Older people are worse at coping with stress than younger people
Apr18
Mar25
Music Therapy
This week im going to talk about music, which is used relax/excite/inspire people.
Now thanks to the cognitive exam, ill give you a brief summary of the actual process when processing music. Music is played, it enters through the pinna (the ears outer folds) then the auditory canal resulting in vibrating the tympanic membrane (ear drum). This vibration transmits through the ossicles (the ears little bones) to vibrate against the oval window. The vibration here vibrates the liquid in the cochlea, this is where sound energy is transformed into neural energy. The neural energy travels on the auditory nerve to the cochlear nucleus, going through the superior olivary nucleus, inferior colliculus, medial geniculate nucleus (the brainstem, the midbrain, then the thalamus). Finally reaching the primary auditory cortex.
Im going to talk about music being used as a therapy and im going to argue its benefits as I sat in on a few weeks of music therapy at an additional needs school. The expression “music therapy” describes the use of any of a number of different techniques utilizing music to achieve therapeutic goals. These goals can range from alleviation of depressive symptoms to improving motor coordination or just a positive outlet for those who cant express themselves verbally.
The 20th century profession formally began after World War I and World War II when community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, went to Veterans hospitals around the country to play for the thousands of veterans suffering both physical and emotional trauma from the wars. The patients’ notable physical and emotional responses to music led the doctors and nurses to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals. It was soon evident that the hospital musicians needed some prior training before entering the facility and so the demand grew for a college curriculum.
One supporting study for the benefits of music therapy can be found in the study by Maru E. Barrera et al into the effects of interactive music therapy on hospitalized children with cancer.
http://www.musictherapyservices.org/pdf/Barrera_2002_PO.pdf
Mar14
Comments
Mar10
Should children with autism be mainstreamed?
Firstly autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning everyone has different severities of this developmental disability. Some may be able to live rather well independently with little support, but some rely heavily on support for day to day functioning.
This is an interesting case study of two identical twins with different severities of autism which might give you a better idea of what having autism entails:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/miller-text
One characteristic that all people with autism seem to share is the lack of ability in communicating. Some may feel unable to understand other peoples emotions/body language. People with autism also tend to say exactly what they mean (no knowledge of politeness/social norms) which could lead to offence. This is what leads me to my argument of children that children with autism shouldn’t be included in mainstream schools all day everyday. My reasoning behind this is that they’re at high risk of bullying as they may cause offence and people with autism also struggle to understand sarcasm/phrases. There has been criticisms of teachers struggling to teach mainstream pupils already either due to not enough training/resources so I feel they’d be unable to cater to a child/children with autism.
Support for this argument can be found at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12266117#blq-nav
Even if the children were to have a support worker, the teacher may fail to give them enough attention as they feel the support worker is taking care of them. Don’t get me wrong, I am really against singling out people with autism/any additional needs, they’re not to be classed into another group. But they do need more support to achieve the same results mainstream pupils reach and to lead a happy life free from bias. I recently worked in a school for children with additional needs, most of their classes were based in another building next to a mainstream school. This meant that the children were able to mix in some of the classes and at all break times. I believe this is the best step, for those with additional needs, they need extra support/sometimes a different school curriculum but they should be placed either in a classroom in the mainstream school or a building right next to them. The mainstream pupils should also be taught from the start about children with additional needs so they are taught they are no different to them, to encourage socialising. I like the TEACCH position by TEACCH staff, they have developed programs for autistic children for many years. I like their view that they look at the children individually to assess whether they should go to a mainstream school. They believe for a child to attend a mainstream school “ necessary support services and accommodations to the child’s handicap must be made within the regular education classrooms.” To conclude I believe children with HIGH levels of autism/other additional needs shouldn’t really be place in mainstream schools all day every day. But that they should be provided with a lot of support and have half their lessons in an additional needs school and half in a mainstream school. So they’re provided with the extra support and aren’t overwhelmed by too much social activity as some become incredibly nervous. People with autism are often incredibly able to excel with education but struggle with the social aspect of the classroom so this could be a good compromise.
Feb20
Second batch of comments
Feb15
Is there anything that can’t be measured by psychologists?
I really like this title as even though i love how psychologists have been able to explain pretty much anything, i also love how some things simply cant be explained like my need to make random noises and throw rice on the floor (which my housemates must love). A lot of emotions are simply unexplainable as my only boy housemate loves to remind me “girls dont even know how theyre feeling” and a lot of the time MEN AND WOMEN don’t. We may feel angry and have no reason to feel like this or we may hide our true feelings which therefore cant be measured. So my argument is that we can measure a lot of things but not subjective unexplainable feelings. But what we can do is use the process of operationalization where we give subjective concepts, constructs. For example the big five of personality from costa and mcrae has attempted to give constructs to different areas of a personality (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,agreeableness and neuroticism. A personality is a very varied thing and therefore this theory has been criticized as many argue it cant possibly explain all personalities.
To round things up, it would be great to be able to explain everything but also a bit boring and it really isnt possible to exactly measure every emotion and behaviour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~pe/hp602web/HP602VA14.htm
Feb10
Comments!
Feb3
Problems with classification
Diagnosis is based on the self-reported experiences of the person as well as abnormalities in behaviour reported by family members, friends or co-workers, followed by secondary signs observed by a psychiatrist, social worker, clinical psychologist or other clinician in a clinical assessment. There is a list of criteria that must be met for someone to be diagnosed, these depend on both the presence and duration of certain signs and symptoms, an initial assessment includes a comprehensive history and physical examination by a physician. Although there are no biological tests which confirm schizophrenia, tests are carried out to exclude medical illnesses which may rarely present with psychotic schizophrenia-like symptoms.
The most widely used criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia are the DSM-IV-TR, and the ICD-10. The DSM-IV criteria asks for symptoms to have been present for at least six months, deterioration of functioning and two of the symptoms noted must be shown. The current methods of diagnosing and then classifying mental disorders is difficult because the process largely depends on clinical impressions rather than pathology reports. The main data the psychiatrist has is the appearance and behaviour of the patient and the way he/she describes their thoughts.
Looking through a list of varying case studies and the clinical symptoms shown I wouldn’t categorise all of them as schizophrenic, but to my surprise they were all past studies of patients later diagnosed as schizophrenic. Through this activity a big limitation was revealed; diagnoses rely on the psychiatrist’s opinion which obviously varies from each psychiatrist, leading to low reliability. Supporting evidence can be found in Rosenhan’s famous study ‘Sane in insane places’. In which ‘sane’ people presented themselves to psychiatric hospitals in the US claiming they heard unfamiliar voices in their heads saying the words ‘empty’ ‘hollow’. They were all diagnosed as having schizophrenia and admitted. Throughout their stay, none of the staff recognised that they were actually normal. In a follow up study, Rosenhan warned hospitals of his intention to send out more pseudo patients. This resulted in an apparent 21% detection rate, although no pseudo patients actually presented themselves, so it wasn’t them being chosen. It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals” and also illustrated the dangers of depersonalization and labelling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviours rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities. This study showed odd behaviour was labelled as schizophrenic and these individuals would be admitted if their symptoms were known. This supports the labelling theory, as people labelled as schizophrenics would believe this professional opinion and may show symptoms of schizophrenia, retrospectively the diagnosis would then be regarded as correct. The wardens perceived the pseudo patients normal behaviour as psychotic due to the label. This shows diagnoses aren’t reliable; they were labelled due to behaviour which deviates from what society regards as ‘normal’. It agrees odd behaviour leads to being labelled ‘odd’ which then leads to labels of being ‘schizophrenic’ but it doesn’t necessarily agree that the label causes schizophrenia.
Psychotic symptoms that would be thought to be characteristics of schizophrenia can also be experienced by non schizophrenic people like regularly “hearing their name called out” as they’re going to sleep. These are called hypnagogic hallucinations, by definition these people do hallucinate, they hear their name called when it’s not called, but in the absence of additional symptoms they are not suffering from schizophrenia. This detracts from the reliability of the DSM criteria, other symptoms such as disorganized speech could also be eccentric behaviour, or a mood disorder not necessarily psychotic. There is a big blurring of boundaries between schizophrenia and other disorders. For example a case study of a 19 year old called Maria who had displayed symptoms such as “flat emotions…her lecturer was a demon” – there was a lack of psychotic symptoms, but rather symptoms which would come under the classification of a mood disorder, which questions the validity of diadnoses made. The reliability of diagnosis in szhiophrenia is further challenged by the finding that there is massive variation between countries. Copeland et al (1971) gave a description of a patient to 134 US psychiatrists and 194 british psychiatrists. 69% of the US psychiatrists diagnosed schizophrenia but only a shocking 2% of the british ps gave the same diagnosis. Reliability is the extent to which ps can agree on the same diagnoses when independently assessing patients which in this study shows a massive difference; therefore showing incredibly low reliability and therefore not applicable. The definitions used for criteria lack consistency, this is particularly relevant to the evaluation of ‘bizarre and non bizarre delusions’. 50 senior ps were asked to differentiate between the two, they produced inter-rater reliability correlations of only around 4.0, forcing the researchers to conclude that even this central diagnostic requirement lacks sufficient reliability to be a reliable method.
Thomas Szasz claims that the categorised mental disorders are passed off as having been scientifically determined, they’re actually judgements that act as excuses for the use of power by psychiatric authorities. He believes it’s a label that simply serves to provide justification for psychiatric theories and treatments, a vastly elaborate social control which disguises itself under the claims of scientific evidence. Obviously the big limitation of his theory is that there is significant correlations between genetics and the likelihood of developing schizophrenia.
There are many varying views about the reliability and validity of the classification and diagnosis of schizophrenia, but it has proved to be the best method we have. Reliability has improved, and it’s better if we use standardised testing tools.
Click to access Psychiatric_Product%20Sampler.pdf
Dec9
Week 11 comments
Dec9
The Labelling Theory
This week I thought id talk about a possible explanation of schizophrenia, the labelling theory.
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that features positive (not as in good, but a change or increase) and negative symptoms, ranging from hallucinations to social withdrawal. There are many explanations, but in this research task, I’ll be focusing on the labelling theory which was promoted by Scheff in 1966. He believed schizophrenia is the result of learning that escape to an inner world is rewarding; individuals who have been labelled as schizophrenic then continue to act in ways that conform to the label. Bizarre behaviour is rewarded with attention and sympathy, which is known as secondary gain. Early experience of punishment may lead children to retreat into a rewarding inner world. This causes society to label them as odd, individuals who’ve been labelled in this way may continue to act in ways that conform to this label.
Strange behaviour labelled as odd,secondary gain (rewarded with attention), behaviour is then exaggerated=labelled as schizophrenic.
This theory states social groups create the concept of psychiatric deviance (schizophrenia) by constructing rules for group members to follow. Thus the symptoms of schizophrenia are seen as deviating from the rules that we attribute to ‘normal’ behaviour. Therefore those who display unusual behaviour are considered as deviant and the label Schizophrenic may be applied, which becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that promotes the development of other symptoms of schizophrenia.
Therefore, if society sees mentally ill individuals as unpredictable, dangerous and reliant on others, then a person, who may not actually be mentally ill but has been labelled as such, could become mentally ill. The assumption is that we’re born with a blank slate, there’s a lot of emphasis on experiences and interactions we have with the environment, this is what forms our behaviour. Behaviourists’ studies show that schizophrenia is due to conditioning and observational learning and that people show schizophrenic behaviour when they are more likely to be reinforced. Ullman and Krasmer in 1969 said that staff in hospitals reinforced schizophrenic behaviour in their patients by paying more attention to those who display characteristics of the disorder. The patients see that if they disobey the staff and play up, the staff will make a fuss over them. This theory believes all behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning theory. (Stimulus and response links that build up to produce more complex behaviour) there’s an absence of conscious thoughts.
David Rosenhan explored this theory and criticised psychiatric diagnoses in his famous study ‘Being sane in insane places’. This involved the use of healthy associates or “pseudo patients” who complained of auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudo patients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had not experienced any more hallucinations. Hospital staff failed to detect a single pseudo patient, and instead believed that all of the pseudo patients exhibited symptoms of ongoing mental illness. The second part involved asking staff at a psychiatric hospital to detect non-existent “fake” patients. The staff falsely identified large numbers of genuine patients as impostors. The study concluded, “It is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals” and also illustrated the dangers of depersonalization and labelling in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviours rather than psychiatric labels might be a solution and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities. This study showed odd behaviour was labelled as schizophrenic and these individuals would be admitted if their symptoms were known. This supports the labelling theory, as people labelled as schizophrenics would believe this professional opinion and may show symptoms of schizophrenia, retrospectively the diagnosis would then be regarded as correct. The wardens perceived the pseudo patients normal behaviour as psychotic due to the label. This shows diagnoses aren’t reliable; they were labelled due to behaviour which deviates from what society regards as ‘normal’. It agrees odd behaviour leads to being labelled ‘odd’ which then leads to labels of being ‘schizophrenic’ but it doesn’t necessarily agree that the label causes schizophrenia.
Strengths of thelabelling theory could be that:
Operant conditioning is a fundamental part of psychological explanations.
A large number of successful applications derived from this theory, behavioural theory is clearly successful for mental disorders such as phobias.
It lends itself to scientific research, focuses on observable and measurable behaviours, things that can be quantified and controlled. Broadbent (1961) believed behaviourism is the best method for rational advance in psychology.
The success of token economies offers modest support. (Institutionalised patients are given tokens as secondary reinforces, to promote socially desirable behaviour, the tokens are then exchanged for primary reinforces like food.) This shows that positive reinforcement encourages them to live to a label of acting appropriately according to society’s norms.
Weaknesses of the labelling theory could be that it:
Ignores genetic evidence, many argue it trivialises such a complex disorder.
Ignores conscious thoughts/motivation and significant life events which may have been a factor in developing schizophrenia.
Deterministic, Bandura argued that is action’s were determined solely by rewards and punishments, people would behave like weather vanes. (constantly changing)
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Symptoms.aspx
waaah 