Chapter 15 impression

--Original published at Loretta Gabrielle

Psychotherapy has different treatments including psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. My ranking in order if I were to need therapy is psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral, and humanistic.

Psychodynamic therapy is the most traditional therapy which has the client look at different childhood experiences which can provide self-evaluation. An example of this is face to face therapy and the purpose is to look at unconsciousness to understand the present issues which may not be know of by the client. The only negative aspect from this technique is not focusing on the present moment problem and solving it but rather looking for the underlying issue. The benefit of this in the long term is superior of the rest since it will dig deeper but it doesn’t help the patient in the current state of distress.

Cognitive behavior therapy treats people with the same issues as patients described in behavior therapy. This differs from behavioral because it focuses of thought patters and emotional responses regarding personality problems rather than behavior. By changing the internal emotional negative reaction it can eliminate negative emotions. The purpose is to explain a clients emotions in a new way rather than internal self-hatred. The negative component with this is that the therapy is normally a shorter treatment time. Also, the emotional aspect of the way a person thinks dresses more of the now but ignores the entire picture. I also find this and behavioral therapy tie in together would work better than either of these alone.

Behavioral therapy identifies any harmful behaviors in a persons life. It works to changed learned behaviors which are unhealthy to a person and make them better. This is a treatment which can help several people who suffer with depression, anxiety, and other behavior issues and mental disorders. Behavioral therapist focus on behavior problems as the main issue and learning strategies can minimize these behavioral problems through classical learning. I agree that classical and operant learning can be used to minimize or maximize behavior but I don’t find this strategy as useful as the others.

Humanistic works to help someone’s self-awareness and self-worth to accept themselves. I feel this can be beneficial since it isn’t treated as a normal client therapist but rather person to person. They believe once the client finds the issue they are solved from he burden which I disagree with. Although this approach can be helpful to people, I don’t find the purpose and reasoning of the therapy to be a major necessity and disagree with the tactics. I value therapy but I personally find humanistic therapist more of glorified life coaches.

Chapter 15 First Impression Post

--Original published at Jenna'sPSY105blog

For this first impression post, I chose the first prompt regarding different kinds of psychotherapy. Our textbook discusses four different therapeutic approaches: psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. Each one has it’s benefits and downfalls, so I am going to rank them from best to worst approach and discuss each one.

1. Humanistic therapy teaches people to develop a stronger and healthier sense of self and become more in touch with their emotions. This approaches studies the whole person and what makes them unique. A perk to this approach is that because it values self-fulfillment and personal ideals, it is more focused on the entire individual and is more personalized. Going along with that, therapy sessions could be more effective because it is more personalized to the individual and clients can feel more comfortable sharing things with their therapist. A weakness of this that the personalization can be frustrating for the client because they are not being fit into a mold, thus possibly not getting a direct answer about their condition from their therapist.

2. Cognitive therapy teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking. It is based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events an our emotional reactions. It looks at how people process information with their senses and how they respond to it. A good thing about this approach is that it can be combined with other approaches, such as behavior therapy. It also helps people learn about how their body responds to stimuli and helps us better understand our brains. It is important to try to understand what makes us react the way we do as well as how cognition affects behavior. A con to this approach is that it can cause generalizations about human behavior and overlook other factors of human behavior such as chemical imbalances, genetics, experiences, etc.

3. Behavior therapy applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors. A benefit to this type of approach is that it can counteract negative patterns and habits, and create coping mechanisms for stress, increase participation in activities, goal setting, come up with self-help techniques, and increase in self-esteem, and improvements in performance. However, a downfall to this approach is that there aren’t many qualified behavioral therapists out there to do this kind of therapy.

4. Psychodynamic therapy is viewing individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and seeks to enhance self-insight. Something very useful about this approach is that it helps you reflect back to your childhood and find a possible correlation between your past and your behaviors now. A weakness in this approach is that it does not consider biological components. Certain situations that require people to go to therapy could be related to genetics.

Chapter 15: First Impression

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

Off the bat I believe this campaign is a good one because not a lot of people see mental health as important of physical health. Its rare you hear employers or teachers tell their employees or students they can take an absence if their mental health needs help. With this campaign working on showing that mental health is as important as physical health to keep our whole well being as one, I believe it will change a lot of people’s lives for the better.

The three goals of the campaign are definite strengths of the campaign. They are aiming to show mental health and physical health are equally as important, creating a way for people to understand the signs of poor mental health, and helping people understand personal mental health is equally as important as the mental health of others. There is also a list of five main signs of someone’s mental health changing for the worst. The one weakness I see in the plan is the timeline of five years. I see this as a weakness because the quicker it happens the better people can get help properly or so others can help those who are having trouble admitting they need help.

I believe this would be beneficial for colleges to incorporate this into their systems. College is the best but worst times of peoples lives. They have new experiences that help them create better and new memories but they also tear themselves apart focusing on school to work on creating a great life for themselves in the future. College students have a tendency to suffer from anxiety and depression going through school because of the great levels of stress they go through. Most of these students don’t understand what they are dealing with or are afraid to admit they need help because some people don’t believe skipping a day of class for a mental break is good for people. Teachers and employers need to be more willing to let someone skip a day of class or leave work a little bit early so people can go relax. If people don’t get some of the relaxing they need then they can have issues with their mental health which can be as harmful as poor physical health.

Chapter 15 First Impression

--Original published at CatherinesCollegeBlog

I chose the first option for this post, regarding the major types of psychotherapy. Psychodynamic psychotherapy has a main focus of identifying a person’s unconscious feelings and sources of tension or conflict. I like this approach because sometimes the most difficult things to overcome are memories or feelings we cannot identify for ourselves, like things in our unconscious. Talking to a therapist who knows how to uncover these feelings many patients unconsciously have hidden away can be very helpful in moving past the issue. The down side to this method of psychotherapy could be that some of these memories or past events in a patient’s unconscious may be too difficult for him or her to relive. Eventually, people should try to discuss and move past emotional issues that are especially difficult, but this may be a strategy to use further along in the process instead of right from the start. Behavioral psychotherapy focuses on problematic behaviors patients participate in and tries to eliminate them through different forms of conditioning. I like this method because it tries to show people new ways to handle situations instead of allowing them to continue the problematic behaviors, which is helpful. On the other hand, this method may lead to a negative association even with positive things in life when the conditioning is taken too far. You do not want patients to be fearful or in conflict with new aspects of life because the conditioning has formed a negative association in their minds. Cognitive psychotherapy focuses on emphasizing positive, healthy thoughts about themselves while getting rid of any negative thoughts they may have about themselves. This method is good because it forces people to become more aware of their feelings of self-doubt, but especially what makes them have these feelings to begin with. Patients can realize what events or feelings trigger the doubt or negative thoughts they experience, and then work to avoid or better handle these situations. This method may not work if the patients are not committed to staying alert and engaged with their own feelings and thoughts at all times. It is difficult to be honest about our feelings, and patients may give up easily instead of working to eliminate the negativity they feel coming. Humanistic psychotherapy focuses on the relationship between a therapist and client, specifically how this can create good or bad opportunities for the patient to grow. This method will work if there is a trusting relationship between the two parties, so the client feels it is acceptable to open up and be vulnerable; however, if the therapist does not seem to have interest in or care about the client, this will not be an effective form of treatment. If I personally needed therapy, I would first try humanistic psychotherapy because I am more of a shy person and would need to feel completely comfortable with a therapist before sharing my story. The next best method for me would be cognitive psychotherapy because it sounds helpful and relatively doable to place an emphasis on positive things in life and remember that negative thoughts will pass. Thirdly, I would look to psychodynamic psychotherapy, mainly because I have a hard time interpreting what my thoughts and feelings mean. I believe this method would be helpful alongside a therapist who is better at understanding my unconscious mind. Lastly, I would choose behavioral psychotherapy because I like thinking I am able to consciously control my thoughts and behaviors. Since this method uses conditioning as a way to help patients, this would not be my first pick because this somewhat eliminates conscious decisions I have to behave or react in the ways I would.

Chapter 14 First Impression Post

--Original published at Jenna'sPSY105blog

For this week’s first impression post, I chose the first prompt that has us watch a simulation of someone living with schizophrenia. The simulation instilled a great bit of fear that something bad was going to happen, which is one thing that schizophrenics have to deal with all of the time. The guy was home alone while his significant other was at the grocery store. At first the video started off waking up and going about daily morning tasks, everything feeling pretty normal. But it did show him picking up his pill bottle, and then deciding not to take his medication. Then, the symptoms began to show. The man became very paranoid that someone was out to get him and that “they have found him” and “they are coming for him.” He went around the house closing the curtains so nobody could see in him through the windows. The TV was talking to him too. When the pizza man showed up, he was terrified to open the door, and when he did it was just a crack. When he brought the pizza inside, he was convinced it was poisoned and he knocked it off of the counter and onto the floor, ruining the meal he was about to have. He kept having a lot of self doubt and negative thoughts running through his head, as well as hallucinating that he news reporter was speaking directly to him and being very harsh on him. At the end, the woman comes back with groceries, she points out that he didn’t take his medication. She gives it to him and opens up the curtains to let some light in, and reassures him that he’s OK.

I think this simulation compares pretty consistent to how schizophrenia is depicted in movies and the media in general. They typically have paranoia, hallucinations, voices in their heads, etc. which are pretty common symptoms throughout most people who suffer with schizophrenia. Something that I feel is different is that the media convinces you that schizophrenics are dangerous, scary, crazy, or that their mental illness is crippling. But many are “regular” and successful people who are able to live with and maintain their symptoms are perfectly capable of living a normal life. This video also did a good job of promoting taking medicine. Most things in the media about schizophrenia don’t focus on stressing the importance of taking your pills everyday to combat these symptoms and have control over them. Many people try to live without being medicated or try to stop taking their medication, but this video did good job of reminding people what they will have to deal with if they don’t.

Media Production

--Original published at Jenna'sPSY105blog

Summary

It is proven that children’s eyes are more sensitive and less protected than the eyes of adults. This means that light enters their eyes more strongly as well. Recent research has shown that this could affect the children’s sleep cycle because their internal clock is thrown off by excessive light exposure. Surely most parents just get annoyed and frustrated when their kids can’t sleep at night and they are constantly getting out of bed to complain about it, but this study explains why this could be out of their control.

The study was lead as well as reported on by an instructor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, named Lameese D. Akacem. She recognized that melatonin is the hormone in your body responsible for making you tired at a certain time at night time to tell you that it’s time for your body to become relaxed and to prepare to go to bed soon. The goal of the study was to see how different levels of light exposure, specifically bright lights, affect melatonin levels, and in turn, young children’s ability to sleep. So Akacem decided to measure the levels of melatonin of a group of children for one week. There were 10 children that had to meet strict health guidelines in order to be able to be a participant in the study, including that they all had to be healthy and between ages 3 and 5. The test lasted one week. The children slept how they normally did for the five nights to create a baseline for the study. For the sixth night the researchers had covered the house’s windows with black plastic bags and replaced the lights with low-wattage lightbulbs to create a dark home for the children to hang out in for the day. Lastly, on the seventh night, an hour before their set bedtime, the children were prompted to play at a light table that produced large amounts of bright light. Melatonin levels can be measured in saliva, so the researchers had a parent of the child collect spit samples before, during, and after the children slept.

On average, the children would start to go to bed around 8:27 p.m. On the night where the house was dark and there was no extra light exposure, the children began to secrete high levels of melatonin about 40 minutes before they fell asleep. This meant their internal clock had begun their “biological night” with the production of melatonin. On the night following the play time on the light table, the children displayed a high rate of suppression of melatonin, about 90 percent actually. Fifty minutes after the strong light exposure their melatonin levels were still not even half of what they were prior to the light.

The reason why children have a higher sensitivity to light than adults is because their pupils are larger and more light is able to hit the retina, allowing signals to reach the brain. As people get older, a protein builds over the eye, which naturally limits the light that is able to enter. Melatonin is produced in the pineal gland, and the amount produced based off of how much light enters the retina. So sometimes children can be feeling really tired, but if the melatonin isn’t triggered to be secreted, then the brain and the body’s internal clock is not able to send signals correctly in order to promote sleep, which is what causes children to get frustrated and get up out of bed various times throughout the night when they are unable to fall asleep.

After analyzing the data collected from this experiment, Dr. Akacem and her colleagues concluded that strong light exposure before bed suppresses the sleep promoting hormone, melatonin, and throws their internal clocks out of whack. She recommends to parents to try to avoid bright lights in hallways and bathrooms at night, keeping nightlights as low to the ground as possible, dimming or eliminating as many light sources in the evenings, and maintaining a consistent bed time, preferably before 9 p.m., to ensure their preschoolers are able to get a good night’s sleep.

Reflection:

This part of the Media Project was definitely the hardest section to write. I found it very difficult to avoid plagiarize not one but two different articles, along with the other two papers I have previously written, while still trying to be as accurate as I could be in the information I was providing, making enough sense to an audience who may not have a strong scientific background, and including key details about the study itself as well as extra information to help explain why the study was done in the first place. The science behind the study was especially tough being that I am someone with limited knowledge on the chemicals in the brain, like melatonin, as well as the in-depth interworking of the brain. It was also just hard to condense the whole research study into such a limited word count, but luckily, other than some quotes and the future research that I did not feel was necessary to include, I didn’t really have to leave out any key information.

This project has really changed my perspective on journalists and what they do. I always just kind of assumed that journaling was fun and an easy-going job, but it turns out it’s pretty difficult and requires a lot of hard work. This assignment allowed us to step into journalists’ shoes and realize how much goes into what they do for a living. One thing that I never really thought about is that the writers most likely have limited knowledge on some of the topics that they write about, so it is probably hard for them to write about subjects they are not experts in and still reword it to make it their own. I know for me when I was writing about the science behind the study, I didn’t know enough about that topic to reword it and make sense of it any other way than how it was already written. That could definitely be an obstacle for journalists when they are trying to give advice or provide information which requires factual information.

Work Cited

Pop Culture Article

Klass, Perri. “To Help Children Sleep, Go Dark.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2018.

Scholarly Article

Akacem, Lameese D., et al. “Sensitivity of the Circadian System to Evening Bright Light in Preschool‐Age Children.” Physiological Reports, vol. 6, no. 5, 2018.

https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.14814/phy2.13617

Hallucinatory states and REM Sleep

--Original published at Kirsten's Kreations

When we sleep we go through two main stages of sleep we go through; non-REM sleep and REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement and is determined to be where we experience our most vivid dream sleep. In a study that presents a new Measure of Hallucinatory States (HMS) two independent variables were used: motor imagery and cognitive agency. The motor imagery is the interactions with the hallucinatory world while the cognitive agency is the thought processes that happen while reaching or in the hallucinatory world.

Lucid (hallucinatory) dreams have been described as being able to remember the dream or being able to control or change the content of the dream. Four factors that differ lucid from normal dreams are: understanding one is dreaming, thought level that is engaged, control of the content, and having an outside perspective of the dream. The cognitive agency can play a roll in being able to find a clearer distinction between the lucid and normal dreams by figuring out where the cognitive agency weakens and how we can learn to have a continuous engagement with it.

With this study, researchers are hoping to find a way to use the MHS to alter states of consciousness and understand the effects of manipulations done to the brain. However, the main goal of this study is to understand the levels of lucid REM dreaming.

The study has the two independent variables that will be compared on three levels of sleep; sleep onset, non-REM sleep, and REM sleep. There were 399 reports from 16 college students ranging from age 19-26 years old. There was a 14 day period when they were woken by a sleep-stage detection device. Once they were woken they had to orally record their experience.

To determine if it was motor agency or not, the researchers determined if the recording had a noun phrase in relationship with a verb phrase. Then the recordings of motor agency were separated into two categories, athletic and non-athletic. To determined if it was athletic or not they used the list of Olympic disciplines and World Games disciplines to made the decision. The cognitive agency was determined if there cognitive acts being done in the dream.

Of the 399 reports 150 were for sleep onset, 115 were for non-REM sleep, and 134 were from REM sleep. The cognitive agency showed to have more reports in the sleep onset stage and decreased as the stages reached REM sleep. The motor agencies, however, were the opposite in having the reports be lower in the sleep onset stage and increase while reaching the REM stage. It was found that the athletic motor agency tended to be absent in the sleep onset and more present in the REM sleep stage.

The hypothesis of the study suggested that the cognitive and motor agencies would differ across the board in the results. However, it was shown to not be the case, the motor agencies and the cognitive agencies didn’t differ too much across the board. When comparing the motor agencies the cognitive agencies, it was found they were reported to have been working together most of the time rather than one or the other.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.12491

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dream-factory/201706/how-our-thoughts-change-when-we-fall-asleep

Chapter 14 impression post

--Original published at Loretta Gabrielle

For this impression I picked the first one. In films and movies which regard the topic of mental illnesses they are either glorified and romanticized or seen as an abolishment and or a sin. After watching the video it demonstrated different sensory and understanding which other people with schizophrenia face. Before watching the video it had a sensory and I thought there was a possibility of something startling me as someone with schizophrenia might face. The beginning of the video was fairly normal but as it progresses it demonstrated different voices in their head and possible fear. After the fear, more panic sets in and it continues. Most of the fear which people struggle with are self doubt which control their thoughts. It is as though everything is against them which they hear in their head. After watching the video it showed the individual with schizophrenia before they took their medications and it was as though everything was attacking them. This video didn’t change the idea of what I thought people with schizophrenia were. In the media, it is mostly similar to this since most of the media views people who have schizophrenia without medication, similarly to this video. Based off of what happened in the video, without the medication it could possibly escalate to what is shown in the media. The difference was how livable it is. The video didn’t show the impacts of it with medication but most media outlets show it as debilitating. Lastly, I didn’t realize how much self doubt and presence of depression/ thoughts linked to depression were in schizophrenia. The majority of the internal voices which were in the film were self-doubt and internal hatred. The main feeling, I felt the person expressed was worthlessness or the fear of being worthless. I originally thought something would pop out and startle me but what the person was doing was normal daily activities and having internal fear and thoughts of self doubt.

Media Production

--Original published at Loretta Gabrielle

My Article Summary of the Journal:

The researchers of the study, conducted an experiment as to whether or not forensic evidence had bias from criminal stereotypes. The researchers target audience were individuals in the criminal justice system and society as a whole, with main focus on forensic examiners and fingerprinting. The stem from this research originated from a forensic examiner questioning their teams methods when they mistakenly suggested an Muslim man was guilty for a bombing. The reasoning of this wrongful arrest was because Brandon Mayfield, the Muslim man mistakenly charged, fit the FBI’s profile and stereotype of what a terrorist bomber would look like.

So, what is a criminal stereotype? A criminal stereotype relates an individual’s appearances, looks, beliefs, and characteristics with a certain crime. In this example, a criminal stereotype was assuming a Muslim man was the perpetrator of a bombing. This occurs similarly with other crimes matched with certain characteristics. In this experiment, the researchers conducted a trial study which matched different crimes with different characteristics. The participants of the study were college students which generated different assumptions of criminal stereotypes. The purpose of this trial study was to demonstrate how social stereotypes played into role, demonstrating a cause and effect.

This led to the main experiment of the research. The researchers selected 225 undergraduate college students from a large variety of ethnic backgrounds without any known knowledge of criminal justice. The journal overlooked any reasoning for why or how the participants were selected, leaving out critical operationalizing variables. The participants read a mock police report with mock fingerprints of two crimes which were said to be found at the scene of the crime. The research journal left out how they were separated but, half of the participants were matched with an middle-aged Asian woman named Mei Lee, while the other half matched with White middle-aged male named Steve Johnson as the perpetrator. The two crimes in question were child molestation and identity theft, one which was stereotypically matched with distinct characteristics of a perpetrator and another crime which did not match with any specific trait. The participants were told to state whether they thought the individual the database matched at the scene of the crime, was or was not the perpetrator. The findings demonstrated most participants associated child molestation with Steve Johnson, a White middle-aged man as the perpetrator whereas the characteristics of identity theft had little impact when deciding who the perpetrator was. The research demonstrated how social and criminal stereotypes negatively impact and create a disadvantage for individuals who fit these characteristics.

The research journal suggested different ways for forensic examiners evaluation of fingerprinting through a variety of systems. An example provided was a filler method which had a mock criminal stereotype given to a forensic examiner. If the examiner suggested the perpetrator matched the crime, it would determine the examiner as unreliable and in need of improved forensic techniques. The information in the journal can improve the criminal justice system along with society as a whole to help prevent negative biases from criminal stereotypes. This study is able to create awareness to criminal stereotypes in forensic evidence which lead to wrongful arrests.

Review of Summarizing the Journal

Through the process, I understand the perspective and difficulties reporters have when reviewing an experiment. The news article disregarded several factors of the five research questions. In my summary, I prioritized by answering the questions which the news article left out. I was able to address every question other than how the participants were selected since it was missing from the research journal. In completing the article summary I found it easily done after finishing both the pop critique and scholarly review assignments.

In summarizing the research article, there were several different details in the news article which was part of the study but not the overall purpose. For example, the article disregarded details about the participants but capitalized on the journalists personal experiences of social stereotypes. Although this information is useful for the findings in the article, it takes away important details which are vital in the experiment. When deciding the information to take out, personal aspects became eliminated and replaced with the details regarding the five critical questions. The questions I addressed in the summary were operationalized variables, how the groups were assigned, method of causal claims, and targeting the right audience. This differs from the news article as it only addressed the method of casual claims and how the groups were assigned. The additional information I left out were details regarding the accumulation of different fingerprints the criminal database provides. I minimized the statistical factors when creating the article summary as most readers, including myself, would struggle understanding the point and purpose of it. I found the main goal of the study was to demonstrate the reason as to why the researchers were conducting the experiment, the details in the experiment, the findings of the experiment, and what to improve upon which was implemented in my summary.

In comparison to my summary with the news article we both left out how the participants were selected. The article disregarded the operationalized variables which my summary provided regarding the participants in the study. Both my summary and the article discuss the presence of causal claims from the journal along with how participants were assigned. In the article, casual claim were frequently used and demonstrated through the findings of the research. The presence of criminal stereotypes caused a higher likelihood of biases in the criminal justice system, a cause and effect. The summary I provided answered part of the five critical research questions which the article summary did not. In my summary, the details regarding the generalization to the correct population and who the participants in the research were specified while the article summary focused on strictly forensic examiners.

My perspective on journalist has changed after studying and reviewing the pop culture research critique, scholarly article, and the media production assignments. From the pop culture research critique, the majority of the article left out information regarding the five research questions. After reading the article, the assumed participants were forensic examiners rather than college students. The lack of information provided in the article left room for incorrect assumption and mistakes, damaging the validity of the news article. The pop culture research brought attention of the missing information as the article was unable to answer all five of the research questions. The lack of information the news article provided which the pop critiques capitalized on, provided awareness to flaws in other research articles which may have been overlooked. Although I found the article summary untrustworthy, it continues as a reminder of attentiveness in research. The mistakes the journalist made are understandable as some of the information of the five research questions were missing. When writing a journal article, it is difficult for journalists to add any personal opinion in the summary with limited space.

In the scholarly article, it provided the analysis of the research journal and the information the news article lacked. Most of the information found in the research journal added to the missing information from regarding the five research questions which the news article left out. Originally the news article was only able to answer two questions while my summary was able to answer four of them. The scholarly article provided a larger understanding of the difficulties journalist may face when looking at a study. The article picked out the important details of the study while also acknowledging the back story and purpose of the experiment. This assignment differed from the pop culture critique by providing a larger insight to the difficulties journalist face in understanding the content of research journals and deciphering the important and interesting facts readers would understand.

In this media production assignment, it allowed the students to become the news article journalists rather than strictly the critiques. By understanding and picking apart the flaws in the new article and understanding the details from the journal, it allowed me to concentrate on the important facts while creating my summary. After the completion of the summary, the assignment allowed reflection and understanding of the flaws in each component and how to distinguish a valid article summary from an invalid one. In this specific article, I believe the author had a large oversight in most of the information and did not prioritize it as well as they could have. Although the journalist could have been more attentive in incorporating the important details of the study, I understand the difficulties of completing a word limit of a news article with an extremely detailed research journal.

Work Cited

Madon, Stephanie, et al. The Perfect Match: Do Criminal Stereotypes Bias Forensic Evidence Analysis?, vol. 40, no. 4, 2016, pp. 420–429., doi:10.18411/d-2016-154.

“The Perfect Match.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, 19 Oct. 2016, http://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-82.aspx.

News Article: http://www.apa.org/pubs/highlights/spotlight/issue-82.aspx

Journal Article: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/lhb-lhb0000190.pdf

Chapter 14: First Impression Post

--Original published at KatieMillerPSY105

For this first impression post, I chose to do the first option of watching the simulation of a person with schizophrenia. When watching this video, I was thinking about how difficult this illness would be to live with. You can’t control the voices in your head, you can’t control the scents you smell, and you can’t control the hallucinations you have. This video showed the person experiencing hallucinations from the tv and from the pizza. The pizza was called “poison” by the voices in the person’s head. It would be hard to have to go through everyday hearing voices saying hurtful things to you. In a way, I thought this video was a little creepy or scary to me. I did not know a whole lot about how real schizophrenic people (not how the media portrays them) were, so when I watched the simulation I thought that it would be scary for those who were diagnosed with this illness.

I believe that the media portrays people with schizophrenia as “crazy” people. They show people with this illness as frantic and out of control whereas the person in this video was more calm and relaxed during the episode. I think that the media could do a better job of raising awareness about this disorder and how it can affect anyone who has it differently. Overall, I found this video very interesting and I now have a better understanding of what it is like for someone who has schizophrenia.