Author: Kayla Quinn

Therapy

In class, we talked about the different types of therapies one could use. Psychotherapy and biomedical therapies are used on patients either by themselves or together. The difference is that psychotherapy is between a trained therapist and a patient while biomedical therapy uses drugs or other procedures that act on ones nervous system. Therapists use many different methods with patient depending on what what they are there for. For example, exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is when the patient is exposed to the things they fear and avoid.

In my case, I used both psychotherapy and biomedical therapy at the same time. During my psychotherapy, I specifically remember my therapist telling me I should do something I would normal get anxiety about. When he said this to me, I was absolutely terrified. I thought why on earth is he telling me to do something that gives me so much anxiety? After awhile of that, I started being less anxious doing the things I originally couldn’t even do. I believe the mixture of exposure therapy and biomedical therapy got me to the place I am in. Clients do tend to overestimate improvement and effectiveness of either therapy, but even if thats what I did, I’m okay with that because I am in a good mental state now.

Phobias

A phobia is an extreme or irrational fear of something. Having a phobia can completely change the way one lives their life. For example, the video shown in class of the lady who had a phobia of spiders. She altered her life to revolve around being protected from spiders. Some may be squeamish when it comes to certain things, like blood for example, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have a phobia. Phobias cause people to avoid every day situations or events so they do not come in contact with their phobia. Unlike generalized anxiety, which is anxiety geared towards aspects of life in general, phobias are specific to one thing. There are many different names for different phobias, including claustrophobia (closed spaces), arachnophobia (spiders), and even pogonophobia (beards).

I personally have 2 phobias. Only one greatly affects my life though. I have social phobia and trypophobia. Trypophobia is the fear of clusters of small holes or bumps. For me, I only get anxiety from it when it’s on skin or skin-like materials. Since I never see this in real life, it doesn’t affect my life that much. If I see a picture of it, I get sick to my stomach. On the other hand, my social phobia severely has affected my life. Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, is the fear of social situations. I have dealt with this for the past 4 years. It has completely changed the way I live my life. Luckily, I got the courage to get help and now don’t experience nearly as much social anxiety as I have in the past. I am now on medication which has allowed me to stop avoiding people, places, and situations. I can say first hand that having a phobia takes a lot of energy out of a person.

False memory

As we talked about in class, our memories are not always as accurate as we think. They may have never even happened. Retelling a story over and over again can lead one to slightly alter it with out even knowing. We basically just remember the version that we last told. I have experience with this that I did not even know I had until we learned about it. I would always tell the story of how when I was little I went to the hospital for hand-foot-mouth disease. I could not eat or drink. I was only 2 or 3 years old but I tell this story like I remember it–because I actually thought I did. I would explain this one scene of the doctor trying to give me apple juice and I wouldn’t drink it. I actually can see this picture in my mind when I think about it. I am now learning that I do not remember this at all, my parents just have talked about it so many times that I can literally picture it in my head as if I was watching myself on TV. Who knows if they even remember the details correctly. I guess I will never be sure what actually happened in the hospital. This makes me think about how when I’m older, I will not fully remember the details of my college experience that seem so great and unforgettable.

Selective Attention

The human attention span is so astounding yet so small. Even when we think we are processing everything in our sight, we really are not. There simply is just too much information going on for our brains to process all at once. Selective attention is the way we are able to receive and understand the little amount of information our brain thinks is important. This selectiveness causes our brain to not notice other things going on around us. Missing these details could be very dangerous. For example, if you are playing music in headphones while you study, you will probably forget that you are even listening to music. This is because your brain has shifted its focus from listening to the songs to reading and studying your notes.  Although attention seems like a natural occurrence that does not take much effort, there actually is effort on our part. We have to select an area to focus on and continue to focus on it so our brains can soak in the information and turn it into stuff that makes sense.  

A time I can remember when my selective attention almost caused me great injury, was in my car. I remember driving down a dark creepy road covered in woods after leaving my friend’s house (also in creepy dark woods). Because I was by myself, I was getting scared. I decided to call my friend, so I felt less alone. Our conversation shifted from me driving and being scared to drama our friends were fighting about in our group chat. I finally approached the main road, still on the phone with her. I was so distracted by my phone call that when I turned onto the main road, I ran a red light. I was so confused because I didn’t even notice it was red. All I said to her was, “OMG I just ran a red light and I have no idea why. I wasn’t thinking.” After hearing about this lesson, it automatically made me think of this time. It makes sense now why I didn’t notice the light was green. My selective attention was on my conversation with my friend and that was the only information my brain could handle then. I almost felt like I went missing for a split second while I drove through it because I was so focused on my phone call. It seemed like I didn’t need to put effort into driving because I thought since I was “looking” I could “see,” but turns out I didn’t see shit!