Month: November 2019

Blog #3 | PSY 100

The importance of a psychotherapy.

I believe that life is simple. I believe that there is no reason to complicate things, but instead we should take them just the way they are.

Image result for meaning of life is just to be alive

Unfortunately, not everyone understands it. A lot of people set high expectations for themselves causing them to think that they don’t live the way they want to. For example, a lot of people struggle when they don’t find a perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, when they don’t get good grades in school or college, when they don’t receive the salary they aimed for, when they don’t have the skin that someone else has. This in turns leads to the anxiety and depression disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and dysthymia.

GAD is “a psychological disorder diagnosed in situations in which a person has been excessively worrying about money, health, work, family life, or relationships for at least 6 months, even though he or she knows that the concerns are exaggerated.” In plain English it means that if you are anxious for a long period of time and it hurts your life, it is a generalized anxiety disorder. Additionally, dysthymia is “a condition characterized by mild, but chronic, depressive symptoms that last for at least 2 years.” It is less severe than a major depressive disorder, but is still considered as a psychological disorder in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

I cannot stress enough the importance of recognizing an anxiety before it grows into something way more significant. The saddest part is that one of the most common results of anxiety disorder is a suicide.

I have been reading plenty of articles and research reports about the reasons and occasions of suicides and statistics are shocking. “The most commonly endorsed cause for the suicide attempt was experiencing a problem with parents (47.5%) followed by problems with significant other or friend (35.4%).” That was mentioned in the topic called “reasons for attempting suicide.”¹ It is horrible and sad to see that the highest number is problems with parents. Just think about it for a second. People are killing themselves because of misunderstandings with their own parents or loved ones.

The government needs to consider that everyone has their problems in lives and, by talking to professional therapists, these problems can be seen from a completely different perspective. In the “suicide prevention strategies“² article it was reported that “psychotherapy alone or in combination with some antidepressants can be an effective treatment for preventing suicide attempts.”

Psychotherapy is “the professional treatment for psychological disorder through techniques designed to encourage communication of conflicts and insight.” The reason why this method is really successful is because patients directly confront the disorder and work with a professional psychotherapists to get rid of it.

Finally, I believe that psychotherapy sessions can increase the students’ and workers’ productivity significantly. Students and employees wouldn’t have to worry about keeping all of their problems inside of them and overthinking about them throughout the day. For example, if a psychotherapist will help them to realize that they don’t have problems in their lives, people will get more time and motivation to work harder, study more and live better. Therefore, everyone will be better off.

¹Jacobson, C. , Batejan, K. , Kleinman, M. and Gould, M. (2013), Reasons for Attempting Suicide among a Community Sample of Adolescents. Suicide Life Threat Behav, 43: 646-662. doi:10.1111/sltb.12047

²Mann JJ, Apter A, Bertolote J, et al. Suicide Prevention Strategies: A Systematic Review. JAMA.2005;294(16):2064–2074. doi:10.1001/jama.294.16.2064

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a psychological disorder that forces a person to alternate between depression and mania. The alternation is caused by a neurotransmitter imbalance in the serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine transmitters. When the neurotransmitters are at low levels, a person will experience a feeling of depression. The depressive state will cause gloominess, feeling of being withdrawn, tired, and a total loss of interest. If the neurotransmitters are at high levels, the manic state will come into play. The manic state causes a euphoric feeling, desire for action, and elation. In fact, most people heavily enjoy this feeling of manic. The euphoric feeling creates a sense of overconfidence, like nothing can stop you. However, some people who experience the manic state will have panic attacks, heart racing, hallucinations, and not making sense when speaking. Bipolar disorder can caused by a number of factors. These factors include  genetics, social-cognitive (negative explanatory styles), and childhood trauma.Image result for bipolar disorder"

A while back, I was browsing YouTube and came across a video called “Chatting with a Person with Bipolar Disorder” by Andrew Hales. Andrew is a YouTuber who does skits as well as interviews all different types of people. I was bored at the moment so I decided to watch the video. In the video, I learned all about bipolar disorder from someone who experienced it firsthand. Andrew interviewed Paloma Renee who developed bipolar disorder as she entered her teenage years. She began by talking about what triggered the disorder for her, which was a combination of emotional trauma from relationships as well as physical childhood abuse. This proves that not all cases of bipolar disorder arise from genetics. Paloma describes her symptoms of the manic state to be very severe, sometimes causing her to faint. However, she also describes this state to be very enjoyable when it’s not so severe. Once she learned that her symptoms of mania/depression weren’t normal, she turned to a psychiatrist who prescribed her medicine as well as used psychotherapy to further treat the root of the problem. Her psychiatrist gave her Risperidone which is an anti-psychotic primarily used for schizophrenia. However, Paloma was prescribed it because she experienced hallucinations in her manic mode, similar to schizophrenics would. She also takes Lamictal which works with Risperidone to regulate neurotransmitters and electrical activity in the brain. Therefore her neurotransmitter activity levels can never be too high or too low, effectively stopping the alternation effect of the disorder.

As seen with Paloma, bipolar disorder is a very debilitating disorder that was rooted from childhood and emotional trauma. This trauma caused a neurotransmitter imbalance in her serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine receptors. The imbalance creates both a manic and depressive state in a person which alternates every few weeks. The disorder can be treated relatively easily with medication but can also be treated through psychotherapy which is a more long-term cure.
 

 

 

Works Cited

Bipolar Disorder: Symptoms, Causes and Treatment

Pavlov’s Dogs and Little Albert

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to associate stimuli. For example, when there is lightning, there is thunder. Therefore, when a person sees lightning, they are scared because they are expecting thunder to follow due to classical conditioning. One famous experiment that shows classical conditioning perfectly is Pavlov’s experiment with dogs and salivation around food. This experiment was done by having dogs in a controlled environment where the scientists could measure each dog’s level of salivation. Before the conditioning began, the scientists noticed that food produced salivation. When they began using classical conditioning, they would use a neutral stimulus, and an unconditioned stimulus to produce and unconditioned stimulus. In this particular experiment, the neutral stimulus was a tone that signaled food was coming. The unconditioned stimulus is the dog’s food. The two of these together produced the unconditioned response of salivation. This scenario was done multiple times and yield the same response. After the classical conditioning process was done, the neutral stimulus (the tone), which was originally irrelevant, now becomes the conditioned stimulus. This now triggers salivation from the dogs, which is now the conditioned response because it is learned. This process was also used in the famous “Little Albert” experiment. This was were a baby was conditioned to hate rats through classical conditioning. The experiment realized how little Albert disliked loud sounds because they are startling. The experimenter paired the loud sounds with rats. Little Albert soon realized that whenever he saw a rat, there would soon be a loud sound that he disliked. This ended up with little albert generalizing this to all other small furry animals. So whenever he saw one, he would become visibly upset assuming there was a loud sound soon to follow. These experiments can be used to explain other real life scenarios.

Blog 3: Classical Conditioning and Taste Aversion

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to associate two stimuli together. A response that usually results from the second stimuli usually also results from the first. An example of classical conditioning is Pavlov’s experiments. Pavlov’s experiments analyzed the response of a dog when the dog would see food. In this example, the unconditioned stimulus is the food because it naturally elicits a response from the dog. The dog’s response of salivation is the unconditioned response which is a naturally occurring response. However, Pavlov would begin ringing a bell before presenting the food and eventually the dog would salivate upon hearing the bell. In this case, the sound of the bell and food became a paired stimulus. The sound of the bell is the conditioned stimulus which was initially an irrelevant stimulus but became associated with the unconditioned stimulus to trigger a conditioned response. The conditioned response was the learned response.

Pavlov’s Experiment

Many people believed that any association between two stimuli could be learned equally. In response, John Garcia conducted an experiment where he paired taste, sound and sight with radiation that would elicit the response of nausea in mice. He concluded that taste was strongly associated with the nausea. In this case, taste was the conditioned stimulus, radiation was the unconditioned stimulus, and nausea was the conditioned response. This experiment concluded that some things are easier to associate than others. This experiment also demonstrated the idea of taste aversion where humans are apt to have an aversion to foods if they become sick afterwards. For example, when I was in seventh grade, I went to a Mexican styled restaurant with family friends and ordered a chicken quesadilla. The family friends I went to the restaurant were recovering from the stomach flu and ordered chicken quesadillas. After enjoying my meal, I went home and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of night with abdominal pain and began to throw up. Reflecting on that night today, it was likely that I had caught the stomach flu and my nausea and uneasiness resulted from it. However, from that day, I could not eat any styled of Mexican food for two years; the thought of any Mexican styled food made me nauseous. Only recently have I been able to enjoy Mexican styled food. This is the perfect example of classical conditioning and how taste aversion works. The stomach flu was the unconditioned stimulus and nausea was the unconditioned response. Because of my pairing of the stomach flu and Mexican styled food, Mexican styled food was the conditioned stimulus and nausea became the conditioned response. Classical conditioning results from pairing any two stimuli; the pairing of some stimuli is stronger (like taste) than others.  

Picture: https://www.psychestudy.com/behavioral/learning-memory/classical-conditioning/pavlov

Cognitive Development: Imaginary Audience

Cognitive Development occurs during Adolescence and “refers to how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of his or her world through the interaction of genetic and learned factors” (http://www.healthofchildren.com/C/Cognitive-Development.html). It is when an adolescents’ ability to reason gives them a new level of social awareness. Developing this social awareness allows for teenagers to develop severe self consciousness and constantly worry about what others are thinking about them. Examples of this are personal fable and the imaginary audience. Personal fable refers to the idea that every single teenager believes they are different and unique. Imaginary audience refers to the feeling of being the center of attention when the attention is unwanted. 

For example, sometimes when I feel like I do not look good or I am having a bad hair day, I feel like all eyes are on me. This is completely in my head and in reality people are probably not looking at me at all. The imaginary audience stems from being self conscious. I have dealt with imaginary audience many times throughout my life. One time when I had gotten a haircut that I really did not like, I felt like the whole world was staring at me as I left the hair salon. In reality, no one actually thinks twice about whether your haircut is good or bad nor do they even care, but I was so insecure that I made myself believe everyone was watching me. 

Another example of when I have experienced the feeling of imaginary audience is when I am picking out an outfit for the day. My friends and I always check to see what each of us are wearing before we start our day so that we do not look out of place. While no one is probably looking at my outfit while I’m sitting in a big lecture, I still feel the need to look my best because I feel like they are. This is how I am creating an imaginary audience and making myself insecure about things that are so unimportant.