Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are another very common, and very dangerous mental disorder. Either a person refuses to eat or a person exercises themselves to death without nourishing themselves in anyway. Or some gorge themselves on large amounts of food then puke all of this food up. This is most commonly believed to be caused by childhood eating habits and more importantly it is an unhealthy body image during adolescence and puberty. This disease most commonly affects adolescent girls and young women but it can happen to anyone. There is no cure for eating disorders. An anorexic or bulimic can not gain weight and can not become healthy again unless he or she truly wants to. However by the time it is discovered that an eating disorder has taken over the person's bodily image is so distorted that he or she will choose to die before getting fat.
Cures for mental diseases are unlikely just from the fact that we have limited knowledge about the specific causes. Treatment is optimistic in most cases and the sooner a disorder is recognized the sooner it can be treated. Major laws have been put into place to ensure some protection for the mentally ill, and care is now more easily attainable than ever. In as much as there are mentally ill people who need to be hospitalized and treated with the proper care to ensure healthy life, there are those who only want to live like normal people. Katie Flair, a mentally disturbed 13 year old, wants nothing more than to go to school with other kids her age who live normal lives. Her parents are currently fighting with all they have to ensure her acceptance in public school, despite the school's claim they have no teachers prepared to accommodate Katie. Mentally ill people are just people with different needs. They need to be assisted in a positive way, by people who have been trained to care for people with special needs. Practically everyone in the world at least knows someone with some sort of disorder and i believe its become more common for people to just accept the mentally ill then it has been in the past.

Mental Disorders

Mental Disorders- Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma.
Each disorder is very different, and very complex. Over 20 million Americans suffer from some sort of mental disorder, such as depression, anxiety disorders, and OCD. Each disease is very different, with different symptoms, and different treatment needs. Sadly most people with mental disorders are called/known as crazy or weird. Some people think that mental disorders are caused by the person with the disorder convincing themselves that they have the illness. Some also believe that the mental illness is caused by emotional weakness or that its caused by bad parenting. In order for those diagnosed with mental illness to be better understood and treated, we need to be more aware of the illnesses causes, symptoms, and special needs.
There are two main categories for mental illnesses, those which affect solely the mind, and those which have bodily affects. Examples of mental illnesses with severe mind effects are
clinical depression, schizophrenia, and mania. Examples of disorders with mental as well as physical consequences are catatonic schizophrenia, eating disorders, and another very serious disease called Fragile X Syndrome. This disease causes severe mental problems during childhood, and eventually leads to brain damage. It starts in the mind and begins to affect the body. This disease has a definite cause, however newly discovered one in ten males have a weak X chromosome, which can break off during very early fetal development. Which causes genetic information to be lost. This disease can be tested in early in pregnancy, and sufferers as well as carriers can be easily identified. Soon after this discovery, a large number of males found to have fragile X syndrome were found in psych wards. Now that there is a definite cause for such a disease, there is high hope for a cure.
Each person handles different disorders differently, for some people depression is something they see a doctor for and take medication for. These people are able to live their lives with minimal affects of their disorder. However others go day by day with sever depression issues contemplating their life continually. The causes of mental illnesses are largely mysterious since the disease is of the mind and not a physical part of the brain. However, for each disease there are a number of proposed causes. Schizophrenia is a disease characterized by multiple personalities.Schizophrenia is one of the most serious mental illnesses. This disease is said by psychologists to be caused by dysfunctional relationships between very young children and their mothers. Doctors tend to lean towards a more medical explanation, which is babies with low birth weight are more predisposed to schizophrenia.

Processing Psychology

Psychology for me-
In reading the Everything Psychology Book I guess I kind of hoped I would understand more as to why people do the things they do. I believe that psychology is so interesting to me because of the experiences I've gone through in my life. My brother in his younger ages had aggression problems, he would become so angry his whole body would turn firetruck red. In reading the book I read a section on aggression. The definition for aggression is an act of hostility that one displays in front of another when it feels threatened, challenged, or an immediacy to protect its territory. With this definition it helps me understand my brother a little more. Psychology to me is a life time career. Psychology is helping people in psychological need to me. Psychology defined to me means understanding the brain functions and the reactions of people and animals. My goals for achieving a career in psychology are starting to hit me faster and faster. My first goal is to enroll into all of the classes that ill need to get an associates degree at Kirkwood Community College Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then my goal is to graduate from Kirkwood and then move on to a university to either get my bachelors degree or my doctorate in psychology.

Therapy

In reading the Everything Psychology Book it's made it easier for me to narrow down the type of therapy that I want to pursue. I'm mostly interested in group therapy, couples therapy, and family therapy.

Levels of Consciousness and Memory

Conscious- is the term that describes your active awareness.
Preconscious- it keeps all of the memories that you don't have any use for at the present time, but they can still be retrieved if needed.
Subconscious- it works the information and mental processes needed to perform routine activities that don't require conscious thought.
Unconscious- keeps the memories that we know we have
Non-conscious- keeps information that we need to live but that we don't know we have.
Memory- Short term memory for humans doesn't have a lot of expanding room. The magic number of memory room in our short term memory is seven. Even though we don't realize this number is constantly apart of our daily lives. It's in our phone numbers, zip codes, and id numbers. All of these numbers abide by the magic number.
Forgetting- when you forget something it just has to do with how the memory was processed and stored.

Motives and Envirnmental Influences

Different cultures have different levels of tolerance for the same behaviors, like premarital sex or homosexuality. Some people believe that if you grow up in an abusive environment that you will take that with you and also produce an abusive environment. This example goes with every type of environmental situation.

The Theory of James-Lange

William James and Carl Lange thought that it is the physical actions and reactions that determine the subjective experience of an emotion. James focused on the physiological aspect of emotion, saying that we are afraid because we run and we are excited because we shout. Lange’s ideas were close to James’s but Lange took it further into autonomic responses. He said not only are we afraid because we run but we are afraid because our heart is beating fast.

Biology

The spinal cord consists of neurons that provide information to the brain which helps the brain be aware of external stimulation and bodily functioning. It also transmits information from the brain to muscles that make movement and provides functioning for organs. The spinal cord also contains tiny interneurons that link sensory neurons to motor neurons.
The brain has many interneurons’ that constitute the center of the entire nervous system. The interneurons’s receive and transmit information through the spinal cord and also through other ways. The brain has many areas that are now known for specific functions.
The neurons of the peripheral nervous system are the rest of the chain that carries information to and from the brain. The neurons that relay information to the nervous system are called afferent neurons. The neurons that relay information from the central nervous system are called efferent neurons. Based on this the peripheral nervous system is divided into two systems, one the somatic nervous system the other is the autonomic nervous system.
In the somatic nervous system the afferent neurons relay signals to sensory receptors such as eyes, ears, taste, touch, and hear. The somatic nervous systems efferent neurons relay signals that produce gross motor skills to fine motor skills, such as riding a bike to operating your fingers.
In the autonomic nervous system both neurons work together to help operate the internal workings of the body like breathing, and your heart rate.

Reverse Psychology

The process of reverse psychology has always been interesting to me.

Getting Real With Dr. Phil

Dr. Phil is a well known TV psychologist because of his tell it like it is persona. Dr. Phil McGraw was brought into psychology by his father Joe. Joe McGraw had a fierce, independent, and restless nature that Phil soon obtained. Later on Dr. Phil joined his father in one-on-one therapy, soon he realized that it wasn't for him and began searching for a different way to use his psychological skills. Dr. Phil began a seminar called Pathways, which is were Phil found his motivational charisma within large groups. Dr. Phil started in court room cases were he would help lawyers make airtight cases by using psychology.
His whole life changed after helping Oprah Winfrey win her case against the cattle men. Oprah made him famous by having him on her show every week to tell desperate whining guests to "Get Real". Dr. Phil delivered common sense advice to guest. Even though Dr. Phil has a tough demeanor many men and women felt comfortable to talk to him which gave his reputation a great boost.

College on the Mind

The University of Iowa is one of the schools that I’ve been considering for college. It seems to have a really good Psychology department which makes it a great choice.

The University of Phoenix Arizona is also a Great school that ive been looking at. Its known for it department in Psychology.

Ethics of Research

As a psychologist you must never knowingly conduct research that has the potential to immediate, harm, or upset the participants.
The participants are always voluntary and they can always stop when ever the feel or need to without being penalized.
Before the experiment all participants must be briefed on what to expect while research is in place.
Though as the researcher you have to inform the participants of what to expect you do not have to inform them of what you’re actually researching. Informing the participants of what the research subject is, could cause the participants to consciously make a change in the director study.
After the research has been finished the participants need to be briefed on the actually true nature of the study, then they are allowed to ask anything concerning them about the experiment.
All information taken from the experiments is strictly confidential and it’s up to you to keep it that way.
There is a ethical board committee called the institutional review board (IRBs) that reviews research gathered from several experiments. They look them over and decide whether the experiment has ethical problems and they either make suggestions or withhold approval on them.
FACT: In the last few years psychological research done with laboratory animals that is harmful to them has steadily declined. There has also been a large effort to keeping absolute minimal pain involved with the research and to make it so they get they research and the animal doesn’t have to be harmed any further.
Along with any animal research all laboratory animals must be well maintain with food, water, and a comfortable environment that doesn’t put any stress on the animal.
HERE is a Controversial video on the ethics of animal testing.

Types of Psychologist

There are many types of Psychologist, many Psychologist major in different areas of psychology and neuroscience some mixing them and other stay strictly to one subject.
The most common types of psychologists are Clinical, Counseling, and Cognitive.

Clinical Psychologists- Study and treat mental and behavior disorders usually they work with people that have specific disorders and a large part of their work deals with Psychotherapy and psychological testing.
Counseling Psychologists- Work with people that are having marriage problems or other problems with other aspects of their lives.
Cognitive Psychologists- commonly work with understanding basic mental processes.

The type of psychology that i want to major in is counseling because I've always been interested in having a more interpersonal relationship with people mostly because I want to help people and in the end be their problem solver.

The type of psychology that I think is most interesting is Experimental psychology it focuses on basic processes of human interaction and biology and often involves studies on animals and people. In this VIDEO you'll see a Change Blindness Experiment.
My thoughts about the video i thought the video was extremely interesting. I actually thought it was funny that the test subjects were not aware that it wasn't the same man handing them pamphlets.

The Everything Psychology Book

I’ve started to read The Everything Psychology Book by Lynda L. Warwick, PhD., and Lesley Bolton in read the first few pages the books already captured me. The book to me means getting a better knowledge of psychology and preparing me for my future endeavors.
What I’ve already learned from the book is that psychology was once a completely different science. It used to be that psychologist, such as the well know Sigmond Freud had theories as to how people and animals ran psychologically, this theory was that humans and animals run by either fulfilling their satisfaction or by avoid dissatisfaction. B.F Skinner also a well know psychologist Stated during an experiment, “ Any behavior follow by a satisfying state of affairs tends to be repeated, and any behavior that is followed by an unsatisfying or unpleasant state of affairs tends to not be repeated.” This is what they believed and they believed humans and animals were basically just selfish.

Why Psychology?

I want to be a psychologist because I am interested in the processes of the brain and how the mind works. I want to know how and why certain things affect people differently. I’ve always wanted a job were I could help and interact with people. Being a psychologist would fulfill both of these aspirations for me and the thought of being a psychologist excites me. I also have always wanted to have my own business and being a psychologist I would want to have my own practice instead of joining a practice for example like at a hospital. I probably would do both but have my own practice be my main priority career wise.

Terms that are Important to Me

Agoraphobia- The fear of being away from a safe place, such as your home.

Amnesia- Loss of memory, whether partially or completely.

Behavior Therapy- A form of therapy in which conditioning techniques are applied to change or eliminate a problematic behavior.

Client-centered therapy- A humanistic therapy approach in which the client is the focus of therapy sessions.

Electroencephalograph- A device used to measure brain waves.

Psychology- The science dealing with the mind and mental processes, especially in relation to human and animal behavior

Psychotherapy- The treatment of a behavior disorder, mental illness, or any other condition by psychological means. Psychotherapy may utilize insight, persuasion, suggestion, reassurance, and instruction so that patients may see themselves and their problems more realistically and have the desire to cope effectively with them.

Psychological Testing- Are written, visual, or verbal evaluations administered to assess the cognitive and emotional functioning of children and adults.