Food Coloring and ADHD

I was just having a conversation with a woman in the community that reminded me a lot about psychology. She was saying how she thinks that doctors and parents in America over- diagnose children with ADD and ADHD. For a parent, it is much easier to give your child drugs, such as Rideline, for his/her disability rather than actually finding the root of the problem. Perhaps parents don't want to be embarrassed that their child has a disability or they simply do not want to deal with it. This is very sad because drugs like Rideline can really slow down a child to the point where he/she is truly not himself. This is similar to a Lobotomy (obviously Lobotomy is probably more extreme) that we learned about in class today. A Lobotomy severs the prefrontal cortex to the back of the brain. This makes someone emotionless and totally not himself. However, it does cure the craziness.
The main problem seems to be that no one is actually trying to fix the problems that are triggering the ADHD. Recently, there has been research done to find links between food coloring and ADHD. The government previously ruled that there is no proven relationship between food dyes and hyperactivity in most children. However, a health article in cbsnews.com states that "consumer advocates and a growing body of scientists say evidence is mounting that processed foods - including those with artificial dyes - may play a role in the inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsivity that characterize attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder."
Changing the diet of a household is, I'm sure, very difficult for a parent, but giving a child a drug to stop his/her behavior is not necessarily fixing the problem. Isn't it better for the behaviors to be LEARNED than to automatically cause it by giving a pill to a child? As we know there are causes to mostly everything, either biologically, psychologically, or environmentally (or a combination) and those causes should not be ignored. Rather, they should be tested and changed through a learned behavior rather than through drugs. Obviously, in some cases drugs are certainly needed, but not all cases are severe. I am not a parent, so I am not one to judge or act like I know what it is like to have a child with a disability, but I do think this is a problem that should not be ignored. Also, why are doctors over diagnosing and handing out drug prescriptions like it is candy?

Hello my dear fellow classmates,

We know from our daily lives as well as from numerous instances in history that people tend to dislike, judge and persecute those who are different than they are. For example, during the Armenian Genocide, the Turks found a reason to scapegoat the Armenians and brutally killed millions over the course of 25 years. Although they claim it was because the Armenians tried to help the Russians, secretly, the Turks simply did not like the Armenians because they were different and got in their way of establishing Turkey. Or take the Holocaust for example which relates more to us. The Nazis hates the Jews because they were different along with other races. Even in our day and age people constantly find reasons to kill each other and prejudice constantly exists!

In psychology, we learned that the therapist must view his subject with full positive regard, meaning that the therapist must not judge the patient no matter what he or she says. I found that a little difficult due to experience i have had with in the present as well as what i have learned. People often judge those who are different from them. It is simply human nature. Even when people say that they dont judge or try not do it is often not true. How can we therefore expect our therapist to listen to a person's deep and dark secrets and expect them not to judge? If a patient said-i used to kill little children and eat them because it made me feel better and now i want help. How are you supposed to not judge him? Even in a less severe case where perhaps a husband beats his wife sometimes. The therapist would judge him for such an action as well. How do we expect them not to?!

OCD-A True Living Nightmare

This youtube video is about a woman, Elizabeth Macondall, who is suffering from Obsession Compulsive Disorder. Elizabeth sometimes scrubs her hands up to one hundred times a day. She uses her feet to open doors, turn on and off lights, etc. Take a look at her hands- they are so discolored from constantly washing them. Elizabeth is very scared of coming into contact with germs and does all of these rituals to keep away from the germs. Elizabeth becomes so frustrated and anxious with her disorder, that she sometimes kicks and punches things such as the wall to let out her anger. With this we see a connection with something we learned last chapter. Elizabeth is using one of the ego defense mechanisms, displacement, by taking out impulses on a less threatening object such as punching the wall. Elizabeth also puts clothing 'off limits' because she thinks they are full of germs. For example, she said that she couldn't wear a certain pair of pants because "they are contaminated from vacation." I think it is amazing how Elizabeth is now the national spokesperson for OCD. This is a type of therapy for her because she is trying to help people in the same situation as her. I think it is so cool how Elizabeth takes her disorder and uses it in a way that she can help people and more importantly help herself.

Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn1OYlYzgm8

Schizophrenia Diaries

I was trying to find something interesting to post, and I found a website called Schizophrenia Diaries. I don't know if these stories are actually weird, but i was looking through and one story really interested me.


This person is talking about his experience, and the first thing he says is "I knew something was wrong when the voice I was talking to for about two weeks straight turned on me." It's sad that this person didn't realize that hearing a voice for two weeks is abnormal. He writes that he thought he had superpowers, and he didn't realize anything was wrong until the girls told him he had to sell his soul. Then he writes that it's the voice of the girl who lives below him, a girl he had a crush on. He thinks Gd is testing him to see if lust would drive him to hell... it makes no sense, but he didn't realize anything was wrong! It's very sad.

This story also makes no sense, the way this persons thought process goes. I'm really not sure if these stories are true, but it's rather intriguing. http://schizophreniadiaries.com/category/hearing-things/

Little girl born with Schizophrenia

Since we learned in class about schizophrenia, I went on youtube to search for reallife example of people with schizophrenia. Sadly, i came across this video of a girl who has been born with Schizophrenia. She has imaginary friend and visions, making up new ideas. As a baby she never slept: only had powernaps.

Strangly,she always screamed inside and she got bored of places really quickly.

Schizophrenia has a great impact on her life, since she became very violent and not social, and changed her whole families structure completetly




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTUMt05_nCI

BiPolar disorder in everyday life

As we have learned in class, the bipolar disorder is a mood disorder of high-manic phases and then the other exteme being the depressed phases. It is the different exteremes of mood swings, that make people not able to live a normal life since it changes their life dramatically.

Here is an example of a 40 year old woman who lives with this disorder. It shows how she copes with her situation and the truth and impact the disorder has on her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s46QDKd6_AI

In the video, they show how she is a painter. I feel like many great painters had either schizophrenia or the bipolar disorder. I dont know if it is because they are famous, therefore it is more noticable or maybe these disorder has brought them to great success. I wonder then if it is right to take away their tallent with medication. What do you think?

A True Subway Experience

Click on the image to get a bigger and more clear view!

I thought it was going to be just an ordinary ride. However, it wasn't. When I was riding on the subway this past weekend in New York City, I was looking at all the maps and signs on the wall. I suddenly noticed this fantastic poster. My mom and I were both looking at it and we thought it was so cool and TRUE. As I was looking at it I, of course, immediately started thinking about psychology class. In my opinion, it accurately depicts a variety of cultures and personalities. I really think that these two qualities really are what makes this poster so cool because it shows how each person is so different and unique. Not only this but (going all the way back to developmental psychology), we see how each person is at a different stage in their life, and the expressions on their faces reflect that stage. Yes, New York is a big and wild city and we may not find people walking around in bear costumes in Memphis, but this poster goes to show that culture and personality really vary from person to person, and we cannot take this 'theme' in psychology lightly. Sometimes it is hard to 'accept' people living their lives so differently than us, but we must remember that the variety is really what makes the world and our lives so interesting and exciting.

Schizophrenia in Children

In class when discussing Schizophrenia, Mrs. Perl said that it does not usually show up until later in life. I was really curious to see if people younger than this can be Schizophrenic and I found this video. It is about a 13 year old girl who hears voices in her head telling her to kill her dogs and her parents. She says she wants to love them but the voices won't let her. Her parents obviously are very upset about this and it is heartbreaking for them, but they decide they have to send her away. The girl talks and says how she knows there is happiness somewhere inside of her but it is very hard to find it. This is so sad to me. These people can't control themselves at all. In this case it must be extremely traumatizing for both the girl and her parents. She tried to kill herself when she was only 6 and she tried to kill her sister!

Another family was found with a schizophrenic 8 year old daughter. They had to live in separate apartments to protect their son from their daughter! She hears voices that tell her to kill herself and her parents and she sees visions of strange things. When it comes down to it, these kids are not common, nevertheless, there are children suffering from these cases. It is extremely sad to see these cases and know that these kids could potentially harm themselves and others. It's obviously a huge struggle for these families.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVHNGZ0Omx0

Hypnosis and Dissociative Disorders

Hello everyone,

Today in class we learned about Dissociative disorders. These are disorders where a person supposedly loses parts of their memory or consciousness causing them to lose part of their identity. (It's also referred to as the Multiple Personality Disorder.) At one point, we compared this disorder to hypnosis because like hypnosis, the person will be more susceptible to this disorder if they are more open to suggestion or fantasy. Otherwise, the person will probably not be affected by this. Hypnosis is thought to be more in the control of the person being hypnotized and, like I said, their willingness to give in. Both hypnosis and this disorder seem to be rejected and a little bit odd. This disorder has apparently been made up in more recent years by American psychologists because it is said to have really only been found among Americans and not others in other countries. After learning this and comparing it to hypnosis, it seems to be that people tend to over exaggerate these disorders. It seems a little bit vague to me.

Hello my dear fellow classmates,
So today we learned about the biological reasons for Schizophrenia.
People with Schizophrenia tend to have produce more seratonin than other people. Furthermore, they have very low frontal lobe of prefrontal cortex activity. I found this very interesting because it made me think of something that i had learned in English last year. Last year, we randomly talked about the disease of Schizophrenia. My very wise English teacher told us that in the past people did not know what the cause for Schizophrenia was. Unfortunately, they thought that cutting our a portion of a person's brain might "heal" the person. this was a very sad procedure because it completely altered a persons identity and personality. People simply thought that it was a cure since the people were different, even though their disease wasn't actually cured. Class today really helped me understand how this terrible surgery could not possibly cure people with Schizophrenia. The problem lies with their seratonin production as well as their prefrontal cortex activity and cutting out a piece of the brain cannot possibly cure that. I found it wonderful that i could finally understand the connection between these two things.