Rosenhan was not the first investigating life in mental institutions. In the late 1800s, the female journalist Nellie Bly faked mental illness and was admitted to a mental hospital (this is an example of a covert participant observation). She faked mental insanity (before she did she practiced making deranged expressions in front of the mirror) at a boarding house, was taken to court where she pretended to have amnesia, and was sentenced to spent 10 days in a mental asylum. Several doctors judged her to be insane. In the asylum she exposed the brutal treatment of patients (they were showered with cold water, beaten, and tied with ropes) and misdiagnosis (at the asylum there were foreigners who were sane but had been diagnosed with insanity simply because they could not speak English and also a completely sane woman who had been taken there because her husband believed her to be unfaithful.
If you are interested in learning more about Nellie Bly, here is a website about her: http://www.nellieblyonline.com/ And here is a link to her book about her experiences in a mental asylum: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bly/madhouse/madhouse.html There are also other examples of faking insanity. A few years back a Swedish art student, Anna Odell, did an art project on insanity. She videotaped herself standing quietly by a bridge without saying anything. It looked like she was about to commit suicide, but many people passed by without doing anything (bystander effect) Finally someone called the police and she was forced into mental care (she had a hidden microphone to record what happened in the institution) Although she became quite famous in Sweden, she was fined in court, as I remember it. Here is a video showing part of her art video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUtF_gBt2Zg
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This is a clip of a former male model who later suffered from anorexia and died at the age of 38:
Anorexic male model This is a good website where you can find information about new social science research:
http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/social.php For instance, articles from yesterday show new research on the relationship between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer's disease, that memory is improved if we hold items in our hand (I suppose it is because we then are using more senses or because memory can be coded in relation to proprioception of our body), that caffeine consumption decreases risk for depression in women, that our clothes give clues of our race because of stereotyping (white men dressed as cleaners were taken for black and black people dressed as businessmen were taken for white. I just read an article about the increasing rates of suicide attempts in Sweden (which could relate to prevalence of disorders in different cultures). The rate of suicide attempts in Sweden have risen the last 20 years, especially amongst the young. Young women have shown the largest increase in suicide attempts; today there are twice as many suicide attempts committed by women as 20 years ago. The data suggests that the mental health of young people in Sweden is deteriorating. One of the explanation for this could be that there has been cuts in public health spending. In addition, many of the treatments for mental illness are not effective. Of those at risk for suicide taking antidepressant medicine, only 50-70 % respond positively to the medication.
Did you know that if you exercise your muscles, they will produce a hormone (IL-6) that acts anti-inflammatory. Indirectly, therefore, too little exercise can lead to dementia and depression. It works in the following way. If too little IL-6 is produced, the body tissue can become inflamed. Because of the inflamed body tissue, more TNF-alpha is produced to counter the inflammation. However, because of an increased concentration of TNF-alpha in the blood, the body becomes less sensitive to insuline. This insuline resistance can lead to an over-production of insuline, which leads to less production of the substance BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor). BDNF is very important for brain plasticity and neuronal growth. Besides IL-6, the muscles are also producing BDNF. So it seems that the enlightenment philosophers were right, a healthy mind is in a healthy body. The classical philosophers were aware of this as well.
This is an article that I read in an old edition of The scientific American:
Soldier´s stress: What doctors get wrong about PTSD Apparently there is a possible over-diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder. One of the problems with the diagnosis is that a condition of it is an experience of a traumatic event. However, patients with some disorders that have not experienced a traumatic event (such as some anxiety and mood disorders) show almost similar physiological activity. Another problem is that those who are functioning well after their "traumatic" experience, can be diagnosed with the disorder, just because they are dreaming about the event. It is however believed that the dreaming of the event is a natural and healthy way for the brain to integrate the trauma into the normal experience. A third problem with the disorder is that the flashbacks and memories of the trauma might not be accurate memories at all. This is in line with the view on memory to be reconstructive by nature (for example Loftus and Palmer). In fact, most research show that humans are very resilient and can generally cope well with traumatic experiences. Recent research has suggested the same about soldiers returning from the great wars. Only a small fraction of the returning solders had PTSD symptoms, and this could have been because they were more sensitive by their nature or because they have had extreme experiences. This is an interesting article that I read in Scientific American:
The brain´s dark energy It is about research that shows that the brain is constantly active, especially in a system that is called the brain´s default mode network (DMN). It is called DMN because it is the network that is always active, no matter what state of consciousness you are in. It is believed that this network synchronizes all other parts of the brain by sending timing information. This ensures the brain to react in unison to a stimuli (for instance, perceiving the color a stimuli at the same time as seeing the spatial dimensions of it). The DMN can be found in several regions of the brain, such as the temporal cortex, the prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex. Without DMN, it is believed that the electrical signaling in the brain would be chaotic. The electrical signaling of the different areas of the brain is believed to be hierarchically organized. At the highest level is the DMN, which acts as the symphony conductor over the other parts of the brain. On the next organizational level are the slow cortical potentials (SCP), which are groups of neurons that fire every 10 seconds. SCP:s are synchronized with the electrical oscillations of DMN, and coordinates brain activity in specific brain regions. Without DMN and SCP:s the brain activity will turn chaotic (maybe a bit like Bangkok traffic) and it is believed that many brain disorders, such as Alzheimer´s disease, depression and schizophrenia have dysfunctional DMN activity. Dr Stiles sent me this article. It is about the hypothesis that autistic traits might have had an evolutionary advantage during stone age.
The autism advantage - the solitary forager hypothesis This is of course only a hypothesis, which is very difficult to ever prove scientifically. Here is yet another example of a culture bound syndrome. During the period of the Weimar republic in Germany in the 1920s, there existed a mental disorder called "Zero stroke". The primary symptom of the disorder was a desire to write an endless row of zeros. It was thought to have been caused by the hyperinflation in Germany, when money lost its' value so quickly so that you had to pay very large digit figures of D-mark even for the cheapest things. Cashiers, bookkeepers and bankers were the ones that were most prone for the Zero stroke.
Maybe you will find this article interesting. It relates to the validity and reliability of diagnosis of disorders. There is a possibility that psychopaths are over-diagnosed.
How to spot a psychopath |
AuthorThis is my class blog for IB Psychology. Here I will publish reflections on psychology, reviews of psychology books, recommended links, lecture notes, and information on psychology topics that are not covered by the syllabus. You are free to add comments or ask me questions. Archives
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