Monthly Archives: December 2017

Spotlight 3 Prompt 3

--Original published at Kevin Psych Blog

Psychotherapy: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/10/psychotherapy.aspx

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093001832.html

Most of the articles I found on the benefits of pyschotherapy over medication tended to have a very similar overarching theme; pyschotherapy is more effective in the long run. While medication can help short term, it isn’t going to get rid of the problem, it will push it under the radar (so to speak) for the duration of the medications effects. According to the washington post article, however, it would be best used for people with chronic mental illness who have been struggling for a long time. In the article by the APA, they stated that psychotherapy tends to have fewer relapses than medication, I think predictably as like I said, medications aren’t going to stay in the system forever. On the downside is the amount of time it takes, medications will give instant but short lived gratification, therapy is going to take a long time to take effect, but in the long run it has been shown to do the most good for people struggling with mental disorders. I definitely trust these sources, the APA being an authority on psychology, I should hope would be trustworthy. The Washington Post I also believe to be a reliable source, they are a well respected company with a reputation to keep, and to spread misinformation would harm that.

 

Medication: https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2017/04/treating-depression-psychotherapy-or-medication

According to this article a study was done to test the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and medication in patients with depression of varying severity. The conclusion it came to is that, depending on a patients “brain state”, the person will either benefit from therapy or medication, but not much from the other. Either way it definitely demonstrated that medication has the potential to be a much more potent solution to depression in some cases.

http://www.bhevolution.org/public/medications.page

The most important bit of information I saw in this article was the claim that medication is essentially necessary for the more severe forms of things like depression. It was conceded that therapy might be helpful for mild problems, but it would hardly be effective in worse cases.

 

My Opinion: I can easily say therapy is going to be the better choice in most cases. Finding reliable articles that were for medication was near impossible, most searches I did found me articles arguing against medication, and showing therapy becoming more and more popular due to all the side effects of medication and the possible inconsistency of it. My view is that slow and steady wins the race, therapy might take a lot longer than medication but the effects seem to be more permanent, with less risk of relapse which is a fair trade to me.


Spotlight Blog 3

--Original published at Site Title

I focused on three situations in which peer pressure is involved in this blog.  I zoned in on adult peer pressure, teen peer pressure, and peer pressure around drugs and alcohol. As we have learned from our studies in class it isn’t so easy to go against the norm of society, especially when everyone around you seems to be participating in a particular event. Although many may behave a particular way when alone, an audience changes the performance or acts of an individual. The presence of others tends to generally increase the most likely outcome, so how do we say “no” to peer pressure?

An article from Sylvia Brafman Mental Health Center website offers ways in which adults can handle peer pressure in their daily lives. The main point they emphasized is that resisting pressure is essential for improving your own self esteem and coming to terms with the life you are living. The key idea is to be true to yourself and to reconfirm your core values. Being assertive and making a wide range of friends is important.  I agree with this wide range of friends idea, that way if one group is doing something you don’t agree with you can find allies to side with you in saying its wrong. Surrounding yourself with those who seek the same values as yourself and learning from mistakes you were previously pressured into can help you handle peer pressure in the future. This article didn’t account for if an adult lives in a individualist or collectivist culture.  If a job calls for group harmony or your lifestyle, you may conform easier. Individuals in an environment where being uniform is important may experience informational influence, in which they assume their answer  is wrong and that of the group is right. Being under a boss that is telling you to do something because they have power over you and are assertive, can make you feel uncomfortable telling them you don’t agree, and therefore you conform.

Teens conforming to peer pressure has always been an underlying issue in society. Especially at an age that is sensitive to how others view them because they are still trying to figure out themselves. Social facilitation enables a teen to act differently around a certain group I believe best explained by Zajonc as the Drive theory.  This theory is that being around others increases arousal in an individual making them want to impress or show off to their friends. The article addressing this topic suggests to come up with a better idea when presented with a task you don’t feel comfortable partaking in. It also suggests walking away, saying no, and coming up with excuses.  This article did not seem very helpful to me.  It’s one thing to teach right from wrong but harder to not do the “wrong” thing.  When a task is easy to do, it’s much easier for a teen to get their friend to complete it even if previously the friend never thought of doing such.  If the majority of your friends are doing something and your the only one not, your most likely going to change your behavior and mind. No one likes to be singled out or feel like the odd ball in the group.

The National Institute for Health article presents ways to resist the peer pressure around drugs and alcohol. The first tip given was to offer to be a designated driver which avoids you from taking drugs and keeps you on your friends good side, by getting them home safely. The article suggests that you tell your friends you have to keep your body healthy for maximum performance. It continues by mainly suggesting to create excuses for yourself to not do a particular activity your friends are doing. They say to blame not drinking or doing drugs to having strict parents that will check when you get home.  Finally, the writing suggests that when all else fails leave, because if they were truly your friends they wouldn’t consistently pressure you. I think the accuracy of these strategies would largely depend on the size of the group participating in these illegal activities and pressuring you to do them.  An individual can still experience normative influence in which he/she doesn’t want to go against the group, not because he/she believes it is right but because they don’t want to stick out.  When surrounded by friends especially those that we want to please it is hard to say no.  Coming up with excuses not to do something doesn’t work every time and eventually your friends will catch on.

https://www.nymetroparents.com/article/resist-teen-peer-pressure-

http://mentalhealthcenter.org/how-to-deal-with-peer-pressure-as-an-adult/

https://teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/6-tactful-tips-resisting-peer-pressure-to-use-drugs-and-alcohol


1st Impression Post- Mental Health Treatment

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

For this week’s first impression post I chose to do option two which looked at Michelle Obama’s mental health awareness campaign. The webpage has a really nice design and plenty of options to choose from, but as far as its effectiveness, I am not too sure. Yeah, its nice to have websites like these out there, and yeah it may be helpful for some, but a lot of people that have mental health problems do not want to admit they need help. So the people that really need the help most likely will not go looking for this webpage to find it. They will most likely go to people they care about. I do not think this campaign is bad; I think there should definitely be more awareness about mental health because there shouldn’t be a stigma around it like there is now. If the campaign helps one person who is in need of help, then I think that it should be a campaign worth keeping. It shows different ways that people are reaching out to bring awareness, and it has a page that is devoted to people pledging to know the five signs of emotional suffering and to change the culture surrounding mental health, mental illness, and wellness. You can make the pledge as just a single person or you can sign it with more people as part of a group. Overall, I think it is a good start for the campaign, but I think they have a lot more to do to bring awareness to many more people.


First Impression: Mental Health Treatment

--Original published at Site Title

The Change Direction campaign will be effective so long as its principles are shared with students by schools, classes, and youth organizations. I think the benefit of these resources can only be had if there is effort put into getting its message to young people. In the “about” section of the campaign site, it says that many private sector companies and nonprofits are sharing this information about mental health, to reduce the stigma surrounding it. A strength of the program is that it discusses the “5 Signs” of emotional suffering: personality change, agitation, withdrawal, decline in personal care, and hopelessness. These are all important markers to look out for, as these changes from what is deemed normal behavior can actually indicate a serious emotional issue, even we react passively to them. What it would take for the campaign to be effective would be if it is able to make this information known to young people so that they will remember these things when they start to notice change in themselves or in others. Another strength to the campaign is that it has the support of major companies associated with health, social work, and psychology.

The difficulty in successfully implementing the Change Direction initiative is getting students to listen. I believe at the high school level and below it will be very hard to get a good response from students. At the college level, I believe it would be far better received, as every college student is bound to be under incredible stress, whether it’s because they’re away from home, struggling to make friends, or crumbling under immensely challenging coursework. At Elizabethtown, I strongly believe an awareness campaign would be taken seriously by students and publicized well. To go about this, I think flyers are the simplest way of reaching students. However, I think the most profound method would be for professors to bring up things like mental health and the 5 Signs to students, as they are mostly already inclined to give their professor their full attention. Most of all, I think it’s important to stress the availability of Etown’s counseling services. Etown has great resources for anyone struggling with mental health or anyone trying to help a friend.


Week 15 First Impression: Option 2

--Original published at Site Title

At all points in life, you can never really know what someone is going through or dealing with. Mental illness can be sneaky like that. Someone seems fine on the outside but is really struggling on the inside. Thankfully, there are many organizations working to help people with mental illnesses get healthy again. One of those is Change Direction, a campaign supported by Michelle Obama. Their website shows some ways for people to keep good mental health, signs that someone may have a mental illness, what to do if someone is suffering, and some public service announcement videos. I think the campaign has a good chance to be successful. They give out clear, easy to follow steps for people to take in order to improve their mental health. They explain possible signs of a mental illness really well. In my opinion, the most important information they give are the ways to help those dealing with mental illness. A really close friend of mine at home was dealing with mental illness at one point. Along with the feeling of worry about my friend, there was this other feeling of having no idea what to do. They’re better now but at the time it was an awful feeling. Those tips would have gone a long way. I think the only real weakness of the campaign is that a lot of this is done on your own. I could see people checking in on themselves or others and just saying, “Oh, I’m fine” or “Oh, they’re fine” because they might be afraid of what it means if everything is not okay. Some college students will pay attention to this and some won’t. A lot of times, students just try to push through until they get a mental break. It’s not really healthy at all but with everything else you need to do in college it gets the job done. I think if Etown was to do a mental health campaign, they should model it after Change Direction. It would help the people who really need it.


First Impression- Mental Health Treatment

--Original published at Caitlin's corner

I chose option 1 for my last first impression post.

Our psychology textbook lists the four major types of psychotherapy; psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. I will be ranking these according to how helpful I think they would be to me, one being the best and four being the least helpful and why/why not.

  1. Cognitive psychotherapy is based on the cognitive model, which states that thoughts, feelings and behavior are all connected, and that individuals can move toward overcoming difficulties and meeting their goals by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking, problematic behavior, and distressing emotional responses. This involves the individual working collaboratively with the therapist to develop skills for testing and modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviors. A tailored cognitive case conceptualization is developed by the cognitive therapist as a roadmap to understand the individual’s internal reality, select appropriate interventions and identify areas of distress.

I think this form of therapy would be best for me since I personally believe that if you don’t change anything or identify what’s causing you distress and make appropriate changes to avoid it, you can’t expect to feel or do anything differently. You have to identify problems and work on ways to work past them that are specific to you. Just talk can be productive and help with introspection, but I feel like labeling things as being problematic or the cause of your problems, you can more easily make changes to avoid those feelings or stop them completely.

2. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a form of depth psychology, the primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client’s psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension.

In this way, it is similar to psychoanalysis. It also relies on the interpersonal relationship between client and therapist more than other forms of in-depth psychology. In terms of approach, this form of therapy uses psychoanalysis adapted to a less intensive style of working, usually at a frequency of once or twice per week. This seems like it would be a good fit for me and I actually do currently go to talk therapy. Since I rely highly on friends and family to be able to vent to. Just getting it out there and talking about it really helps me put things into perspective and work it out on my own, obviously with a game plan my counselor and I make for myself.

3. Humanistic psychotherapy is primarily the type of therapy that encourages a self-awareness and mindfulness which then helps the client change their state of mind and behavior from one set of reactions to a healthier one with more productive self-awareness and thoughtful actions. Essentially, this approach allows the merging of mindfulness and behavioral therapy, with positive social support.

I really like the sound of this therapy, but honestly with my anxiety and depression, it can be so hard to change my state of mind. I feel so stuck sometimes or like it’s just not going to get better so this might not totally work in the long-run for me. It could potentially help my self-esteem and self-efficacy, but I feel like I need something that focuses on my environment and my interactions with it, more than my views and thoughts of myself. Although, I do see benefits to having a good view of myself. Self love is very important so you can love other’s, but it wouldn’t totally help me to fix my problems, I think.

4. Behavioral psychotherapy has a rich tradition in research and practice. From a purely behavioral perspective, behavior therapy has shown considerable success with clients from a variety of problems. Traditional behavior therapy draws from respondent conditioning and operant conditioning to solve client problems.

Honestly, depending on the problem this could work wonders for people who have behavior or personality issues, but for me and my anxiety/depression I don’t know if it would be a good fit. It could me get past my anxiety by putting me in situations that trigger it, but again, that could ultimately make it worse and have the opposite effect of trying to get comfortable in the situation, whatever it may be

 


First Impression Week 15 Prompt 1

--Original published at Kevin Psych Blog

  1. Behavioral: This form of therapy definitely has the best chance of fixing someones more immediate problems, I think. Its strength lies in how it chips away at a negative behavior through scientifically proven methods such as conditioning. It might be a slower process but in the end I believe you would see the best results. However my concern is that someone would need to know why they act the way they do for this to work, and there are definitely cases in which you would need to dig for that information, leading me to believe that a combination of behavioral and psychodynamic therapy in which you bring up the problem through psychodynamics and deal with the outcome of the problem through behavioral therapy would be the most useful. In other words, behavioral therapy has the potential to become worthless to some patients without assistance from other forms.
  2. Cognitive: My favorite aspect of cognitive therapy is how a therapist would act as a kind of guide for someone to help them dig themselves out of a rut, without being too distant (like what I see with humanistic therapy, in which it seems like they just hope people will come to accept their problems and move on). Like the book said, we think in words, and changing the way we think about the world, the effects of things that happen to us, I can imagine would be a big help in convincing yourself that you aren’t completely doomed. The biggest problem I could see with this is if someone is stubborn and refuses to change their thinking. There are a lot of stubborn people in the world and unless someone is willing and open to changing their world view, this form of therapy would be wasted on them.
  3. Psychodynamics: I think that this has the potential to be extremely helpful to people with a broad range of issues, maybe not even necessarily diagnosed illnesses. When the issue isn’t chemical it seems like it often comes from unaddressed underlying issues a person has and this form of therapy is targeted at bringing out those issues, making a patient aware of them, thereby allowing them to deal with whatever is causing the problems. I think this form of therapy fails when you deal with someone who’s problems are simply biological, but for the type of person it’s meant for I believe it would be very helpful.
  4. Humanistic: This approach to therapy might be good for making a person more comfortable with themselves, but I don’t see it going far beyond that. That isn’t necessarily a problem, if that’s what someone wants then I think this would be a fantastic choice, it creates an open and accepting environment where a person can express themselves freely, but it doesn’t seem like it’s capable of really addressing a persons problems and helping them fix themselves. I know that if I was looking for therapy I would want to try to eradicate the problems at the root of my behavior, not become comfortable with my thoughts and actions.

Week 15 First Impression

--Original published at Site Title

I thought it was challenging trying to think through each different type of therapy and rank them since they all have their fair share of pros and cons. But if I were in the position where I was in need of some type of therapy, my first choice would have to be cognitive therapy. Yes, there are many other things that contribute to one needing therapy but the biggest focus for me would be my mindset and attitude. Though it is very difficult and time consuming, I believe that changing someones mindset and how they perceive certain situations can have a big impact on their overall mental health. My second choice behind this would have to be psychodynamic therapy. It isn’t really beneficial to the current feelings that you’re feeling but it gives you a better understanding of where they’re coming from. The therapy that I think comes after this would have to be the humanistic therapy. This one actually is meant to deal with your current feelings but it doesn’t go any deeper than that. I think that this is just basically not dealing with the actual problem and it’s more about the moment and not longterm. This leaves the last spot to the behavioral therapy. Not that there’s anything specifically wrong with it but I personally just don’t think that it’s beneficial whatsoever. It is good that it deals with how you behave due to your mental condition but it doesn’t do anything to attempt to overcome the problem. It’s more like it’s skimming the surface so that you can at least hide what you’re feeling.


Media production

--Original published at Em

The article about transience memory is about the idea of never forgetting as a memory superpower. Dr. Richards and Frankland challenge function of forgetting. Dr. Richards and Frankland suggest that the best model of memory could be one that forgets. This was published in the Neuron and was socking as it suggested that our brains purposely forget. In a case study by Russian Neuropsychologist Luria’s patient remembered every minute of every day. This hindered the patient in his every day life. No experience was ever new.  He had trouble separating events remembering what was normal and what was new.  Some memories constantly haunted the patient in vivid details while other important facts were mixed around among st every detail of the patient’s life. Overfitting or never forgetting can cause adverse impacts on the individuals life. Richards and Frankland’s study focuses on the importance of transience in decision making. Richards and Frankland propose that transience and persistence combined is the optimal decision-making model.

Forgetting is an implicit function of memory to weed out the important memories from the fluff.  Memory is important for humans to make informed decisions based on past mistakes. In order to understand the forgetting and memory there are a few important terms. Memory is defined as making information permanent information permanent or persistence (Richards & Frankland, 2017). Transience refers to forgetting the past or petty details (Richards & Frankland, 2017).   Remembering is reactivating the patterns of nerve activity that were present at the encoding stage . Long term potentiation can explain the increase in synaptic strength between neurons. On the other hand, a depression can also increase memory. Richards and Frankland researched the enzymes necessary for transience and persistence. Intelligence is a balance of memory and transience.

The key enzymes Blake and Frankland studied were in relation to persistence were CA2 and ZIP to help encode and ensure memory In. forgetting the key enzyme is GluA2.  To start with forgetting there was research previously that promoted GluA2-containing AMPA receptor endocytosis and could also promote forgetting. Protein kinase PKC maintains Long term potentiation.  Long term potentiation was then blocked first to stimulate GluA2. Richards and Frankland also found that neurons were generated from the stem cell.  When neuron cells assimilate into the hippocampus then a memory is made. When new neurons come into the hippocampus the circuits rewrite memories.

This was then studied in rats to support the findings.  The version studied in rats was Rho GTPase Rac1 which potentiated the spines through dendric targeting. The shocks caused shrinkage. The increase in shocks caused more transient memory. In natural forgetting actin dynamics decrease forgetting. In an enriched environment neurogenesis was more likely in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is where memory is processed. Then the paper focuses on decision making since the individual has only important memories left then the individual can make informed decisions. The error to trusting in memories as they are not always remembered with reliability. Memories may be flawed but they are changed based on experience to help the individual succeed in the future. For example, maybe a person hates beef because they got very sick after eating one once. Memory helps decision making even with reliability issue.

Article length 750

Summary length 530

Reflection

I further respect journalist because while trying to summarize my research article it was very difficult to decide what is important. It was also difficult to compete with the pop news article because I felt it just catered to the exciting headline instead of the actual science behind the headline. I feel in journalism it is so easy to twist the truth and miscommunicate the facts. This is because when someone else is recounting an event there is always bias to what someone feels is important. I felt the science was more important to understanding how transience memory worked. On the other hand, someone else could easily feel the overall meaning is what they want to read in a news article. I did agree with national public radio that the case study of patient S was important to understanding the concept of never forgetting.

I feel national public radio conveyed transience as if we just forget the concept of neurons was nonexistent. The news article focuses on reader interaction instead of scientific findings. Funding on the other hand runs scientific findings so public interest runs innovation either way. I included key definitions for understanding. I then followed by outlining the enzymes that caused transience and persistence of memory. I found this process very difficult as I did grossly summarize the presses of encoding and memory formation. I felt I included the science but only to a limited degree. I included the combination of transience and persistence as these were the crucial themes.The five critical questions were not clearly included in the research article therefore I could not integrate them into the media production project. The five critical questions were not addressed in the scientific study or the pop media article therefore I could not address them.

 

Richards, B. A., & Frankland, P. W. (2017). The Persistence and Transience of Memory. Neuron, 94(6), 1071-1084. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2017.04.037

“Public Radio Finances.” NPR, NPR, 20 June 2013, http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances. Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

 

 


Media Production: Alcohol use disorder

--Original published at MentzersBlog

Increasing in many situations is a goo thing but no for Alcohol use disorder. Increasing in alcohol use disorder (AUD) this is not to be taken lightly as it has shot through the roof by 49% from 8.5% to 12.7% in just a decade.  

Data collected about alcohol use disorder and high-risk drinking. Looking over the data that is displayed there are multiple statistics that stand out. Significant increases in alcohol use disorder occurred in subgroups and minorities over the last decade from 2001-2002 and 2011-2012. The highest increase in AUD was from the 65 and older age. The senior citizens age group increased by 106.7%. This group is almost 14% higher than any other age group or minority in America. The next highest increase would be by African American individuals. This group is 13.9 % lower, but still increased at an alarming number of 92.8%. The age group of the highest increase in alcohol use disorder was odd itself but it comes back for the the forth highest increase. Thats right ages 45-64 was just the beginning and once you got over 65 you got to the a higher increase in AUD.  Alcohol use disorder  in the ages between 45 and 64 increased by 81.5%. this is the same number as the CNN new article says. Most of the statistics raised by more than 50 % and is very alarming. All these results have been found in other national surveys showing alcohol use disorders are increasing at an unhealthy rate. The higher rate of increased high-risk drinking and alcohol use disorder in groups are less likely to have adequate health coverage. This is concerning for the 65 and older group since it has the highest increase AUD at 106.7%. The older you are the more you can inherit multiple preexisting disorders that can be exacerbated by heavy drinking. When at the ages of 65 and up you take medications ad many will interact adversely with alcohol. This results in significant medical problems and costly health consequences. Increased AUD in lower education and income is alarming because these individuals who drink often can not afford appropriate health insurance that does not limit or does not cover alcohol-related treatments. When the collected data women showed up to be high at 83.7% of AUD which was the third highest increase in all of the Unites States. Women also increased at 16% of drinking alcohol and 58% in high-risk drinking. In the CNN article it explains that AUD is not juts the problem here it also is the high risk drinking. This is a problem because suboptimal childrearing practices, and children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, with potential lifelong functioning impairments. All in all if the absence of access to medical care for individuals with long term, often severe medical problems associated with heavier drinking is likely to result in the individuals to turn to emergency departments. CNN also talks about what happens to health care and medical treatments. This results in increased costs to taxpayers both directly and through higher insurance. 

Reflection:

When reading this article it is not that hard to read. It does give you a lot of numbers and percentages but they all seem to add upend make sense. I picked out the percentages and  the study results to show the differences in AUD. When it comes to experiments the only thing that matters is the numbers and what they stand for. SO in my summary I tried to give you those numbers and what they mean to give you the data that the experimenters received. The only other trouble was remembering all the data so I wrote it all down to remember the results of the study. Usually when researching a study of some sort they use large terms and scientific work but luckily my article did not so it helped me with understanding hat is being done. I did leave out some information as I could not fit all. I Took out pieces that were confusing and not important. I went to the facts and stayed there to give you the difference in AUD. Overall these sources helped out a lot and realizing that drinking has become a problem.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/health/drinking-alcoholism-study-trnd/index.html

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2647075