Author: cqb5147

Despite being identified more than a century ago, the knowledge surrounding schizophrenia is fairly limited. The diagnosis carries an intense stigma, with outsiders assuming that people with schizophrenia are violent and unproductive members of society. Because of this stigma, many don’t reach out to mental health care providers and suffer in silence.

The DSM-5 lists five key symptoms of psychotic disorders: 1) delusions, 2) hallucinations, 3) disorganized speech, 4) disorganized or catatonic behavior, and 5) negative symptoms. To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, the person must have at least 2 of these symptoms and 1 of the 2 must be either delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech. Delusions are clearly false beliefs that represent abnormalities in a person’s thoughts. Hallucinations are sensations or perceptions in the absence of an external stimulus. They can be auditory (such as hearing voices) or visual (such as seeing a ghost); though auditory hallucinations are much more common. Disorganized speech is speech abnormalities that make it difficult or impossible to comprehend. Disorganized behavior is behavior that is self-contradictory or extremely inconsistent behavior, while catatonic behavior is unresponsiveness in a person that is awake. Lastly, negative symptoms include the ability to empathize with others, apathy, and withdrawal from social situations. These symptoms are called “negative” because the person loses these abilities as their condition progresses.

Schizophrenia is a syndrome, which means that there are several different causes for the symptoms. However, as I said earlier, schizophrenia is not well understood due to the large stigma associated with the diagnosis. One cause that psychologists now believe to be associated with the condition is genetics. If an identical twin is diagnosed with schizophrenia, there is a 40% chance that the other twin will also be diagnosed. Additionally, family members of those who have schizophrenia tend to have milder versions of schizophrenic symptoms. Schizophrenia is thought to be one of the highest genetic-related mental illness. Aside from genetics, the environment also matters. There is new research coming out that associates schizophrenia with exposure to certain viruses in childhood. Additionally, those who have a high risk of schizophrenia (from genetics) may trigger the condition by using drugs.

Often, people with schizophrenia will only begin receiving treatment after their first psychotic episode, which is long after the initial onset of symptoms. Despite this delayed treatment, medication and therapy can be effective. Antipsychotics decrease levels of dopamine in the brain, which can help with many of the positive symptoms (delusions, hallucinations and disorganized speech); however, they may make negative symptoms worse. Luckily, there is lots of research happening right now to find drugs that improve positive symptoms without making negative symptoms worse.

As we transition to remote learning, there are questions as to if we should make classes pass/fail. While this change might seem drastic, it may actually make sense, as learning online presents many challenges. Recently, a major educational philosophy encouraging “cognitive learning” has developed. Cognitive psychologists believe that cognitive learning, or learning through experiences, is more memorable and more relevant to life. They believe that this kind of active learning results in higher comprehension, memory, and relevance. Because of this push towards active engagement, many colleges have started integrating classes. Embedded classes engage students outside of the classroom, and labs give students the opportunity to see the abstract concepts they’re learning. Increasing opportunities to study abroad allows students to learn about their capabilities and skills through a difficult and foreign experience. With the switch to online education, it is going to be much more difficult to engage students in real-life examples and give them relevant activities. Many students will spend hours in front of a computer, trying to absorb all the information being presented in an unfun and unrelatable way. I know when I have my psychology class in person, my professor always tries to engage us by applying the information to our everyday lives and giving us activities to test the concepts for ourselves. However, since we’ve switched to online learning, the lectures have become much dryer. Instead of having discussions, I see a slideshow and hear my professor lecture “at” me, instead of with me.

Additionally, much of the learning that happens on a college campus has to do with social interactions. Peers learn the most from each other and depend on one another to know what is socially acceptable and unacceptable. We also learn how best to convince one another to do the activities we want to do, which is a crucial skill in jobs. Through roommate conflicts, we learn how to effectively communicate.  We rapidly learn how to forgive and live with mistakes. Without constant exposure to our peers, we will lose many of the opportunities for social learning and development. Additionally, with the newfound independence that comes with living at home, students are required to learn time management skills and independent skills such as cooking and cleaning. I’ve found that my parents have reverted to the relationship we had in high school — they’re trying to wake me up early and checking in to make sure that I am still doing my homework. I no longer have to manage my own time, which I actually find really frustrating now that I’ve learned how to do it.

Though there are certainly drawbacks to learning online, there are also benefits. Learning will be more accessible and students will be able to work ahead in case something happens in their family. It also means that students can rewatch the sections of the lectures that were confusing and work through things at a speed that makes sense to them.

 

With the rise of coronavirus, global health experts are urging people to stay inside, not gather, and stop attending school. As social creatures, these instructions can be incredibly difficult and can have many adverse effects.  I know that I have struggled to adjust to not seeing my friends constantly and spending most of the day alone. Without being able to touch the people around me, I am constantly looking for our dog to cuddle with. This difficulty to adjust is not unusual. In fact, social isolation is often seen as a cruel punishment. Social isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, depression, fear of others, and negative self-esteem. Over time, it’s not just your mood that changes. Without using the parts of the brain which are necessary for social interactions, the brain can lose grey matter density and neurons can shrink.  People may even struggle with cognitive decline and memory loss.

Approximately 1 out of every 4 elderly people in the US struggle with social isolation. With decreased hearing, children moving out, the end of working and a lack of ability to go out, they are at an increased risk. Those who face social isolation are at an increased risk of poor health and even death.

For children and teens who are isolated, development can be permanently damaged. They are more susceptible to mental health problems and are more likely to struggle in school. You’ve likely heard that millennials are considered to be the “loneliest generation,” as communication has moved online and mental illness has swept the world.

The American Psychological Association finds that 1/2 of American adults feel lonely sometimes or always and suggest that loneliness can have the same level of adverse health effects as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

With all of these negative effects, psychologists are trying to identify why so many people feel so lonely. Those who are displeased with their family situation are 4 times as likely to feel lonely sometimes – all the time compared to individuals with healthy family relationships. Additionally, those who lack a community, whether that be a church, friend group, or family are most likely to be isolated and thus struggle with chronic loneliness. But even for individuals with a healthy family life and a supporting community, chronic loneliness can still infiltrate. In fact, many people feel lonely even when they’re sitting in a room full of friends. For those individuals, there could be genetic or neurobiological factors putting them at risk for depression. Additionally, past situations (such as childhood bullying) could continue to affect them.

Thankfully, the social isolation that is sweeping the world is temporary. While not as great as in-person communication, people can use technology to communicate. Additionally, this break from the usual, intense social life that most college students live in could be beneficial to reflect on emotions and mental health. It is certainly a difficult and unprecedented situation, but if we all stand together (but not literally) and let each other know that we are still there for one another, we will get through this.

 

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by difficulties regulating emotions, feelings of worthlessness, insecurity, impulsivity, impaired social relationships, self-harm, and high suicide rates. Despite being a common psychiatric disorder, with approx 1.6% of the US population suffering from it, it is widely misunderstood and stigmatized. What’s even more shocking is that self-injurious behaviors occur in 69-75% of cases and that people with BPD have a completed suicide rate between 3-9.5% (that’s 400 times greater than the general population). With such severe symptoms and risk of death, it’s shocking how little BPD is researched and understood, even among psychiatric healthcare providers.

Symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder include:

1. An unstable or dysfunctional self-image
2. Feeling intense emptiness
3. Unstable relationships that rapidly change from obsessive love to hatred
4. A deep fear of abandonment and rejection
5. Falsely perceiving abandonment and rejection
6. Mood disorders (depression/anxiety)
7. Impulsive and risk-taking behaviors
8. Difficulty empathizing with others

I work in a psych lab that focuses on Borderline Personality Disorders, and I’ve heard horror story after horror story of psychiatrists being unable to diagnose patients with BPD, leading to mistreatment and overall lower quality of life. BPD patients end up in psychiatric outpatient and inpatient clinics at a disproportionate rate to the percentage of people who have BPD, in part because they are mistreated. Not only is it misunderstood, but it’s hard to treat because it is substantially comorbid with other psychiatric conditions. Additionally, people with BPD struggle with stability and thus are likely to chaotically use medical and psychiatric services, drop out of support programs, and take medications irregularly.

It’s clear that BPD is a public health crisis and that more research needs to be done to understand it. One common theory for the cause of BPD comes from attachment theory. Some attachment psychologists argue that BPD is associated with anxious-ambivalent attachment, arguing that the sporadic changes in emotion and unstable relationships represent the relationship they built as infants.

Treatment for BPD includes dialectic behavioral therapy (DBT), which teaches people how to regulate emotions and build healthy relationships; schema-based therapy, which highlights unhealthy and unorganized thinking patterns; mentalization-based therapy, which teaches people with BPD to separate their own thoughts from others; and psychiatric (medication) management.

Though it may be difficult to hold a steady relationship with people with BPD, they still want to form loving connections. People with BPD typically aren’t dangerous or violent. They also tend to be extremely observant, resilient, and sensitive to emotional changes.

In the early 1900s, Swiss biologist Jean Piaget had a baby girl. He became obsessed with his daughter’s behavior, carefully noting the things she did. He created broad theories about childhood development based on his children, eventually becoming more of a psychologist than a biologist. Though many of his theories are taught today, he is widely criticized for being too biological and rigid with his definitions.

One of Piaget’s main ideas focused on reflexes being the basis of all human behavior. He believed that children were able to transform into complex adults by using their reflexes and eventually learning the consequences of their actions. He also believed that the goal of learning was to have effective interactions with the environment, so it all came down to survival. One of the more controversial things he argued with learning is that not only do children learn more things as they grow up, but the way they think about these things fundamentally changes overtime. Since Piaget’s time, there have been several experiments supporting this theory. For example, young children are unable to order objects based on a characteristic (ie smallest to biggest dog). This is thought to be because they can only conceptualize information in one dimension, and comparing a known thing to another thing is too complex. This is why children are unable to understand or “take” the perspective of other people

In continuation of this theory, Piaget also argued that there are 4 stages of development:

Children in the sensorimotor stage think about the world through sensations and motor responses. Because of this, they will redo things over and over again, as they only understand the “here and now” and don’t understand cause and effect. They also struggle to understand anything that isn’t directly in front of them. This is why young kids like to play peek-a-boo — they literally think that you’ve disappeared when you cover their eyes. In the preoperational stage, the child now understands that objects out of sight still exist, but struggles to understand operations and logic. One interesting study on this took children 2-6 and showed them images of red boats, blue boats, red rabbits, and blue rabbits. They would start by asking the children to categorize the pictures by animal. The kids would get this. Then, the psychologists would ask them to categorize them by color. Despite being able to repeat the instructions, the child would continue to organize the pictures by animal. The psychologists did this experience in reverse and found the same results. It seems as if children can follow directions, but they can still only consider one point of view.

As development continues, children get better at understanding their surroundings and eventually see the world in the same way as adults. Though some of Piaget’s theories are debated, he gave a good framework for studying development.

Over the past decade, several psych-based studies have come out stating that having gay parents leads to a lower quality of life. This notion was reaffirmed earlier this week when the governor of Tennessee signed a bill that would allow adoption agencies to reject couples because of their sexual orientation. With this issue coming into the headlines once again, it’s important to look at the psychological consequences of same-sex parenting and the scientific and statistical validity of the studies each side is using to support their argument.

People who argue that having same-sex parents negatively affects childhood outcomes often point to studies that retrospectively analyze the childhoods of kids with gay parents and compare it to that of kids with straight parents to look for any statistical differences. A commonly cited paper is by social psychologist Mark Regnerus. Regnerus found that kids of gay parents were much more likely to have been on welfare, feel less safe/secure in their family, suffer from depression, be arrested, have more sexual partners, smoke and use marijuana, and are less likely to be employed. Perhaps the most shocking point in his study is that “children of lesbian mothers are an astonishing 10 times more likely to have been touched sexually by a parent or other caregiver.” This is certainly a jarring statistic and led many people to question the validity behind Regnerus’ research. Recently, almost all of the points Regnerus made have been debunked because he did not control for confounding (unrelated) variables and thus falsely implied causality. One of the primary errors is that Regnerus allowed recently formed gay couples to participate in the study. This means that they were comparing kids who didn’t have steady parents and who were exposed to many different caregivers with kids who mostly had just 2 parents. This is much more likely to have caused adverse effects than the gender of the parents.

Not only have studies disproved the work of Regnerus and other similar studies, but it’s actually starting to point in the opposite trend. With more statistically sound evidence, studies are finding that kids of gay parents do better in school and are 6.7% more likely to graduate. There have also been studies that show that kids of same-sex parents score higher on health and family cohesion studies.

Despite headlines in the news arguing that same-sex parents are worse for child development, most studies are saying just the opposite.

One of the fundamental questions of psychology is what is the impact of nature (genetics) and nurture (treatment). Some psychologists argue that nurturing a child doesn’t matter at all. Instead, it is simply the genetics of the child that will determine its future. Though this may seem extreme, they have a good reason for believing this. One of the primary reasons for this belief is twin studies. Psychologists have studied identical twins (people who share the same genetics) separated at birth and studied their personality traits, cognitive abilities, and any psychological disorders they develop. These studies showed that despite never meeting their biological family, the twins were significantly more similar to each other in all three categories than they were to their adopted family. These studies consistently show this outcome, so it leads us to wonder if nurturing even matters.

On the other side, some psychologists believe that nurturing has a significant impact on children. Though they acknowledge that genetics play a large role in the development of the child, they argue that parenting style and attachment can cause significant differences. One study that supports this was done by studying the personality of baby monkeys. In this study, there were two distinct personalities of the moms and the babies. One group was social and curious and enjoyed exploring. The other was anxious, clingy, and fearful. Fearful mothers would have fearful babies, and social mothers would have social babies. To study the importance of nurturing, psychologists would take fearful babies and have a social mom adopt them. After a couple of weeks, the fearful babies were more willing to explore and didn’t show significant signs of anxiety when their mothers left. However, when the babies were put into a stressful situation, they reverted to their anxious behavior. This study made psychologists think that nurture plays a role in personality, however, in times of trial, people (and monkeys) will revert to their biological response. This study also supports the idea of attachment and development. Babies with a secure attachment (have a person who they can consistently rely on) are more likely to be social, willing to share, and curious about the world. Babies with an insecure attachment (due to insensitive or unresponsive caretakers) are likely to be anxious, ambivalent, and fearful of rejection. This attachment plays a critical role in future relationships, and can only be adjusted in the first year of life, showing the importance of parenting on long-term well being.

Oftentimes, when I tell people that I am a psych major, they scoff and tell me things like, “Psych isn’t a real major,” “Isn’t that just common sense,” “Your degree is useless,” or my personal favorite, “Psych is for dumb students.” With these stereotypes, it’s hard to truly explain the complexities of psychology and it’s extremely important influence in society.

One interesting activity that I participated in in my first day of intro to psych was the common sense quiz. This included true or false questions such as:

1. To change the way people act, you must first change their attitudes.
2. The greater the reward promised for a boring activity, the more one will come to enjoy the activity.
3. A person who is blind in one eye can’t see depth.
4. Many people come through adolescence with emotional scars.
5. Groups will generally make more moderate decisions that a single individual will.

The entire quiz has 20 questions similar to these. Our professor told us that the average intro to psych student stated that 8-13 of these statements were true. In reality, none of the statements are true.

Despite its negative connotation, there are a diverse number of topics and jobs that psychology can be applied to. Developmental Psychologists might aid in family health and come up with better parenting strategies. Cognitive Psychologists might work with people with intellectual disabilities. Clinical Psychologists might help people with abnormal psychology have a higher quality of life. And these are just a few examples.

I am considering going into clinical psychology because I am interested in working one on one with people who are dealing with a mental illness. I am also interested in working with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, so I’ll try to figure out a path that can incorporate all of these elements. This semester I am working in a psych lab that focuses on personality disorders, which will hopefully be a good introduction to clinical psychology and the ins and outs of working with people that face a very different reality than my own. Since I am just now starting in the lab, I am learning a lot about HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) laws, which protect the confidentiality of our participants, and about IRB (Institutional Review Board) policies, which checks that our studies are ethical and won’t cause harm to our participants. I’m really excited to start and share the new things I learn!