The Dutch Hunger Winter

Dutch Hunger Winter lasted from November 1944. It was time period of World War II when North Neatherlands was under the German blockade and expiriencing very harsh winter at the same time. Germans took control of the food and sent it to Germany and thus the Dutch people were suffering from hunger. They nutrition intake was reduced to 30% of the normal nutrient intake.

People, specifically the infants that survived the Hunger Winter, all experienced malnutrition at the same time. Considering that and the perfect historical records from that time make them excellent test subjects. Scientists then looked and the grown adults that were born/ conceived during this awful time period. Another study showed the schyzophrenia is very common. It was found that genetics plays major role if this ilness will develop or no. When two identical twins are born and one of them has schyzophrenia, the other wtin has a 50% chance of having it, too.
It was found that babies that were conceived at the beginning of this time period were born smaller while babies conceived at the end of this period were born normal size. The ones that were born small stayed small throughout their whole life even though the malnutrition period already ended.
Also those people whose mothers were malnourished early in pregnancy had higher rates of obesity and other health problems including mental health, specifically shyzophrenia. Schyzophrenia is an ilness currenly affects about 50 million people worldwide. It causes hallucinations, delusions adn difficulties to mentally focus. Since people are not able to distinguish between reality and "the other world" it is dangerous, especially if these peiple are dangerous, which isn't very common. However, it can be treated. People with schizophrenia have 50 as much chance to commin suicide than other individuals.
Epigenetics is when DNA isn't the only factor i what is happening. Based on the Dutch Hunger Winter it can be observed that most of the affected people could have been born healthy. Yet the severe famine caused them to have health defects. In other words, epigenetics describes the effect of environment on us; a nature vs nurture effect.

Sources
http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/142195/beyond-dna-epigenetics

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/65/a5865465.shtml

Understanding and Applying the Theory of Evolution

1. Explain the theory of evolution.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection requires three conditions. The first, variation, is the difference in genes of members in the same species. For example, some finches had big beeks and some small ones. The next condition is selection, which consists of survival of the members of the species depending on their genetical differences, for example, finches with biger beaks can crush nuts with hard shell while the finches with small beaks can't. Therefore the bigger-beaked birds will survive in places where the only food are nuts. The third aspect of evolution is retention of the "chosen members" that were able to adapt to the surrounding. Universally said, evolution is the survival od the fittest.

2. Explain the“nature vs nurture” debate.

The nature vs nature debate is concenpt of struggle between heridity and environment and which of these two influences an individual more. Genes in DNA are the foundation of traits, yet without organism they are useless. For example, one may be born with genes for better running, yet without good nutrition provided by the environment those genes will neve be developed in traits. Genes develop the right traits only in the right environment. Genes themselves are the genetic code, also called genotype, that is part of the body, yet not all of it is expressed. The genes that are actually expressed as traits are called phenotypes.

3. What is wrong with the concept of “nature vs. nurture”?
Both, heredity and environment may have an equal effect on the development

4. What is meant by“social Darwinism”?

When the idea of evolution spread through the Victorian society, some peple like Herbert Spencer thought that people who are at the top of the society are more "fit". It was spencer who came up with the term "survival of the fittest". Some people then used this as an excuse to exploit of others.

5. Explain eugenics.

People realized that some individuals are more capable than others. They came up with an idea that if only the most capable were able to reproduce, they could create superior human race, just like people breed dogs and roses. This idea of breeding superior human race is called eugenetics.

6. What is the problem with the concept of eugenics?

Eugenetics is based on misunderstanding of the theory of evolution. It assumes that genes of some individuals are more superior compared to the other individuals. While this may seem true, with every sexual reproduction these genes switch around and new combinations with new traits are expressed. This fake superiority makes some of the individuals hink that they have more right to reproduce than others or even prevent them from reproducing.

7. What does the term “fitness” mean in relation to evolution?

Biological fitness in Darwin's term means an allele of a gene that makes its carrier more sucessful than other alelles of that gene. This carrier is morel likely to live sucessful life and produce more helathy offsprings. An example is an allele that has a resistance to some sort of deadly disease.

8. What is meant by“genetic determination”?

Belief that genes and the environment determine physical and mental development.

9. What is“fixation”?

Fixation is a new "froezn"trait. When a gene becomes ccommon in population due to genetic drift or natural selection, the population becomse comitted to it can be changed only due to mutation.

10. What is“canalization”?

It is a way of fixating genes where a trait is "controlled by family of genes for which there is only one allele in humans that all produce the same result" (page 32). In this case, the phenotypes are all the same.

11. What is“punctuated equilibrium”?

In African lakes, geologists found meters of snail skells thanks to whci they can recognize the differences of their adaptations throughout thousands of generations. However, not all generations differe and some traits are unchanged during many generations. Punctuated equilibrium is a time where natural selection exists, but it serves to maintain the existing form.

12. How does evolution relate to psychology?

Evolutionary psychology is another aspect of evolution. It applies biological changes to psychology and asks question such as "What are the bases of expirience, behavior, mind, and memory, of development and social interaction? Where do they come fom, and what are they for?" (page 3). They same way our bodies and the phycical structures were adapted, the same way was our mind.

Theo13. Examine one evolutionary explanation of behavior. Theorizing aAout Violen Crime (page 65)
It was observed that males vary in the tendencies to take care of their children. There are the males who are willing to commit to parenthood and take care of their children, also called dads. Then there are males who do not go beyond donating their sperm, these are called cads.
Females are due to sexual selection theory more attracted to dads, who are more likely to take care of their offsprings, which highers their chance of rerpoduction. Evn though their chances to pass on their genes are lowere, cads also have opportunity to repsoduce. They can promise loyalty and then leave after the female is impregnated. They can intimidate rival males, exaggarate their abilities as good providers by stealing from others. Or they can foce someone to have sex with them when all the other "nice" methods fail. They question is whether their behavior is genetically programmed. One of the answers may be that there is a condition called psychopacy, that is more common in males and causes them to be more manipulative, agressive and violent.
In 2002 in the USA, 19 884 men were arrested for rape compared to 278 women for the same aasault (page 64).






Source for questions 1-12:

http://www.simplypsychology.org/evolution%20%26%20psychology.pdf

Source for question 13:

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/26264_4sc.pdf

Prominent Psychologists

Name: A. H. Maslow
Born: April 1, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York
Died: June 8, 1970 in Menio Park, California
Education: From New York City College he transfered to Cornell, and then transfered back to City College. After graduating he went to graduate school at Wiskonsin College to study psuchology.
Subject of Study: At UW he was past of training as experimental-behaviorist.
Field of Professional Study: Humanistic psychology
Studies and Discoveries:

 Qualitios of Self-Actulizing People:
 Truth: honest, reality, beauty, pure, clean and unadulterated completeness

Goodness: rightness, desirability, uprightness, benevolence, honesty

Beauty: rightness, form, aliveness, simplicity, richness, wholeness, perfection, completion,

Wholeness: unity, integration, tendency to oneness, interconnectedness, simplicity, organization, structure, order, not dissociated, synergy

Dichotomy-transcendence: acceptance, resolution, integration, polarities, opposites, contradictions

Aliveness: process, not-deadness, spontaneity, self-regulation, full-functioning

Unique: idiosyncrasy, individuality, non comparability, novelty

Perfection: nothing superfluous, nothing lacking, everything in its right place, just-rightness, suitability, justice

Necessity: inevitability: it must be just that way, not changed in any slightest way

Completion: ending, justice, fulfillment

Justice: fairness, suitability, disinterestedness, non partiality,

Order: lawfulness, rightness, perfectly arranged

Simplicity: nakedness, abstract, essential skeletal, bluntness

Richness: differentiation, complexity, intricacy, totality

Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving, or difficulty

Playfulness: fun, joy, amusement

Self-sufficiency: autonomy, independence, self-determining.

Dynamics of self-actualization
People are looking for healthy way of actlyzing themselves rather than selfish sociopathic behavior. People he considered self- actulized had strong connections and meaningful relationships. People whom he observed as self- actualyzed were for example Albert Einstein and Henry David Thoreau.

Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's fundamental and most popular study.

Peak expiriences

Inbetween the needs of fulfillment, self-actulyzed people expirience many peak expiriences. These are moments of genuine happyness, understanding, acceptance and understanding of reality that make you feel more alive, more part of the world.



Metamotivation
It's a drive that makes people go beyon the basic needs (stated by Hierarchy of Needs) and reach their full potential.

B- Values
Manner of thought during peak expiriences:

Wholeness (unity; integration; tendency to one-ness; interconnectedness; simplicity; organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order);

Perfection (necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness");

Completion (ending; finality; justice; "it's finished"; fulfillment; finis and telos; destiny; fate);

Justice (fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; "oughtness");

Aliveness (process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning);

Richness (differentiation, complexity; intricacy);

Simplicity (honesty; nakedness; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure);

Beauty (rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; honesty);

Goodness (rightness; desirability; oughtness; justice; benevolence; honesty);

Uniqueness (idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty);

Effortlessness (ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning);

Playfulness (fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness);

Truth (honesty; reality; nakedness; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; essentiality).

Self-sufficiency (autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its own laws).

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow


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Name: Carl G. Jung
Born: on july 26th, 1875 in Kessewil, Switzerland
Died: on June 6th, 1961 in Küssnacht, Switzerland
Education: Studiead at University of Basel.
Subject of study: Jung became a medical student, however, after a year of study he became intrigued by paraprsychology.
Field of Professional Study: Analitycal Psychology
Studies and Discoveries:

Collective Unconsciousness
Theory thats states that all mankind shares the same patterns of instincts, memories and instincs inherited from ancestors. These contain aspects such as religion, sciences and morality and are part of our unconscious mind.

 Archeotypes
 Related to collective unconsciousness, archeotypes are the universally inherited ideas and thought patterns individually present in each person.

Dream Interpretations
Jung believed that dreams are way of communicating with the unconscious mind and therefore reveal something about yoursels. Dreams are main part of personal growth. The interpretation of dreams is confidently placed on the dreamer since he has all necesarry tools needed to "unlock it", which can be achieved simply by discussing these dreams and making connections between what is going on in one's life and his relationships with others.

Alchemy
Alchemysts were people who tried to transform lead into gold. In Carl Jung's theory, alchemy represents transformation. When one translates his dreams, he follows aa process of individuation during which he eliminates the negative characteristic of his personality. This includes understanding mistakes, stop repeating them and thus acquiring consciousness (aka growing up).

Synchronicity
Synchronicity labels a coincidental events that are unrelated yet happened in a meaningful manner. This states that as events can be grouped by cause, they can be also related by meaning. However, if these evnts are connected by cause, thhis theory is negated and the events labeled as "incoincidential".

Sources: http://www.nndb.com/people/910/000031817/
                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung
                http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/carljung.html
                http://www.carl-jung.net/collective_unconscious.html
                http://www.thefreedictionary.com/collective+unconscious
                http://www.quora.com/What-is-alchemy-according-to-Carl-Jung
                http://dark-side-of-the-rainbow.com/synchronicity.html

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Name: Alfred W. Adler                                                 
Born: on February 7th, 1870 in Rudolfsheim near Vienna, Austria- Hungary
Died: on May 28th, 1937 in Aberdeen, Scotland
Education: Studied at University of Vienna.
Subject of Study: Studiet to be a physician. He was very interested in psychology, sociology and philosophy, later in neurology and psychiatry.
Field of Professional Study: Individual psychology
Studies and Discoveries:


Inferiority Complex
According to Alder's theory, every child goest through period of inferiority because he is surrounded by stronger, more capable adults. This leads to the strive for power and self actualization. The people who never overcome these feelings then develop inferioritz complex/

Private Intelligence
When a person doesn\t overcome certain feelings as a child, he tends to acquire private intelligence. By that is meant a framework withink his own limits that is intellingent in his own terms, but many times socially unacceptable. For example a robber steals mney, he says that he did it  because he could\t get money any other way. \since he wasn\t able to get money any other social way as the other people, in his terms this is the intelligent way of getting them.

Holism
A belief that all the natural systems {physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental) work together and can\t be understood individually. Also their properties hsould be viewed as wholes and not as collections of parts.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler
                http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesal/p/alfred-adler.htm 


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Name :Ivan Pavlov
Born: on September 25th, 1849 in Ryazan, Russia
Died: on February 27th, 1936 in Leningrad, Soviet Union
Education: Pavlov started at Theological Seminary of Ryazan where he studied to become a priest, however, then he got admitted to the University of St. Petersburg. He also entered the Military Medical Academy.
Subject of Study: In St. Petersburg he studied animal physiology, chemistry, organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry.
Field of Professional Study: Behaviorism
Studies and Discoveries:

Classical Conditioning
States that two stimuli assiciate to produce a new leaned response to a person or anme. When he ws studying digestion, he also discovered that whener assistants in lab coats entered the room, the dogs used for experiments started salivating. Those dogs were associating the people with food and therefore they started to salivate.

Sources:
 http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ni-Pe/Pavlov-Ivan.html#b#ixzz2CkOyOZLp 



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Name: Stanley Milgram
Born: on August 15, 1933 in New York City
Died: on December 20, 1984 in New York City
Education:  Bachelors degree acquired from Queens College in New York and PhD from Harvard.
Subject of Study: In New York Milgram studied political science and at Harvard he received Phd in social psychology.
Field of Professional Study: social psycholgy
Studies and Discoveries:

Obedience to authority figures

An experiment that Milgram set up consisted of 1 examinator, actor and the test subject. The test subject T was considered a teacher that was supposed to give painful electroshocks to the actor, learner L every time he answers incorrectly to a question and increase the woltage after each time. If the test subject T wanted to stop the experiment, the examinator would respond each time:
1st time: Please continue.
2nd time: The experiment requires that you continue.
3rd time: It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4th time:You have no other choice, you must go on.

The experiment was stopped after the test subject wanted to discontinue after 4th time or after the test subject shocked the actor 3 times of the highest possible voltage. The electroshocks were faked but the study showed, that people go beyond their moral beliefs if pressured by authority.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_Experiment

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Name: Paul Ekman
Born: February 15, 1934 in Washinghton D.C.
Died: not yet
Education: University of Chicago (undergraduate enrollment),New York University (bachelors degree), Adelphi University (PhD)
Subjectc of Study: Clinical psychology (PhD)
Field of Professional Study: Behavioral Science
Studies and Discoveries:

Measuring Nonverbal Communication
In this study Ejkman attempted to find a method to measure non-verbal communication. At first he focused mainly on facial expressions and the muscle movement in them. Later on he also focused on body language and tried to conclude his theory with an infamous cross-cultural studies (comparing data from beavior of multiple cultures).

Emotions as Universal Categories
This studies shows that there are 6 universal emotions; anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. These emotions are detectable in all cultures even though the may be expressed slightly differently in different circumstances (shows difference between cultures). In the 1990s he added more emotions that, however, cannot be detected from the movement of facial muscles: amusement, contempt, contentment, emberassment, excitement, guild, pride in achievement, relief, satisfaction, sensory pleasure and shame.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman
               http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cultural_studies
  

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Name: Sigmund Freud
Born: on May 6, 1856 in Freiberg in Mähren, Austrian Empire
Died: on September 23, 193 in London, England
Education: University of Vienna
Subject of Study: medicine
Field of Professional Study: Neurology, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy
Studies and Discoveries:

Conscious and Unconscious Mind
Freud stated that our mind consisted of the conscious and the uncoscious mind. The conscious mind included part of memory and also rational thing, in other words, everything that we could recall and withdraw at any moment. The uncoscious part were memories and feelings that we aren't aware of, which, however, exist and continue to affect our behavior and doings.

Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality
This theory stated that the human personality is a complex of the Id, Ego and Superego. Id is responsible for the needs and the pleasure drive. The Ego is dealing with reality and its job is to satisfy the Id in an acceptable manner. The Superego is the guidline for judgements in terms of "right" and "wrong".  


Life and Death Drives
Freud stated that human instincs fall either into the Life drive category or the Death drive category. Life instincs, also know as Eros, are the instincts to survive and continue life aka reproduction. This reffers to mainly sexual instincts but also includes avoidance of pain, thirst and hunger. The energy created by these psychosexual instincts is called libido.
The Death drive, Thanatos, proposes that the "goal of life is death". When a person expiriences something traumatic, such as war, he to subconsciously becomes to invite death. However, this impulse is fought by the Life drive. If the energy created by the Thantos is directed towards others it is expressed as agression and violence.

Psychosexual Development
Probably his most famous theory states that throughout the development, a person becomes fixated to different objects as a result of the libido, in other words they are porymorphously perverse. First stage is the oral stage, where child seeks pleasure from sucking on differen objects. Following is the anal stage (pleasure from passing the poop), then follows the phallic stage. In this stage, males become atracted to their mothers as sexual objects, this is called Oedipus Complex. The girls become fixated on their fathers, which is reffered to as the Electra complex, yet Freud believed that this type of complex was bisexual and therefore directed to both parents. This feeling is the unavoidable urge for incest that must be repressed. The latency stage is a more stable period where child, with the superego present, accepts that its longings for parents cannot be fulfilled and therefore this stage is the time for the improvement of self. Genital stage is a stage of sexual maturity that, however, may not be achieved if the phollical stage is not dealt with properly.

Sources: http://www.biography.com/people/sigmund-freud-9302400
              http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/a/instincts.htm


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Name: Erik Erikson
Born: on June 15th, 1902 in Frankfurt, Germany
Died: on May 12th, 1994 in Harwich, Massachusetts
Education: After finishing high school he only attended Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, without getting any degrees in college.
Subjects of Study: Psychoanalysis
Field of Professional Study: Developmental psychology, Psychoanalysis
Discoveries and Studies:

Stages of Psychosocial Development
This theory states that humans undergo through social development beginning in infancy through childhood, aduldhood to death.

Approximate Age[2]	Virtues	Psycho Social Crisis [3]	Significant Relationship[2]	Existential Question[2]	Examples[2]
0–2 years	Hopes	Basic Trust vs. Mistrust	Mother	Can I Trust the World?	Feeding, Abandonment
2–4 years	Will	Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt	Parents	Is It Okay To Be Me?	Toilet Training, Clothing Themselves
4–5 years	Purpose	Initiative vs. Guilt	Family	Is It Okay For Me To Do, Move and Act?	Exploring, Using Tools or Making Art
5–12 years	Competence	Industry vs. Inferiority	Neighbors, School	Can I Make It In The World Of People And Things?	School, Sports
13–19 years	Fidelity	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Peers, Role Model	Who Am I? What Can I Be?	Social Relationships
20–24 years	Love	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Friends, Partners	Can I Love?	Romantic Relationships
25–64 years	Care	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Household, Workmates	Can I Make My Life Count?	Work, Parenthood
65-death	Wisdom	Ego Integrity vs. Despair	Mankind, My Kind	Is It Okay To Have Been Me?	Reflection on Life

Identity Crisis
During adolscence period an individual forms a self-image since they expirience physical growth and sexual maturation and find importance of what others think and what are our own opinions. In person doesn't solve this problem, they end up having identity crisis.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson
              http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_erikson.htm


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Name:Jean Paiget
Born: on 9 August 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland
Died: on 16 September 1980 in Geneva, Switzerland
Education: University of Neuchâtel, University of Zurich
Subjects of Study: natural history and phylosophy,
Field of Professional Study: Psychoanalysis
Discoveries and Studies:

Theory of Cognityve Development
This theory states that children build an understanding of world around them and then they expirience the differences/ simmilarities between what they already know and what they discover.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_cognitive_development








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Name: Anna Freud
Born: on December 3rd, 1895in Vienna, Austria
Died: on October 9th 1982 in London, England
Education: Cottage Lyceum in Vienna
Subjects of Study: taught psychoanalysis from father (Sigmund Freud) and languages such as Hebrew, German, Italian, French and English
Field of Professional Study: Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Child Psychology
Studies and Discoveries:

Psychoanalytic Child Psychology

Anna was a teacher and that gave her the chance to observe children. She realized, that her analysis of children differ from Sigmund Freud's analysis of adults. Therefore the belief that children are smaller versions of adults was refueded and thus she created a new branch of psychology, the Child Psychology.


Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_psychology
               http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/annafreud.html

Flashbulb Memory

What is flashbulb memory?

Flashbulb memory is very vivid and real snapshot of emotionally significant moment, such as the 9/11. Because these events are often talked about, the schema for this memory is changed. Flashbulb memory's time lasting is long but it slowly fades away. Significant is the emotional impact on brain when it happens and therefore people are able to recall many, normally insignificant, detail such as what were they wearing or who they were with at that moment.

FBM Studies

Brown and Kulik (1977)

Brown and Kulik were asking people 80 people about shocking memorable days, such as death of princess Diana, assassination of J.F. Kennedy and Malcolm X.The responses of 40 African Americans and 40 white people were analyzed and compared to non-consequential memories. During the memorable events people were able to recall details such as when, how and where they heard the shocking news, along with what they were wearing and who they were with.This study showed that flashbulb memories happen when something shocking and consequential occurs.








Neisser and Harsh (1992)

106 people were questioned about the Challenger space shuttle tragedy (1966) the next day after the event. Example questions are  how they heard the news and what they were wearing. These same questions were asked the same people 32 months later and were compared to the earlier results. The participants were highly confident that they still remembered everything as the last time they answered these questions. However, out of 220 original answers, in average. 150 were completely or partially wrong. This shows that FBM fade away.   





Talarico and Rubin (2003)

Talarico and Rubin experiment was done after the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists on September 1st, 2001. The participants involved were asked 1, 7, 42 and 224 days after this event about the details of this tragedy and about their routinely action they were taking while it occurred. The participants were confident in their memory about the tragedy itself and not so sure about their usual activities' details, such as what they were wearing and who they were with at the moment. However, the more time passed, the more the flashbulb memories begun to fade. This study proved that flashbulb memories and normal memories are essentially the same, yet people are more confident in the flashbulb memories.

Determinants

According to studies, the principles of flashbulb memories are events that are very surprising, have highly consequential and are very emotional.

Emotion and FBM

It was debated for a long time whether flashbulb memory are special kind of memories or if they are like any other memories concerning reliability. Emotion plays a great role in flashbulb memory. Another sub-factor of emotion is also relevance of information, for example many people remembered the death of social worker, Medgar Evers, than the Kennedy assassination. So far it seems that amygdala that is responsible for emotions and triggers them faster than our conscious awareness. The shock that we go through when something consequential happens imprints into amygdala because of our emotional shock. 

Sources:

• http://www.markedbyteachers.com/university-degree/biological-sciences/brown-and-kulik-and-flashbulb-memories.html

• http://dianabenovapsych.blogspot.sk/2011/12/flashbulb-memory-brown-kulik-1977.html
• http://as-psychology.pbworks.com/w/page/9174277/KeyStudyNeisser

PTSD Treatments

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can happen to anyone at any point in their life. It consists of fresh memoties and emotions that don't fade away after a traumatic expirience; like war, sudden death of loved one, sexual assault or neglected childhood. PTSD usually shows its symptoms within 3 months from the traumatic event but in rare cases it may appear later. Symptoms vary in different people but most common are nightmares, flashbacks, outbursts of anger, emotial numbness and detachment from others and avoiding remainders of trauma (eg. people, places, sounds). Besides of expiriencing these symptoms that change their lives, people with PTSD are often not taken seriously, and therefore are pushed as far as "self-treatment" with drugs, alcohol and suicide.

Types of Treatments

Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy: This therapy involves exposing the traumatic thoughts by talking about the event, feelings and thoughts and things that remind you of it. Thoughts that are irrational are then replaced to create a "balance".

Family therapy: This type of therapy consists of you and your family where problems related to the incident are discussed, since PTSD also effects relationship.

Medication: Medication is prescribed to some people with PTSD to reduce their symptoms such as depression and anexiety. Medication makes these symptoms more mild but it doesn't treat PTSD.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing):  Left to right eye movement, or other rhytmic activities such as hand taps are believed to "unfreeze" the part of brain responsible for memory that maight have been in schock (and therefore no remembering) during the trauma. 

.......................................................................................................................................................................

Treatment doesn't magically heal PTSD, since emotions cannot be "healed" but only dealt with. The help comes in form of confronting original thoughts and feelings as during the trauma. These repressed emotions are a way to reduce the symptoms and help restore self control. During the PTSD treatment you will explore the thoughts and feelings about the trauma, try to abandon guilt and mistrust, control and accept the memories and deal with problems caused by PTSD in relationships.


SOURCE: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/post_traumatic_stress_disorder_symptoms_treatment.htm

Autism and Preceiving Emotion

Autism has no known causes and is believed to be hereditary, more common in the male population. As Dr. Oz said "..It robs child of its emotional foundation" because for kids with Autism it is difficult and sometimes impossible to recognize different emotions. This makes it hard for individuals to express their needs and understand unsaid clues, in many cases leaving them socially excluded. Scientists say that the inability to recognize body language and facial expressions is to be blamed on part of brain that is responsible for visual perception. Autism symptoms differ in each individual yet the most common are: lack of eye contact, advanced knowledge in one area, preferring to be alone, hates to be touched, obsession, lack of emotions and not responding to other people's emotions.
People with Autism are many times labeled as "dumb" or "stupid". THIS IS WRONG. These people are different, and just because they don't fit with the general standards does not make them less valuable.
                

Memory- Are Gender and Culture Important?

Memory is stored in schemas, the cognitive frameworks, no matter who you are. Yet each gender posesses certain "advantages" and people from different cultures have their first memories at various times.

Gender

Studies show that women are more evolved in terms of episodic memory. Emisodic memory is a
long-term memory based on individual expiriences. These verbal tasks that favor women include remembering words, pictures, everyday events, objects, and remembering faces, especially of females. When a study was performed, women were given faces of hairless and make-upless men and women. When shown again, participants remembered the faces that were mostly of the women. Also women perform better in almost no verbal processing such as recognizing smells.

At the same time, however, men are not as disadvantaged as it may seem. When it comes to visuospatial precessing, which is remembering symbolic and non-linguistic information, the male population take the lead. So in case you get lost in a forrest with your boyfriend (assuming you are a female), the man has better chance of finding way out, so you better stick with him. On the other hand, there are cases when women remeber the location of car keys because it requires both, verbal and visuospatial processing.


Culture

Studies have shown that people from different cultures can recall their first memory at different ages. People from a Pacific island may recall a memory of a funeral of a family member as early as 2.5 years old. While Americans remember their first memory in average obout the age of 3- 3.5, Korean adult will remember an expirience from when he was 4 year old. A study proved that people who focus on family history (eg. tribal legends) and talk about it more to their children, are more likely to have early memories, in comparison to Asian population who values individuality.

Also recent evidence from the University of Michigan revealed that Americans focuse more on objects and categories, while people from Asia and Middle East focuse more on contextual details, simillarities and function. An experiment has been done where Americans and people from Turkey were given paired words. While Westerners paired a squirl with a racoon, because they are both animals, Easterners tend to pair squirl with a nut. At the same time, Angela Gutches, the head of the Aging, Culture and Cognition Laboratory, stated that if you depend on using categories you may make some errors. For example if you remember context of paper - red, you may end up switching paper - blue, in case the color blue was on the list of words.

 

 

 

Alzheimer's disease: The Forgetting

Why is Alzhaimer's more common now than it was in the past?

Nowdays, Alzhaimer's affects the baby booom generation. In other words, the old people. Alzhaimer's shows its noticable symptoms in people around the age of 65. And since the baby boomers are in this age category, Alzheimer's which was once a personal tragedy became an epidemic.


How is Alzheimer's an economic issue?

Since the baby boomers are old now, they are retiring. This influences economy because large part of population is retiring and/or activating health plan, which takes money away from the government.
Economic issues are also triggered by the medical expenses and people who have to quit their job to take care of their loved ones.


How was Alzheimer's discovered?

Alzheimer's was discovered by Dr. Alzheimer who was treating a patient with unknown mental disease. His patient, Auguste D., was brought to his asylum in 1901. During then next couple of years she displayed symptoms of paranoia, fortgetfulness and confusion. One time she was asked to writer her name, however, she wrote only the first part of it. After the repetition, she was still unable to finish writting her whole name. After her death, Dr. Alzheimer examined parts of her brain and discovered that it was shrunk and colorless. This was the first physical proof for a mental ilness.


How does Alzheimer's rob you of your identity?

When you have Alzheimer's, your first symptoms will be forgetfulness; like where you left your keys. Personaly changes occur and you become irritated, scared and paranoid. Later on you can't recall some major things like eating, not being able to keep up with conversation and/or forgetting your loved ones followed by not knowing who you are. Not remembering your happiest and saddest memories and your loved ones, loosing connections with them and your own negative view on world robbs you of who you once were.


Process of Alzheimer's:

Early stage: Alzheimer's kills off the learning and memory part of the brein. Later on it moves into  the thinking and planning part of brain.

Mild stage: Personality changes settle in such as paranoia, fear, and unprovoced anger.

Moderate stage: Loosing most of one's memory. An individual is not able to recall his/ her own family members and friends.

Severe: Patient is not able to care of himself/herself. Importnat part of his brain that are, for example, responsible for moving, affected by the disease. In the final stage the patient eventually dies when a part of his/her brain that's crucual for survival dies, such as breathing.

Alshaimer's is believed to be a genetical disorder that differs in each individual. Scientists suscpects that it's caused by tangled parts between neurons. This swirls, which is the shape that the disease affects place, slowly consumes the whole brain. So far, this disease is not curable, but scientists are working hard to discover a medicine that would at least slow down the symptoms and pusth them from age of 65 to 75.