may run their lives, which is a different problem altogether.
These are just a few common misconceptions that people have about OCD. I hope this helps clarifiy what OCD actually is!
Recently, someone told me about the book Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan. Shockingly, this true story is about how the author went through a month of symptoms that resembled schizophrenia, dissosciative fugue, as well as dementia. Prior to this, she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Apparently, she woke up one morning and didn't know who she was, or what was going on. She had been having violent episodes and delusions, and no one knew what was wrong with her. She went through test after test, and was diagnosed with all kinds of psychological disorders. In the end (SPOILER ALERT), one doctor realized almost by accident that the cause of this all stemmed from a biological cause. It turns out that Cahalan had Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which was only categorized as a disease in 2007. This autoimmune disease caused half of her brain to be inflamed, which prompted her symptoms. Apparently, this didn't show up in any other tests, and doctors assumed that she was crazy and that it was all in her head. What's weirder is that apparently there are a number of people with this easily treatable disease who don't have a diagnosis and are left to suffer.
My point in sharing this story is to highlight why doctors must be extraordinarily careful in diagnosing and treating patients with psychological disorders. If a person is incorrectly diagnosed and treated, the results could end up badly. Also, many people in previous years who may have been diagnosed with any of the psychological disorders that Cahalan was diagnosed with but were not responsive to treatment may have had similar health problems as her, but this may have never been identified. When treating anything that has to do with the brain, one must use caution and not make hasty decisions, for there is much at stake.
When we started learning about psychological disorders, I was looking forward to two specific ones: Dissociative Fugue and Dissociate Identity Disorder. These two disorders are so often used to create some drama and twists on television shows that they seem common to me. I guess that just shows how the media really does impact how we think. Anyway, after we learned about them in class, I realized that they are definitely not common and one of them might not even be real! Dissociative Identity Disorder is pretty controversial, like hypnosis it. For that reason, I will not even waste precious blog space writing about it. Its just too troubling to me. I will instead shift my focus to Dissociative Fugue--otherwise known as the amnesia that makes you forget your identity (but you still, for some odd reason, remember how to speak english). Even though it's rare, there are cases where people have had a sudden loss of identity. Let's take a look at the case of John Ingram.
Ingram's finacee told police that he was on his way to visit a friend in Canada who was dying from cancer. She believed that the stress and grief might have caused the amnesia. On September 10, 2006, Ingram wound up in a hospital in Denver after asking several people on the street for help since he could not remember who he was. There, he was diagnosed with the mysterious disorder of Dissociative Fugue. Experts have said that this disorder is typically linked to stress so it's definitely possible that that is what caused it. For the next few months, Ingram was featured on some news shows in hopes someone would recognize him. His finacee's brother recognized him and within a few days, John and his finacee were reunited. He still did not regain his memory, but the two have been working on it ever since.
Just a few years ago, another story was featured in the New York Times about a young teacher who went missing and was also diagnosed with Dissociative Fugue when she was found. Apparently, those who have this disorder tend to have a sudden impulse to travel away from their homes. It's just such a weird disorder. The scariest part is that it can happen at any time. The disorder is such a mystery to psychologists that they cannot identify the cause. It can strike at any time. Some say stress is partly the cause but we do not know for sure. Like all psychological disorders, this one really does impede your functioning--after all, once it hits, you're just lost.
Depending on which perspective you take, there are a few ways of treating this disorder. Psychotherapy, as in counseling, is the main way it is treating. The therapist attempts to gain insight into whatever is causing the sudden memory loss. Medication is not used for this disorder unless there are also signs of another disorder, such as depression. Clinical hypnosis has been used before to try to bring hidden memories and thoughts out from the unconscious. Different creative therapies such as music and art therapy have been used as well as family therapy. Most of the time Dissociative Fugue vanishes on its own--because it's just that weird.
Anyway, what do you guys think the weirdest/scariest disorder is? How would you treat Dissociative Fugue?
When we first started the packet of abnormal behavior in class, we defined what we believed abnormal behavior meant. As a class, we decided that it meant that it didn't fit what was societal norms - psychologically and socially, It doesn't fit what most people's usual behaviors were, it was out of the ordinary, and it was harmful, disruptive, and unpredictable.
After we defined abnormal behavior, we went through a list of stories and people's behaviors and we had to decide if that was a psychological disorder or not. We went through and said if we believed it was a psychological disorder or not and then justified our answers. Some of the things we saw were psychological disorders and the others were just strange behaviors but not actually seen as a psychological disorder.
I think that what we did was have a prototype person with a psychological disorder and we pictured them in out head and it skewed what we thought a person with psychological disorder acted as. Looking back after learning in depth what psychological disorders were and how they were defined, the stories we read were all psychological disorders. At that point, we were only able to see the prototype and what thoughts were available in our mind at that time.
The actual potential elements of abnormal behavior are:
Atypical-Statistical deviation: Since many human characteristics are normally distributed, according to this idea the defining characteristic of abnormal behavior is an "uncommon behavior" that is a significant deviation from the average/majority.
Disturbing-Social norm violation: Most of our behavior is shaped by the norms - cultural expectations about the right and wrong way to do things. This therefore defines abnormal behavior as breaking unwritten social "rules."
Maladaptive Behavior: 1) Maladaptive to one's self - inability to reach goals, to adapt to the demands of life 2) Maladaptive to society - interferes, disrupts social group functioning
Personal Distress: Put simply, if the person is content with his/her life, then s/he is of no concern to the mental health field. If, on the other hand, the person is distressed (depressed, anxious, etc.) then those behaviors and thoughts that the person is unhappy about are abnormal behaviors and thoughts.
Unjustifiable: The elements of abnormal behavior cannot be justified by health factors, recent life events, or other medical explanations.
A personality disorder is defined as a disruptive, inflexible, and enduring patterns of behavior that impair one's social functioning. Personality disorders are split into three different clusters: 1. Anxiety 2. Eccentric behaviors and 3. Dramatic or impulsive behaviors There are 6 different types of personality disorders:
1. Avoidant Personality Disorder: Fearful sensitivity to rejection - the person is constantly being afraid of being rejected and it's not just in certain situations, it's in every situation that they are in. After a while of avoiding people and being to afraid to talk to them, people will stop interacting with you as well.
2. Narcissistic personality disorder: Self-focused and self-inflating - The person is so focused on themselves that they will push themselves up without caring if they are pushing anyone down. They are full of themselves and everything is about "me." They have no empathy for others. Also, they are very manipulative.
3. Histrionic Personality disorder: Dramatic, impulsive, and attention-seeking behaviors - They always need to be the center of attention and they crave inappropriate behaviors. They want to have an intense relationship with someone. They are very superficial and are more likely to have risk taking behaviors. They want to have these behaviors and they have them all the time.
4. Antisocial Personality Disorder: (psychopath) lack of conscience that cause the person to lie, steal, fight, or display unrestrained sexual behaviors - They don't feel guilty for their actions. A rapist is more likely to be a psychopath. They are very charming. It's not just their personality, there is also a different brain activity that a psychopath will have: There is reduced activity in the murderers’ frontal lobes, which is an area of the cortex that helps control impulses. Violent repeat offenders had 11% less frontal lobe tissue than normal. 5. Schizoid Personality disorder: Eccentric behaviors focusing on emotionless disengagement - They are really emotionally disengaged. They are more dark, gothic people who don't conform to society. It is considered Schizoid Personality disorder when it is extreme to the point where it impedes their functioning. 6. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder: Obsession with cleanliness, orderliness, and neatness - It is a rigid way of thinking. They are very neat and organized. It impact their functioning and other peoples' lives. They are obsessed with everything being cleaned. They are not aware that they are doing these things. I think that the worst at of all of these are Antisocial Personality Disorder. Where the other Personality Disorders are effecting other peoples' lives also, this one is truly harmful to other peoples' lives. It isn't just different behaviors that they perform that are not seen as "normal" in society. It is that they don't realize that they are doing something wrong and they are truly harming someone's life without even noticing it and I think that's what makes it the scariest.
An Abnormal behavior is defined as a behavior that is a harmful dysfunction that is atypical, disturbing, maladaptive, and unjustifiable.
An abnormal behavior becomes a psychological disorder if it persists over time and it becomes deviant, distressful, dysfunctional pattern of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
There are a few problems that come when you label a person with an abnormal behavior. When you label them, you imply that that person has a deficiency and you see them as having a problem. Also, it gives them a label or a stigma and you interact with that person differently.
David Rosenhan did research and found that when you hear someone has a psychological disorder, you see everything they do as being because of the disorder.
What David Rosenhan did was that him and a few of his colleagues checked themselves into a mental hospital by faking a symptom. They said they heard voices. When they were admitted to the hospital, they stopped their behaviors and behaved "normally" again. They wanted to see if anyone would detect that they were sane. No one did. They were diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and they were discharged with paranoid schizophrenia in remission. He described that experience as dehumanizing. No body cared for them or contacted them or came to visit them.
David Rosenhan describes a mental hospital as a place of storage for people that others do not understand or want to be around and for people others have lost sympathy for. The staff only recognized the people as people with symptoms of psychological disorders. David Rosenhan decribes this people with what others would see as "normal" not someone just with the psychological disorder.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's important for a person to be diagnosed with the psychological disorder that they have so that they can be treated. I'm not entirely sure how that could be changed. I just think that it's wrong that once a person is "labeled" with a disorder, they become that disorder and that is all that people see about them.
Gender Roles: What is expected for men and what is expected for women? This is what society expects how men and women to behave.
Gender Identity: Our sense of being male or female. What do we think is a typical male or female?
Gender typed: The acquisition of the traditional male or female role. How do you acquire the role?
Social Learning Theory: The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and being rewarded or punished.
Gender Schema theory: Form a lens through which to view experiences of information into schemas. (he/she, long/short hair, dresses/pants.)
I work in the Young Israel groups and this week my kids were playing on the playground. They were all playing around, and one of the girls was climbing on the playground. She was climbing and I asked if she was okay and if she knew what she was doing. She said she's done it before and that she is okay. When she finished climbing over things she was proud of herself and she exclaimed "I'm a boy climber, I can climb like a boy." When I heard this I immediately thought of psychology class.
Also, later that day, the same girl was playing around where the boys were and she took one of the things that they were playing with. Later, she came up to me and told me that the boys were scared of her and how funny it is that boys are scared of a girl and that's not how it's supposed to be.
These events made me think a lot about what society has become. How there are separate strengths or fears that only girls are suppose to have. It made me wonder if it's just the way the gender roles have evolved over time or is it the way people raise their kids what to believe?
In Unit 12, we discussed the many psychological disorders that exist, what categorizes them, and in Unit 13, how to treat them. One of the categories of psychological disorders we learned about were the anxiety disorders. Panic disorder, an anxiety disorder, is characterized by four "stages," which are on a continuous loop. The first is body sensations, in which an unusual bodily sensation (e.g. pounding heart), makes you react with fear that something bad is going to happen. The second is a panic attack, where your continued over-reaction to the bodily sensations triggers more fear and eventually leads to a full-fledged panic attack. The third is high anxiety: Once the panic attack subsides, you are left feeling anxious and in a very sensitive state. And the fourth is fear of fear. You fear of having another panic attack keeps your anxiety levels high and this leads to further unusual bodily sensations. The panic loop is now established.
Panic disorder is like "anxiety on steroids," and can occur at any time. The person will feel as if they are going to die. Sometimes it is caused by something specific, other times not. However, the fear and dread of having another attack is completely frightening. Panic attacks are characterized by this intense terror of disaster or of losing control even when there is no real, imminent danger. A person can also have a physical reaction during a panic attack, and may feel as if they are having a heart attack. Panic disorder sometimes runs in families, but there is no concrete evidence for why some have it and others do not. Researchers have found several parts in the brain associated with fear and anxiety (the amygdala, for example), and are also further investigating the relative contributions of stress and environment.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, people with panic disorder may have the following: "sudden and repeated attacks of fear, a feeling of being out of control during a panic attack, an intense worry about when the next attack will happen, a fear or avoidance of places where panic attacks have occurred in the past, and physical symptoms during an attack, such as a pounding or racing heart, sweating, breathing problems, weakness or dizziness, feeling hot or a cold chill, tingly or numb hands, chest pain, or stomach pain."
As aforementioned, these attacks occur spontaneously, even during sleep. An attack typically peaks at 10 minutes, but the symptoms may endure for a longer period. The panic disorder can be so encompassing that if it materializes in say, an elevator, some with panic disorder may begin to fear elevators in general. It's a crippling condition. Some people become so disabled by the disorder that they cannot participate in daily activities or lead normal lives. About one-third become housebound and it spirals into agoraphobia, and they are only able to confront a feared situation when in the company of a spouse or other trusted individual. Panic disorder is often accompanied by other problems, such as depression, drug abuse, or alcoholism.
Panic disorder affects approximately 6 million American adults and is twice as prevalent in women as men. Panic attacks usually begin in late adolescence or early adulthood, but not everyone who experiences panic attacks will develop panic disorder. Many people have just one attack and never have another. Although it appears to be inherited, panic disorder is highly treatable, usually by using psychotherapy, specifically cognitive therapy, or medicine, and sometimes both.
Of all of the disorders that we've studied in class, by far the most fascinating to me is catatonic schizophrenia, or Catatonia. Although we reviewed the symptoms in class, I was still confused as to the actual extent of the disorder.
Here's a quick review of what we learned in class: Schizophrenia is a a disorder characterized by a split from reality that shows itself in disorganized thinking, disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions and actions. Catatonic Schizophrenia is characterized by negative symptoms, or the absence of symptoms. Patients with this disorder have a flat affect and are physically stuck. If you move their arm into one position, it will stay there until you move it somewhere else. They literally cannot and will not move unless you move them.
I did a little research about this disorder and it turns out that there's much more to it than what we learned in class. Let's start with the diagnosis: According to the DSM-IV, a person with Catatonic must have at least two of the following: motor immobility, excessive motor activity (what?), extreme negativism, oddities in voluntary movement including grimacing, and echolalia and echopraxia, or involuntary repetition of another's words or actions.
Let's go back to the part where catatonic schizophrenia can be characterized by excessive movement. There are actually three subtypes within the broad heading of Catatonia. The first type is stupor, which is the type we learned about in class. It is also known as Kahlbaum Syndrome. There is no movement and no response to external stimuli. These patients generally don't make eye contact and are mute. The second type is catatonic excitement, or a constant state of purposeless agitation and excitation. These people are extremely hyperactive, but the activity lacks purpose. To quote Wikipedia, "It is commonly cited as one of the most dangerous mental states in psychiatry." The third type is malignant catatonia, which is characterized by the acute onset of excitement, fever, autonomic instability, and delirium. This type of catatonia may be fatal. Most frighteningly, symptoms of Catatonia, especially catatonic excitement, have been recognized in people with autism spectrum disorders.
Here's a video about this disorder. BE WARNED: the hallucination part of the video is pretty frightening. Also, forgive the colloquialisms. I'm pretty sure this was a school project.
I stand by my answer to Mrs. Perl's question. What is the worst disorder to have?
Catatonic Schizophrenia.
Do you agree of disagree? Does the fact that some of these symptoms may appear in those with autism make this disorder even more frightening? Why or why not?
So, I have this fear (see previous blogpost), and now we need to know how to treat it. There are many types of therapy that I could undergo, but only one or two would really be the most effective.
First, cognitive-behavioral therapy. This will change my thoughts from negative ones about birds, to more positive ones about birds. It will also reverse my classically conditioned thoughts about birds. The therapist will help me overcome milestones in interacting with bird. Like first he will make me look at a picture of a bird, and by the end of it, I will be able to have a bird stand on my head. This is the best approach to animal phobias because it really reverses the phobia cognitively and behaviorally.
If the phobia was severe there could be some anti-anxiety drugs I could take, and take the psychopharmacology route. This is when you use medical treatment and medicine to treat a psychological disorder. The drugs will only reduce your fear so you can stand going through therapy.
If anyone has any type of animal phobia, I would suggest this very much!
Ornithophobia, otherwise known as bird phobia is something that haunts me every day of my life. I am still trying to figure out if it's an actual phobia though. Why am I questioning it, because when I go to the zoo and have to walk past any bird cage I scream and freak out, but when I am just outside walking around and there is a little bird, I don't flip out.
Let's explore the causes of Ornithophobia in general. Any animal phobia is usually caused by a negative encounter with that type of animal. My dad tells me that my fear started when Rocky the Red Bird crept up behind me and scared me. After which I wouldn't stop crying for 2 hours straight. (NOT A GOOD TIME) I find this really funny that it could have been a mascot of a bird that conditioned and generalized me to be afraid of all birds. Though there are other sources of Ornithophobia that originate in popculture, I think mine stems from the negative encounter.
How can you tell if someone has Ornithophobia? It's quite simple, they will start to shake, scream and run at the sight of a bird, but it can depend on severity of your phobia.
Believe it or not, people with severe Ornithophobia can easily become Agorophobic because there are birds everywhere which would make the person scared and anxious everywhere they go. This could eventually cause them to stay indoors for the rest of their life.
Though I don't have quite the most severe form of Ornithophobia, I do have it to some extent. DO YOU HAVE ANY PHOBIAS?
This week in AP Psychology, we began to discuss the many methods of dealing with psychological disorders. Now that we've actually learned what each disorder is all about, it's important to see how they're treated. While listing and explaining each type of therapy would be riveting for everyone, I decided to focus more on psycho-pharmacology. Like everything else, the therapy world contains a bio-psycho-social approach. To deal with the biological aspect, you would probably need some sort of medicine to counteract whatever has gone wrong physically. That is where psycho-pharmacology, using medicine or drugs to treat psychological disorders, comes in.
There are four classes of drugs that one uses to treat different psychological disorders. For psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, there are anti-psychotic drugs. These drugs dampen your response to irrelevant stimuli by blocking or stimulating neurotransmitter receptor sites. For paranoid schizophrenia, you might take chloropromazine or thorazine, which block dopamine receptor sites so excess dopamine cannot be used and prevent positive stimuli, such as hallucinations. Along with every drug comes side effects, and anti-psychotic drugs are no exception. Side effects include: tremors, sluggishness, twitches, and tardive dyskinesia (involuntary movement of limbs).
To act against anxiety, one would use anti-anxiety drugs, which depress central nervous system activity. These drugs include xanax, ativan, valium, and benzodiazapine. This drug can produce physical dependence, as you become dependent on the drug to stop the symptoms of constant nervous system arousal. Another class of drugs, antidepressants, can also counteract anxiety symptoms. They increase the availability of serotonin and norepinephrine. One such drug would be SSRI, the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, which acts as an agonist for serotonin. Others would be prozac, zoloft, and paxil. These drugs help with anxiety as well because they stop the arousal neurotransmitters from manifesting.
The last class of drugs, mood stabilizers, do just that: they stabilize the mood. These drugs would be used for bipolar disorder to stop the up and down swinging of bipolar disorder. One such drug would be lithium.
With using one method comes the argument that another should be used instead. For the therapies that don't focus on the biological aspects of disorders, psycho-pharmacology would not be used. But is it better to use drugs and medicine for medically-based disorders, or should a mixture be used? On huffingtonpost.com, Michael Tansey, a psychologist from Chicago advocates first for psychotherapy, then for both psychotherapy and psycho-pharmacology, then only psycho-pharmacology, then neither.
When advocating for only psycho-pharmacology, Tansey describes a scenario with someone who has a biologically based disorder. He says that for someone like this, it is better to see a psycho-pharmacologist, who would regularly check up on how the medication is working, see how the side effects are impacting life, and then adjust if necessary. Were they to only receive a quick prescription from an internist without a follow-up, a disdain for psychotherapy and medication may grow.
This week we talked a lot about therapy. The different types of therapy include:
Psychoanalysis: It's based on the Freudian belief that our behaviors are driven by unconscious drive and forces. They believe that anxiety is a conflict between the id and the supergo. The goal of this form of therapy is to try and bring repressed memories to the surface. The therapy is very costly and involves the therapist staying out of sight and using the practice of free association (saying whatever comes to mind continuously). The therapist uses the resistance (pausing between words) to find the things that bring shame. What often happens is transference (they transfer feelings about something to the therapist). They also perform dream analysis - the idea is that their dreams give access to the patient's unconscious.
Psychodynamic approach: This form of therapy is face-to-face and is what we are thinking of when we classically think of therapy. They don't think that it's all about uncovering repressed memories. They focus on uncovering the things that affected the past, they want to talk about it. They realize that the past impacts the present and the goal is to solve the present problems by looking at the past. They focus on interpersonal psychotherapy - they're not going to delve into the patient's childhood, they're going to look at the current relationships.
Humanistic approach: Humanism focuses on the ideas of self-actualization, being positive, being growth-oriented, the fact that people are good, and the merging of the perceived self and the ideal self. The humanistic approach thinks that by the therapist disclosing something about themselves, they can help the patient. They practice insight therapy - trying to give advise; and client-centered therapy - the focus is on the client and the present, they want to elicit ideas from the client. They use active listening, where they mirror back what the client is saying and always have unconditional positive regard - they always find the good in people.
Behavioral therapy: Behaviorists define behavior as an observable behavior. The goal is to change behavior - not looking into the past. They use classical and operant conditioning to achieve this. Through classical conditioning, they use things like exposure therapy (continuous exposure to the problem), to systematically desensitize the patient to the problem. The goal is to repeatedly pair the neutral stimulus with progressive relaxation and it will eventually extinguish the response. Aversive conditioning replaces the behavior by pairing it with something negative. Operant conditioning reinforces or punishes to change the behavior. By using a token economy (using a prize to act as money) therapists can reinforce behavior.
Cognitive therapy: Cognitive therapy will only work if depression comes from a cognitive approach. Cognitive therapy aims to look at a person's thought pattern, and wants to change that pattern.
Cognitive-behavior therapy: This approach combines behavioral and cognitive therapy. Their goal is to address thoughts, emotions, and behaviors -- because they all influence your life.
Group and family therapy: this type of therapy is of the opinion that an individual might gain more insight by seeing what others say. They think that sometimes there are issues that affect an entire group or a family, and can be helped if discussed together.
Ecclectic approach: This approach takes the opinion 'one approach isn't good.' The more you use the better! The best way to solve a problem is to pull from a variety of sources.
I don't know which I think is best. I think that it really depends on the situation.. Maybe that would mean I like the ecclectic approach best?? Which approach do you think is most effective?
We learned about dissociative identity disorder this week. We defined it as previously known as multiple personality disorder - having 2 more distinct identities that control the person's behavior. We talked about how it's very controversial, similar to how hypnosis was.
I read an article (sorry Rachel, I know that's your thing) about whether or not dissociative identity disorder is real or not. Someone asked the question we did "is it real or not?" A mental health expert, Dr. Charles Raison, answered the question.
He first summed up the opinion of those who are opposed to it: they think that the condition doesn't exist, or that if it is, it's 'iatrogenic' -- it's caused by therapists training their patients to interpret their symptoms as if they have a whole set of distinct personalities.
Then he tells about those who agree with it: therapists will hold separate meetings with each of the patients other personalities (how weird?).
He then tells his own opinion: he says "The dictionary defines dissociation as "an unexpected partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of a person's conscious or psychological functioning that cannot be easily explained by the person." I don't think anyone could doubt that this phenomenon exists." He hold up his claim by saying that dissociation is when you're doing something important, then you lose track of the part of yourself that's doing it. He says that he doesn't believe that they're actually present, but that they are convinced that this is actually happening.
It's a weird concept - that a single person could have multiple personalities in their head. It's hard to imagine as well. I would like to think that dissociation to this degree is impossible and that dissociative identity disorder doesn't exist. What do you think?
A psychological disorder is when abnormal behavior persists over time and becomes a deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional pattern of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. One of the psychological disorders is anxiety. There are many different types of anxieties that we learned in class, many of which I did not know qualified as anxieties. Anxiety is when the sympathetic nervous system is aroused when there is nothing that should arouse it. Sometimes anxiety could be good, because it triggers your fight-or-flight response. When your sympathetic nervous system is continuously aroused and your body is in constant activation, then it becomes detrimental, like when it occurs in the absence of normal stimulation.
General Anxiety Disorder: The person is always worried and they feel physiological symptoms over everything. They make huge situations when there is nothing there. Phobias:
Full Fledged Panic - when a fear begins to take over your life, thoughts, dreams, etc. then it is considered a phobia.
Agoraphobia - the fear of going outside, the person stays shuttered in their home, this could happen because of any reason.
Social Phobia - Feel anxious to be in social situations. It is considered a phobia when it is actually impeding you functioning. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:
Have obsessive thoughts, which then develops anxiety. You then develop compulsive actions to relieve anxiety. You are so worried that something is not right that you constantly check it even if you know it's right. You do these actions to cope with your anxiety.
PTSD:
Anyone who had major trauma. Can't function in life because of it. Flashbacks f the trauma. Most found in veterans.
Panic Disorder:
Anxiety on steroids. A person will feel like they're going to die. Sometimes caused by something specific and sometimes not. Sometimes someone will have a fear of having a panic attack, so they will have the panic attack.
Depression is something that many Americans unfortunately have. Luckily there are a lot of treatments that help some through depression. There are medication, therapy and meditations that are used to help treat someone with depression. Unfortunately there are a few people with depression that none of the current treatments work for them.
Rectly the Los Angeles Times put out an article about people with depression that cannot get cured thought he current treatments. They were informing the public about a few new treatments that are just starting to emerge to help people with depression.
I thought it was very interesting to hear what treatments where just coming out or currently under study. Vortioxetine- Is a new drug that was recently approved. It is known to help depression and even boost the person's memory. Ketamine- This drug is not approved to help depression. Although it has helped with people who do not respond to antidepressant. It is also really good in helping those with suicidal thoughts. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation- This is something to consider if drugs do not work. They attach electromagnetic coil to a person's scalp. They then send magnetic impulses to specific parts of the brain knows to trigger depression. The impulses are know to help revert it. Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation- Is a regular thing that you can buy and use at home. You place it on your head and it sends electronic impulses to the brain. It is known to help smaller problems like insomnia but it can also help with depression. Deep Brain Stimulation- This is something new that is till being tested. They place a small neurostimulator into the brain- similar to a pacemaker. It is known to help with many problems.
Hopefully these new treatments will help more people with depression. Do you think these new treatments will work? Or is some depression a lost case and nothing can be done?
Look out for these names, one of them might be the #1 breakthrough with helping cure depression.
Ever wish that the school day started a little later? How annoying is it to drag yourself out of bed to get to school by 7:50? Imagine if school started at 7:00 or 7:20. Oh, the horror! So, what if I told you that there is an ongoing push to get schools to have later start times. Does this sound like a good or bad idea to you? Remove yourself from your day-school mindset, and imagine you would normally get out at 2 or 3 normally. The later school starts, the later school will have to end. How will this cut in with extracurricular activities? I know.. you're probably laughing because we already end really late and somehow manage. And you're also probably thinking that if we started any later that would mean we would never get home. But I told you--- try to be unbiased! Now, read Jan Hoffman's article entitled "To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Let Them Sleep In" by clicking here. It's pretty interesting, dontcha think?
So, now that you've read the article, what do you all think? Do you think it makes sense for schools to be going toward these later start times, or do you think that it's too much of a hassle? By the way- note how one of the 'later start time' options was 8 a.m. That's not so late compared to our school, but it's an extra hour to 40 minutes for other students.
There are some interesting points that the article brought up that I thought I'd discuss for those of you who didn't necessarily read the article. Apparently teenagers are developmentally driven to be late to bed and late to rise. As in, there is a biological aspect to why we (sorry if you don't fall under this 'we'.. I know I do) seem to be okay going to sleep late and then feel terrible in the morning. Is this another case of the "blame it on biology" (oy.. now that song is going to be stuck in my head again..)? Recent results show that the later a school's start time, the better off the students were on many measures, including mental health, car crash rates, attendance, and, in some cases, grades and standardizes tests. What do you think about this correlation? I think those results make a lot of logical sense. Why do you think, though, that there's not a greater push to get teens to go to bed earlier? Wouldn't this solve the same problems?
I am all for this later start time in theory, but I don't know what it's long lasting impacts will be. If teens get home later, and have a later start time, don't you think they will just develop a new schedule? Let's say they used to go to bed at 12 every night and get up at 6:40- what's to stop them from going to bed at 1 and getting up at 7:40? I guess what I'm trying to say-do you think these positive results will be lasting in the long-term, or do you think that kids will eventually adjust to these new times, and find other ways to be lacking sleep?
I think the main objective for all concerned parties is for kids to be healthy and get enough sleep. Researchers have found that sleeping can help moderate teenagers' tendency toward impulsive or risky decision making. We also know that sleep is important in information processing. Is later a later start time the solution to all this? I think we have to think about what exactly is causing teenagers to go to sleep so late in the first place. During puberty, teenagers have a later release of melatonin, which makes most teenagers not feel drowsy until 11pm. This is a biological factor that will cause teenagers to go to sleep late. But what about social factors? What about the fact that electronic devices trick the brain into sensing wakeful daylight, slowing the release of melatonin and the onset of sleep? What about facebook, twitter, and other social networking sites? Teens waste so much time on those sites. If they actually did what they were supposed to do, maybe they wouldn't be tired.
I'm interested to see where this will take us. Will more schools lean towards later start times? Will the students in the schools with later starts score significantly higher and do better? Will they be happier? What about the athletes and other kids participating in extracurricular activities? So many questions. It's not as simple as it might sound. Final thoughts?
In December 2013, a Texas teenager was put on probation with no jail time after killing four people while driving under the influence. How could this be? The judge cited "affluenza," meaning the teen could not have taken responsibility for his actions because he grew up wealthy. I know what you're probably thinking- really?!
Yes. A psychologist testified on behalf of the teen, claiming he suffered from affluenza, a condition in which wealthy young people have a sense of entitlement, are irresponsible, and make excuses for poor behavior because their parents have not set proper boundaries. The kid may have gotten off easy, but many critique the psychology behind the affluenza diagnosis.
Clinical psychologist Robin Rosenberg believes that the affluenza diagnosis is a a distortion of psychology. The psychology of affluenza does not hold up for two reasons. Firstly, even if the teenager was not disciplined or given boundaries at home, he certainly would have been able to learn lessons in other areas of his life. People are sensitive to context and accurately distinguish between consequences that will occur in one situation but not in another. We see this in preschoolers. They are sensitive to context. They know when to push the boundaries and how much they can get away with. Even rats are known to understand and make discriminations based on context. In a study, rats learned that if a light is on when they press a lever, they’ll receive a food pellet, but when the light is off they won’t. It's that simple.
Secondly, the teenager seemed to feel a sense of responsibility in other areas of his life. He remained in school instead of dropping out because he understood the consequences such actions might bring. If he understood this, he certainly would have understood the consequences of driving under the influence.
So, it seems that affluenza is NOT a valid psychological diagnosis. Everyone has at least some sense of responsibility and knows that certain actions lead to unpleasant consequences, no matter how much money their parents may have.
Learning about PTSD reminded me of an episode of Criminal Minds, "Distress", that I watched awhile back. In the episode, the Behavioral Analysis Unit travels to an area of Houston which is undergoing construction to search for a man that has been snapping the necks of innocent people - a construction worker, a security guard, and a homeless man. They profile this man to be a war veteran with PTSD. This man is basically reliving the war zone he had been in. His distorted perception of reality was causing him to kill people who were, in reality, no danger to him. The BAU has to go about the situation very carefully because the veteran has special training and can be very dangerous. SPOILER: in the end, the man is shot by a SWAT team member. Everyone is sad. I cried.
Does this kind of violence really occur in PTSD victims? When Sgt. Robert Bales was arrested for killing 16 civilians in Afghanistan last year, many were quick to connect his violent rampage to his PTSD like symptoms. However, there is no evidence that suggests PTSD can be a cause of violent crimes. Anger, hostility, and aggression are less common symptoms than depression, hypervigilance, and disturbing memories or nightmares. If anything, some PTSD victims show aggression towards themselves or their spouses and families.
Dissociative fugue is such a crazy concept so I needed to find some more information on it. A person is diagnosed with this dissociative disorder when they experience a loss of memory of their identity. Symptoms of this disorder include sudden travel away from home, the inability to recall important information about themselves or past events, and extreme distress. A person could wake up in a completely different city with absolutely zero memory of who they are. Can you imagine? That's insane!
The cause of this disorder appears to be linked to traumatic or stressful events in a person's life. This fugue state can last from less than a day to many months. While this disorder can usually go away on its own, treatment varies from psychotherapy to medication to clinical hypnosis (I <3 hypnosis).
I can think of multiple occurrences of what seems to be dissociative fugue in TV shows I've watched. But just how common is this disorder in real life? The prevalence rate of dissociative fugue is a mere 0.2% of the population (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Maldonado et al., 2002). So don't worry, friends. Chances are you'll wake up tomorrow morning and still know who you are.
As you all may know, I enjoy reading television more than I like watching it. If you were unaware of this, let me explain. I keep myself updated on the shows I typically watch or am fascinated with by reading the once-a-week recaps that are published after an episode premieres, due to either a lack of time to watch or disinterest in that particular plot or episode. And one of the greatest moments that can occur while perusing these articles on the world-wide interweb, is finding a reference to something we have learned in psychology! The "reading T.V." is just a fun fact, and doesn't have much to do with my blog. I just thought I'd throw it in in there. However, finding a reference to psychology is the subject of my blog post. Since psychological disorders are something the producers on every major television network/movie corporation incorporate at least once in the history of their programs, and it just so happens to be the chapter we are learning in psychology, it was my lucky day (check my Megillot blog title for that joke).
One of the most startling disorders to learn about was post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as it completely consumes your thoughts and actions. Our memories exist in part to protect us in the future. However, sometimes, for some of us, the unforgettable takes over our lives in what is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder characterized by hauntings, memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, flashbacks, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that linger for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience. PTSD symptoms have been reported by survivors of accidents, disasters, and violent and sexual assaults, along with many war veterans. Research indicates that the greater one’s emotional distress during a trauma, the higher the risk for post-traumatic symptoms. And the more frequent an assault experience, the more adverse the long-term outcomes tend to be. A sensitive limbic system seems to increase vulnerability, by flooding the body with stress hormones again and again as images of the traumatic experience erupt into consciousness. Genes may also play a role, as some combat-exposed men have identical twins who did not experience combat, yet these non-exposed co-twins tend to share their brother’s risk for cognitive difficulties, such as unfocused attention. Such findings suggest that some PTSD symptoms may actually be genetically predisposed.
In 2009, the movie Brothers was released, and it dealt with the effects of PTSD. Sam Cahill (played by Tobey Maguire) is a Marine captain taken captive along with his hometown friend, Private Joe Willis. Sam and Joe are abused and tortured by their captors, and in a segment of the film, Sam is forced, at gunpoint, to beat Joe to death with a lead pipe. Upon returning home, Sam is stuck in a state of haunting paranoia, and refuses to reveal the source of his pain and what he endured in Afghanistan. At one point, Sam becomes so completely enraged that he leaves a path of physical destruction, destroying the family's newly remodeled kitchen with a crowbar. Things escalate rapidly, to the point where Sam nearly commits suicide. At the end of the movie (SPOILER), Sam is put into a mental institution and finally opens himself up to his grieving wife, and contemplates whether he will ever be able to resume his life normally.
Brothers was a manifestation of PTSD. Throughout the movie, you see that PTSD not only affects the individual plagued by it, but the family as well. There is some truly magnificent acting in the movie, and I highly recommend watching it.
What are some movies you have seen that dealt with a psychological disorder? If you saw them after taking this course, would you look at them differently? What are some examples?
It is Rare - Only about 1-3% of the population actually have full DID. This disorder has about the same commonality as Bipolar and Schizophrenia. We just don't know a lot about this disorder because we haven't put enough time and money into the research of it.
It's Obvious When someone has DID - Because DID is portrayed in a more exaggerated way in Hollywood movies, we have a skewed perception of what DID actually is. It is much more subtle than we think, and people, on average, spend more than 7 years in a behavioral health system before actually being diagnosed with DID.
People With DID Have Distinct Personalities - People with DID do not have distinct personalities, but different states of behavior. Dr. Bethany Brand describes it as having different ways of being themselves. We all have this in someway, but people with DID don't remember what they do in the different states.
Treatment Makes DID Worse - This can only happen if therapists use outdated practices to try and treat a DID patient.
Therapists Further Develop and “Reify” (regard them as real or concrete) the Self-states - Therapists actually try to create communication between the inner self-states. This teaches the person how to handle all the self-states when a threatening situation arises.
Only People with DID Dissociate - Anyone can dissociate in response to trauma or bad memories. Anyone with an anxiety disorder can dissociate.
Hypnosis Helps - Some therapists think that by using hypnosis they can dig up old memories that caused the DID in the first place.
These 7 myths show us that DID is not what society perceives it to be.
Do y'all remember the movie "Nim's Island" from 2008? I definitely remember it. It was my favorite movie for more than a year. I was legit obsessed with it. Honestly, I had forgotten about it, until we learned about Agoraphobia in Psych the other day. Here's the trailer:
One of the principle characters in the movie is Alex Rover, both the hero of a series of great adventure novels and the author of these novels. The author has agoraphobia. One of the big plot point in the movie (SPOILERS!) is that Nim's father goes missing and Alex Rover (the author) starts emailing her and ultimately decides to venture to Nim's island to help her. The problem is that she doesn't want to leave her house. In fact, she's terrified of leaving her house. That's agoraphobia. On a side note, Alex Rover also has arachnophobia and an obsessive personality, kind of.
Here's the main question: was this movie even remotely close to realistic about how to treat Agoraphobia? Would you even be surprised if I said no? Well, no. In the movie, with much nagging from the adventure hero Alex Rover, the author Alex Rover forces herself out of the house and flies to Tonga to get on a helicopter to land on a cruise ship to take a lifeboat to Nim's island. That's not exactly the behavior you would expect of an agoraphobe.
Let's put this in the perspective of psychology. Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder. Being presented with the fear would make the person more anxious. Depending on the severity of the phobia, going outside will cause some serious anxiety to the point where the person may not be able to function properly. Basically, this movie is completely unrealistic, or Alex Rover never actually had agoraphobia. She just walks out of her house and functions like a normal person, mostly. She had very little anxiety compared to what could have happened. So maybe she had agoraphobia for the first half of the movie and magically got rid of it for the second half. Is that possible?
A few weeks ago, for English class, I had to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. For those who haven't read it, it's a book about a dystopian future where the totalitarian government controls everything about the people, from the amount of teratogens they're exposed to as embryos to the material they learn as children to the societally accepted behavior. Basically, this book is screaming to be involved in an AP Psych blog post.
In the first chapter of the book, the audience is given a tour of where the people of this society come from. We are shown the labs where zygotes are cloned and then turned into thousands of people, where the embryos are tested for genetic predispositions for diseases and intelligence, and then separated into castes. (These children are "grown" in factories, not born normally.) Those of the lower castes are given alcohol to stunt their growth and intelligence. Those of the upper castes are not. That way, the society has people of all different intelligence levels that can each serve their own purpose in society without taking over the roles of the others.
In chapter two, we are introduced to the early indoctrination system of this society. Toddlers, who all live in government facilities, are taught exactly what the government wants them to know. How do they accomplish this? Classical conditioning, of course! In the book, the government wanted the children to be as productive as possible, so, at age 2 or 3, the children are taken to a playroom. In the playroom, there are lots of flowers. The children play happily. Suddenly, all of the children in the room are shocked. Then, when they see the flowers again, they start crying and will avoid flowers for the rest of their lives, most likely. Of course, they generalize so that all flowers they see are associated with the shock. The end result is a society that hates flowers and doesn't waste time worrying about frivolous things, like flowers.
I read these chapters while on a bus to Capital Hill. It took me about five seconds to call Noga over and yell, "PSYCHOLOGY!" It still amazes me that the concepts we learn in class can appear all over the place and really do have a profound effect on the world. At the same time, it scares me that the things we learn about in class can be so dangerous and destructive when used incorrectly.
At some point in the last month, I was watching a video on YouTube when this advertisement came up. I thought I would skip it after 5 seconds, like I usually do, but then I thought, "PSYCHOLOGY!"
To sum up the ad for you, she went through a lot of challenges, including contracting bacterial meningitis and losing her legs. Despite all of that, she believed in her own power and wanted to pursue her dream of becoming an Olympic snowboarder. Although this ad came out before the 2014 Paralympic Games in Sochi, I can now say that she won a bronze medal in her Paralympic debut and will appear on the upcoming season of Dancing With The Stars. Talk about drive.
So this post is a little bit of a throwback. I'm sure you can all guess what she has and what helps her make it through and continue trying. That's right, it's her internal locus of control. As an athlete, you absolutely need an internal locus of control to keep practicing and working. Otherwise, you'll just go to Olympic trials and fall on your tuchus because that's your fate and your fate is out of your hands. On top of being an athlete, she's also missing her legs! After that, most people would give up and say that their fate isn't to become a world-class snowboarder. Amy Purdy, though, took control of her life and said that the power to direct her life is in her hands. Basically, wow.
SPOILER ALERT: If you have not watched Fight Club and plan on watching it, then do not read this blog.
Fight Club is a movie that was released in 1999 starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. Even though it's a movie about people who enjoy beating each other up for no good reason, it really is full of psychology. Let's discuss:
In the movie, Norton has insomnia. He hardly sleeps so he is exhausted all the time. He doesn't really have any friends and he has not found his flow at work. Basically, his life was pretty bad. His self concept and self worth becomes the products he buys for his apartment. All he does is spend his life creating the "perfect apartment." One day, his apartment explodes, and that's when everything goes haywire. He calls up a guy he met on a plane, Tyler. They go to a bar and then go outside and Tyler asks Norton to hit him. He finally agrees and they start fighting. Then, Tyler takes him back to his house but they continue to fight like this every night. People start coming to watch and they want to join in. Tyler ends up creating a Fight Club where people can come and fight recreationally. After a while, Norton realizes that Tyler is out of control and goes to find him. Finally, he realizes that he is Tyler. When he thinks he's asleep, he has been carrying out the role of Tyler. You might think I've been explaining the story line just to talk about multiple personality disorder (which may or might not exist), but that is not where I'm going with this. Actually, the entire story is based off of Freud's theories.
Tyler is Norton's projected id. In the beginning, Norton (the ego) was able to control his id, which focuses on its own satisfaction and nothing else. He was able to fight to keep the id controlled so he could be accepted in society. When his self concept (his consumer goods in his apartment) blows up, he can no longer control his id. His id, Tyler, is the person he wishes he could be. Tyler is meant to be perfection, but completely out of control and with no care for rules or what's right. Not only is this movie all about the id-ego relationship, but it also deals with the psychosexual phases. Norton is fixated in the anal phase. The active part of this phase are linked to sadism (sexual gratification obtained by inflicting pain on others; delight in cruelty/excessive cruelty) and masochism (pleasure being abused or dominated). Tyler takes on the sadistic side while Norton takes the masochistic side. In most of the scenes in the club, you see Tyler beating up some guy or you see Norton getting beat up by someone. Tyler is constantly inflicting pain on Norton and exerting his dominance over everyone in the Club.
Finally, Norton realizes that he can feel emotions on a new level and can experience life without Tyler. When he realizes he doesn't need Tyler anymore, his ego is able to get rid of his id and start living again.
How interesting, right? It's not just a movie about Brad Pitt and some guys giving each other black eyes for no reason. Who woulda thought?
