What I would like you to do is to find a PERSON or TOPIC from chapter 12
that you are interested in and search the internet for material on that
PERSON or TOPIC. Please use 3 or more quality resources.If you did a
Person: Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would
like you to say WHO your PERSON is, b) how exactly HE OR SHE fits into
the chapter, and c) why you are interested in THIS PERSON. Next, I would
like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your
PERSON, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end of
your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. If you want you can use one of your sources from something other than the internet.
If you did a Topic: Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say WHAT your TOPIC is, b) how exactly the TOPIC fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in THIS TOPIC. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your TOPIC, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each resource you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
If you did a Topic: Once you have completed your search and explorations, a) I would like you to say WHAT your TOPIC is, b) how exactly the TOPIC fits into the chapter, and c) why you are interested in THIS TOPIC. Next, I would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your TOPIC, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
Additional instructions: For each resource you have listed. Indicate why you chose it and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
The topic that I have chosen to do further research on was the Oedipal Complex. This fits into the chapter because it was on psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud. The Oedipal Complex was a theory that Freud came up with. The reason that I chose this topic was that it is incredibly interesting and weird and I wanted to learn more about it and why Freud came up with it.
The Oedipal complex is defined as a feeling desire and jealousy towards his mother and anger towards his father because he feels as though he is competing for his mother’s affection. Prior to this happening, the child identifies that there is a difference between father and mother and realizes that they are more alike to one than the other. While the child is not fully aware of the sexual act, the child may feel may feel some physical feelings towards the parent of the opposite sex, according to Freud. The Oedipal complex typically occurs during the Phallic stage of development (between age three and five). The reason that the term Oedipal is used is that it refers to Oedipus Rex who kills his father and later marries his mother (eww).
The Electra complex is similar to the Oedipal complex but is typically used to describe young girls; it is not the same is the Oedipal complex and actually has many differences. Once the young girl realizes that her father has a penis, she resents her mother because she assumes that she was the one who castrated her. She believes that if the father gets her pregnant she will have then gain one so becomes more attached to him.
According to Freud overcoming the Oedipal complex is essential and helps to develop the ego and superego as well. The id of the young boy wishes to compete with the father but his ego realizes that the father will win. Fearing that the boy will be castrated, according to Freud the boy assumes that all females were castrated, as punishment for desiring his mother. In order to resolve all of this conflict the boy then forms the superego and identifies with his father rather than competing.
http://psychology.about.com/od/oindex/g/def_oedipuscomp.htm
I used this site to learn more about the Oedipal Complex, how a child develops this and why.
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/concepts/oedipus_complex.htm
I used this site to learn more about the development of the Oedipal complex and the Electra complex.
http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Oedipus.Notes.html
I used this site to learn more about the Oedipal complex and how a child gets over it.
I chose to write about the various types of treatments for mental illness, specifically early treatments that would seem preposterous to us today. This fits into the chapter in that there was a whole portion dedicated to this topic toward the beginning of the reading. I chose this topic because it is very interesting to me to read about what people used to universally accept as normal treatments for mental disorders - so different from what we'd think of it today!
One particular thing I found interesting was something that I learned in my human sexuality class this semester. Society used to generally accept that masturbating in children caused a very serious mental illness known as masturbatory insanity - basically, if a child touched themselves, they'd go insane. They didn't necessarily devise a specific treatment for masturbatory insanity, but they came up with a few prevention techniques that would basically be considered torture devices to us today (including metal tubes that fit around the penis, chastity belts, etc.) It was also widely believed that women who were...sexually aroused, if you will, suffered from a mental issue known as hysteria, and the treatment doctors gave for hysteria was shocking to me! The doctors would pretty much use early forms of vibrators to "treat" and "cure" the hysteric woman.
Another early treatment for mental illness which I found fascinating was the concept of trephining. Since mental illness was known to be the work of demons or spirits possessing the body, trephining (used in Neolithic times) involved chipping a large hole into the person's skull using stones. This, the "doctors" believed, would make a hole through which the demons/spirits could escape, thus curing the patient. Similarly, during the time of Hippocrates, bloodletting by way of leeches was also a popular technique.
Some of these early attempts at treatment were unintentionally cruel. These included being wildly spun around in chairs (to reduce brain congestion) and being continuously submerged in ice-cold bath water (known as hydrotherapy). Patients were also apparently encased in what were called "hot boxes", tiny cubicles made of bright lamps, in order to relax them. Insulin therapy was perhaps the most brutal of these early treatments: An early form of electroshock therapy, insulin was given to the patient, who would then slip into a coma and begin to convulse.
Mentally ill individuals were viewed with horror and fear by most of society. Therefore, asylums were constructed to get these people out of society and keep them in a safe place. However, these asylums were far from safe - they were basically prisons, where inmates may have been chained and treated like animals. The treatments used in such asylums were barbaric and cruel. But, even with such horrors inside the asylums, that still may have been better than being out in the world, where they were spat on and abused by strangers in the street (or sometimes even their own family members!) There was such a stigma attached to mental illnesses back then. Thankfully, times have changed things drastically for such individuals, and though there may still be some discrimination against those with mental disorders, we understand and treat them much better today.
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills
This was a great and lengthy article on the history of mental illnesses and the early attempts to treat them.
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/06/12/10-mind-boggling-psychiatric-treatments/
This was a detailed list of ten crazy treatments that were used in the past for mental illness. Specifically, I focused on hydrotherapy here.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Mental-Illness-and-the-Early-Insane-Asylums---A-Shameful-Past&id=1678891
This was a short article on the early insane asylums and how the patients were treated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Izmyru5T_w
This was a really great (though brief) video on early treatments for individuals with mental illnesses. It focused specifically on lobotomies, hydrotherapy, and insulin therapy.
I chose to write about Dorthea Dix and the reforms of the Asylums. Dorthea and the asylum reforms fit in this chapter because we are talking about evolving psychology and this shows what a woman did to try and fix a serious problem. I find this topic to be interesting because before the reform there were many different ways of treating the mentally ill, and many of them were cruel. Society feared the mentally ill and the many ways to try and cure the patients seemed inhumane. I have found Dorthea Dix to be interested because she was a woman and made the first move in reforming the asylums.
Dorthea Dix was born in Maine and due to a rough childhood considered herself an orphan and moved to Massachusets to begin her studies with her grandmother. Dix later on went to teaching girls and writing moral tales. Dix taught for 24 years, but left her teaching career to become a nurse. Dix did not have anything to do with the mentally ill before she got depressed. When Dix did get depressed she decided to travel to England. Here is where she learned about reforms in the treatment of insanity. She taught woman inmates and that is where she encountered the mentally ill for the first time. She found that the mentally ill were kept the same way prisoners were, chained and in the dark. When Dix came back to Massachusets she went traveling to different jails to see what she was working with. What she found was that the mentally ill were locked in cages, stalls, pens and not given the treatment they needed. At this time the population was growing as well and jails began to become incredibly over crowded. Dix decided to bring the horrible findings to court. She told the legislautre of Massachusets what she had found through her travels of the prisons. Hearing about the unhumane treatment for the mentally ill caught their attention. Between 1843-1880 Dix helped the mentally ill and started reforming the asylums, creating 32 new hospitals across the United States dedicated to the mentally ill. Dorthea Dix was a woman pioneer in reforming the asylums. She was the influence for many other reformers to step up and say something about the inhumane treatments. Dix died at 85 years after spending years teaching and many many years struggling to help the mentally ill get a safe place to be treated in.
http://www.truthaboutnursing.org/press/pioneers/dix.html
This website had a lot about Dix's life before and after she began her reforms on the asylums
http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp
This website had information on prison and asylums, including Dix's reforms and how she explained herself to Massachuset's legislature.
http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id=35
This website had a lot of information on Dorthea's life and her struggle to start the reform movement, especially as a woman.
I chose the topic of bloodletting, and it fits into the chapter because Rush was a firm believer in using it to cure many types of illnesses. He used it in an attempt to help alleviate mental problems in his work with the mentally ill. I am interested in it because I knew it was a medical practice used in the past, but I was curious to see how far back in time it dated as well as other illnesses they thought it could cure.
Bloodletting is one of the oldest (some sites I visited did indeed say the oldest) medical practices. It originated in the ancient Egypt and Greece and continued through the Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods. It was also very widely used in Arabic and Indian medicine, and lasted as a common practice through the second Industrial Revolution. Doctors used bloodletting for a shocking number of illnesses and ailments. They bled people for pneumonia, fevers, back pain, rheumatism, headaches, melancholia, bone fractures, and even regular blood wounds. However, there was never any official evidence that proved it helped to cure the problem. Ancients placed their faith in the ancient system of medicine which considered blood and othe bodily fluids to be 'humors,' and in order to keep one healthy the humors needed to maintain proper balance to maintain a healthy life. Sick people were thought to have imbalances in those humors which physicians at the time and throughout history thought bloodletting would restore the balance. Doctors thought bloodletting was as trusted as aspirin today. Medieval monks used the practice several times a year for general maintenance of health, and others calculated charts to demonstrate the most favorable astrological conditions for bloodletting to occur. It continued well into the 1800's before people began to question the value of letting someone bleed. The scientists Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch showed that germs were responsible for diseases, not the humors being out of balance as previously thought. Bloodletting is still used for the rare condition of hemachromatosis in which the body stores to much iron. One way to treat this disease is to periodically drain some of the iron-heavy blood which restores the mineral's proper balance throughout the body.
The process of bloodletting worked like so: the doctor (if you could really use that term) would open a vein in the arm, leg, or neck with a small knife called a lancet. He would tie off the area with a tourniquet and while holding the lancet strike diagonally or lengthwise into the vein. They didn't use a perpendicular cut because it had the possibility of severing the blood vessel. They would collect the blood in measuring bowls, some which were regular bowls while others were made of fine Venetian glass. A Viennese inventor created a spring-loaded lancet which consisted of a case of roughly two inches long with a spring-loaded blade that came out from the top. The bleeder would cock the blade and press the spring-loaded lancet against the skin and push a release which caused the blade to snap down and across on the vein. While that scares me apparently the spring-loaded lancet had a safety feature which would not cut beyond a certain point. Another item used was a scarificator which was a spring-loaded box containing between twelve and eighteen blades. The knife was used along with the practice of 'cupping' to relieve inflammation. Cupping would involve the bleeder placing a glass cup against the skin and warm it with a torch or other heating device. The heat would create a vacuum strong enough to raise a large blood-filled blister where the bleeder would remove the cup, spring the scarificator, and reapply the cup to draw out more blood. Another form of knife was the fleam which was longer and primarily used on animals, but some have shorter blades which they think were probably used on human veins as well.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/basics/bloodletting.html - This site does a nice job of giving a short history and explanation of bloodletting.
http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A885062 - This site also gave me a short history of the origins of bloodletting while also informing me of several other practices that barbers would carry out along with cutting hair. e.g. pulling teeth and bloodletting among a few other disturbing works that barbers performed (and shouldn't have)
http://medicalantiques.com/medical/Scarifications_and_Bleeder_Medical_Antiques.htm - This site showed what I assume were all the variety of bloodletting utensils that were used in the process of bloodletting.
I chose to research the topic of Victor of Aveyron and other children who have been the attention of those who study psychology because of the isolation from society they have experienced growing up. Victor’s story is highlighted in the chapter with the doctor who tried to rehabilitate him to a normal state, Jean Itard. I don’t know why I am so interested in this topic. I have seen the documentary Secret of the Wild Child before and even than I was interested in learning more. I think it is human nature to be curious about how a child could survive living in the forest as Victor did, or in extreme isolation as “Genie” and other documented individuals have.
While there have been stories of these wild children dating back from the time of the ancient Greeks, the story of Victor is the first with adequate documentation, which allows us to have a closer look at it. These stories and legends have made their way into our modern culture in the form of stories such as: the legend of Tarzan, the story of Mowgli in The Jungle Book. I think a part of what makes this so interesting is that many of the stories are so close to the line between possible and ridiculous, but this is not the purpose of the blog.
The question these children raise is: What makes us human? The rare finds of the wild child, allows psychologist to research the forbidden experiment, named because to purposely raise a child in seclusion or in the wild is forbidden. A true wild child is so rare that the line between doing what is best for the child and what is best for science is blurred. For Dr. Itard in France this meant working with Victor for five years trying to teach him language and social norms. Itard’s goals were to fully rehabilitate Victor, but this task soon became too ambitious of a goal. After the five years Itard decided Victor had learned all that he was capable of left him to his kitchen maid to take care of.
In regard to “Genie” psychologists were also interested in studying her: the negative effects of her seclusion, the language learning window, and whether normal learning was possible. The interest was heightened ironically because a motion picture film about Victor had just been released. After funding was cut to further the studying of “Genie” the psychologists were no longer interested in her. They did not just drop her like a bag of old potatoes, they still cared for her very much, but they couldn’t or wouldn’t be a part of her life any longer. The ethical question is she better off because of the attention she received from so many professionals or would a placement in a more permanent foster home have led to a more fulfilling life?
To answer this question, is not simple. It is a deep question involving though and reflection on what was done in her case and in other similar cases, there have been some not to this extent before “Genie”. Also in cases such as these there is never one right answer and previous situation aren’t necessarily relevant because of some many variables which are involved. Did the researchers test her too much, and how much is too much? In retrospect by today’s standards and the little I know of the case, I would say yes she was tested too much and not allowed to have as normal a live as possible. Was she exploited? Yes, plain and simple, she was used for a purpose. But was this exploitation harmful: maybe, but maybe not.
These children while mystifying and intriguing captivate the world. They leave more questions than answers. Not only about learning and what makes us human, but about the type of person who can do this to children, even if their motivation is because they thought it was for the best (assuming the child had some mentally retardation). To me the parents in “Genie’s” case had to have had some mental deficiency to see such an act as being acceptable. There is some evidence that suggest “Genie’s” father was mentally deficient in some way. Either way these cases cause us to reexamine our lives and ask and answer question about what exactly is being human.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sci_feralc.htm
I used this site as a good source to find information about the history of wild children.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Aveyron
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/itard.shtml
I used these sites for additional information on Victor of Aveyron and Dr. Jean Itard.
http://highschoolbioethics.georgetown.edu/units/cases/unit3_4.html
I used this site for more information on “Genie” and her doctors.
For my interesting person this week I chose to talk about Sigmund Freud. I picked him because I was very interested in the starts of child psychology. I know that his main basis is about sex issues and hysteria. But children spark my interest. When reading the chapter I found it to be very interesting so this is why I wanted to research Freud beyond what I had inquired from the book if that was possible.
Freud is known as the father of psychoanalysis. He was a very influential person and had much knowledge to be shared and inspired by others. He was born in Frieberg, Moravia. However when it was four is family decided to move to Vienna there he lived and worked until the last waking years of his life. Freud was Jewish, which some of many may not know. Freud was also the first to found what is now known as the first Viennese school of psychoanalysis. This allowed much development in this field. Freud was a very original thinker which is why many people did not care nor like his thoughts and ideas. Some of the ideas that Freud obtained were due to trying to explain what happened to him during his lifetime.
For starters his masterpiece which is called The Interpretation of Dreams, which we came about due to the emotional crisis which he suffered on the death of his father and a series of dreams. The conclusion which he came upon was that the loved and admiration which he felt for his father were mixed with feelings of shame and hate. The reveled is discovery that he had often fantasized about, which was that his half-brother Phil was really his father ( who by the way was the age of his mother) This discovery is why he had the feelings of hate because there was a rival for his mother’s affection.
I also enjoyed his thought on infantile sexuality, which was very useful to the social work field as well. He developed those stages of development. These stages are the base of where a child or person is at for the stages of development. However some compare this to the hierachary of needs, to where you must complete one stage before going on to the next.
Freud was also the founder and most amazing person to come up with the idea of the Id, Ego, and Super Ego. I feel that I do not need to talk about that, due to that many people are well aware of what those three terms mean.
I found it very interesting about what Freud did and how he dealt with childhood trauma. Freud and a colleague examined paralyzed and ill young woman. While collecting information they came to the common factor. All the woman had been and suffered from repeated trauma as a young teenager or adolescent. They were able to find out that most of the trauma was sexual molestation by a family member. Because they became ill, it was caused by putting what happen to them behind them and in their mind they lost thought and became ill. This lead to the thoughts that in fact children need a great deal of protection while they are growing up. Also for the first time he was able to see that what happens to children and teens when they are younger largely impact their adult lives. In many ways this was the start of child psychology. This topic is a huge interest to me because I want to work with children who are sexually abused or abused in any situation.
I could continue to talk about Freud but feel that if one wants to know more look him up.
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=9409
This site gave me in site about childhood trauma. I love this topic and wanted to get a general idea.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
This gave me in site on Freud in general
http://www.skewsme.com/freud.html#axzz1diPHjxsu
This site was able to give me information the sexual therapies!
http://www.a2zpsychology.com/great_psychologists/sigmund_freud.php
This site gave me more information about Freud which I was able to find to be very useful
The topic that I chose to research was hypnosis. Hypnosis fits into this chapter because it is a technique to treat the mentally ill. I am interested in this topic because I like to be hypnotized myself. I also want to learn how it exactly works.
After researching some websites I came up with some good information about the topic that gave me a better understanding of what I want to learn. I learned that hypnosis is a mental state or an imaginative role. Somebody has to be introduced to a procedure known as hypnotic induction. This part of hypnosis is the coolest part because whoever wants to undergo hypnosis has to have a positive attitude for it to work. If someone does not buy into the hypnotic induction, than there is no hope of trying to become hypnotized. If you do not want to be hypnotized then you simply don’t have to worry about being hypnotized. What most people think of when they hear of hypnotic inductions is a man with a goatee swinging a pocket watch back and forth. Perhaps this works for some people. However hypnotic inductions can be very simple. The procedure does not have to be that complicated. Hypnosis works from words or sounds that trigger the response of sleep.
I viewed several videos on hypnosis to see what kinds of hypnotic inductions were used. I came across a video that was quite interesting involving a restaurant. Here a magician known as Criss Angel performed hypnosis on the entire restaurant. It was very interesting to see everyone’s reaction. It was also interesting to see the kinds of hypnotic inductions he used. Below is the link to that video. It was a great demonstration that helped me better understand my topic.
I think hypnosis is one of the better treatments to perform on the mentally ill. It is quite relaxing for most people I would assume. I know it is for me when I try and get myself hypnotized from listening to hypnosis clips on my iPod. It is hard to explain the kind of trance you get into. Some of the other procedures performed on patients early on in the chapter seemed unethical. Although going back to our discussion we had on Tuesday, hypnosis now may be a thing of the past 50 years from now. Perhaps there will be something else that has been found that will be even more advanced than hypnosis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A7mXFkKbbM
This was a brilliant demonstration of hypnosis. It was also very helpful with understanding more details about hypnosis and how it works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis
This website provided a lot of detailed information that helped me better understand hypnosis.
http://www.institute-shot.com/hypnosis_and_health.htm
This website helped answer some of the basic questions I had when researching hypnosis.
I chose to research Dorothea Dix. Dorothea Dix fits into this chapter because we were talking about evolving psychology, and the early treatments of the mentally ill. In other chapters, there was sections about how many patients were mistreated for being mentally ill for long periods of time because of their low intelligent skills. I am interested in Dorothea Dix, and the reforms she did to the asylums because treating another human like that is wrong, and our society treated the mentally ill like prisoners.
Dorothea Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. Dorothea's childhood was rough, and when she was 12, she moved to Boston to live with her grandmother. Dorothea taught girls to read and write for 24 years. Dorothea was a Methodist, but she was coming to a fork in the road of whether or not she was one, or a Congretionalist. Dorothea started thinking that she was not a Methodist when the Second Awakening Movement was making the way through all of the colonies.
Dorothea Dix didn't become interested in the mental ill until 1836. She struggled with a deep depression, and went to England to overcome it. She witnessed the mental ill in hospitals of their horrible conditions of not being treated right. She moved back to Boston in 1841, and became teaching at a local jail for women. When Dorothea was teaching she witnessed the abuse, and neglect of the prisoners that were in for psychiatric help.
Throughout her adulthood, Dorothea went across the country to reform the mental institutions, and was successful. Dorothea got 36 states to have legal mental institutions that were in better treatment and conditions than they were previously. Dorothea continued to reform mental institutions until she died in 1887.
Dorothea went to the state legislature of MA to explain to them about the conditions of the jails, asylums, and they didn't do anything about it. I found this part to be interesting, and wondering why was it a big deal that she was a woman. Back then the society with women going against their own society was looked down upon. With all of the mental ill reform, I still look at the early 1930's-190 mental hospitals for women were treated horribly with all of their treatments. I learned that her efforts to reform the asylums was just one step into changing society.
http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id=35- this site had a lot of background information about her life, and the reform she did with the asylums.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp- this site had a lot of details about the abuse and neglect of the prisoners. Some parts were hard to read.
http://drakontas.org/documents/nineteenth.century.socio.political.reform.in.america.php- this site gave information about the reform and how it changed society, with other reforms.
Lightner Whitmer is the individual from the chapter that I chose to do further researcher. I chose to research him because he was an extremely original psychologist. The term clinical psychology came from him and, he set up a clinic in this area. Also wanted to do more research on him because he was disagreed with those who did not want to apply the things they were learning to improving everyday life.
Witmer was born in Pennsylvania and spent most of his life there. From a very young age he was said to be a individual of reason. He was said to have always wanted to help people and work to create a better future from the world. This may be the thing that caused him to become so involved in Applied Psychology.
The book stated that Witmer was influenced by James Mckeen Cattell but, it did not go into a lot of depth about it. Cattell was regarded at the one of the worlds best trained psychologist at the time he was around Witmer. For Witmer being Cattell’s laboratory assistant had a great influence on him and his passions for psychology. Working under him was what influenced him to finally leave the Pennsylvania area and learn more about psychology. This decision to leave landed him in Leipzig studying under Wundt. Although Wundt disagreed with Witmer he did not let it stop him from doing the things he wanted to do.
Clinical psychology is defined as the integration of scientific knowledge for the purpose of applying it to deal with psychological stress. By dealing with this psychological stress psychologist wanted to improve upon people’s everyday lives. In clinical psychology’s early stages the main focus on assessing people psychological issues. As time went on the focus shifted to treatment programs that could help with them. One key factor in the shift was a need created by the Second World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_psychology - definition of clinical psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightner_Witmer - Overview of Witmer’s life
http://www.mikeraulin.org/graziano7e/supplements/History/5-06.htm - Discussed Witmer’s life and career
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Witmer/clinical.htm -discussed Witmer and clinical psychology
Lightner Whitmer is the individual from the chapter that I chose to do further researcher. I chose to research him because he was an extremely original psychologist. The term clinical psychology came from him and, he set up a clinic in this area. Also wanted to do more research on him because he was disagreed with those who did not want to apply the things they were learning to improving everyday life.
Witmer was born in Pennsylvania and spent most of his life there. From a very young age he was said to be a individual of reason. He was said to have always wanted to help people and work to create a better future from the world. This may be the thing that caused him to become so involved in Applied Psychology.
The book stated that Witmer was influenced by James Mckeen Cattell but, it did not go into a lot of depth about it. Cattell was regarded at the one of the worlds best trained psychologist at the time he was around Witmer. For Witmer being Cattell’s laboratory assistant had a great influence on him and his passions for psychology. Working under him was what influenced him to finally leave the Pennsylvania area and learn more about psychology. This decision to leave landed him in Leipzig studying under Wundt. Although Wundt disagreed with Witmer he did not let it stop him from doing the things he wanted to do.
Clinical psychology is defined as the integration of scientific knowledge for the purpose of applying it to deal with psychological stress. By dealing with this psychological stress psychologist wanted to improve upon people’s everyday lives. In clinical psychology’s early stages the main focus on assessing people psychological issues. As time went on the focus shifted to treatment programs that could help with them. One key factor in the shift was a need created by the Second World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_psychology - definition of clinical psychology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightner_Witmer - Overview of Witmer’s life
http://www.mikeraulin.org/graziano7e/supplements/History/5-06.htm - Discussed Witmer’s life and career
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Witmer/clinical.htm -discussed Witmer and clinical psychology
In keeping with my theme of writing about the topics I find the weirdest, this week I chose to write about the Oedipus complex that was introduced in the chapter by Sigmund Freud. Boy was I right, in doing my research in on the topic I came across some seriously peculiar terms and phrases. To begin with the Oedipus Theory states that a boy begins to have sexual desires for his mother, the reverse is called Electra complex in girls towards their fathers. Every boys relationship with his mother is different and most of the time they are healthy, but sometimes this infatuation can get to be a little ridiculous, looking at you Norman Bates. This interest usually starts around the ages of 3-6 years old; around the time the libido and Ego begin to form. I was first intrigued with this topic because I have heard of this idea before, not in any great detail, and wanted to learn more about the specifics of it today and just how common this type of thing was. While doing research I became less interested in the more taboo section, sexual desire towards mother, and more interested in the concept of physical harm to the father to remove him from the situation. Like most kids growing up I was constantly bested by my dad in everything sports, video games, trivia… but like most kids I had that one defining moment where I eventually did win and never let him forget it. My scenario seems to be the more common route for boys and fathers, so to see that there was a much, much more extreme relationship that can develop was something I wanted to peruse further. On my second site it discussed what a person must do in order to overcome the Complex in order to live a healthy life. At first the person will want to eliminate the father, some part of our brain knows that he is far superior. Then it gets weird, because the boy can become fearful of what is called Castration Anxiety, fear of losing his penis literally and mentally. This coincides with the realization of differences between boy and female reproductive parts. However, after this phase the child will hopefully create the “super-ego” where he will become his own moral authority and can help the child want to become more like his father as opposed to taking him out of the situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex: Great first website because it provided me with several other pages to look at to help supplement what I was already trying to figure out.
http://psychology.about.com/od/oindex/g/def_oedipuscomp.htm: This website focused most of its information on how to deal with the condition and the steps that can be taken to rid a person of these unhealthy thoughts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA35ys91QJU: This video is absolutely ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be useful to the topic. It is hilariously over the top but I couldn’t stop watching it and kept waiting to see what they were going to do next. I think this is a good example of someone taking a serious idea and making it somewhat lighter than it is often portrayed.
For my blog this week I wanted to get a better understanding of what hypnosis is and how it works. Our book described some of its founders as well as some of its earlier techniques. I was interested to learn more about this form of psychology. This topic interested me because to be able to influence one’s behavior is a powerful thing and I also wanted to see practical applications of the science today.
Hypnosis is a mental state brought on by the suggestion of a hypnotist. The hypnotist generally uses series of words or suggestions to enter the subject into a trancelike state. Hypnotism can also be self-administered through self-hypnotism techniques. Hypnosis is present in everyday activities that fully engage your mind. These activities can range from watching a movie, mowing the lawn, reading a book, or even driving. The way hypnosis works is that I engage the subconscious mind in a direct way bypassing the person’s conscious thoughts. This is why when people are hypnotized for a show their inhibitions go to the wayside. Also the conscious mind is a person’s main inhibitory factor whereas the subconscious mind is a source of imagination and impulse. With inhibition out of the way the subconscious is free to act imaginatively and impulsively to the suggestions of the hypnotist.
Not only are there differences in behavior when one is hypnotized but also there are physical signs of hypnosis. Heart rate and respiration slow down due to the relaxation process of hypnosis. There is also a change in brain wave activity when a subject is asleep.
Hypnotists use a variety of methods to put their subjects in a hypnotic state. Originally fixed-gaze induction was the most common form where an object was waved in front of the subject and the focus on that object put the subject into a hypnotic state. Rapid hypnosis overloads the mind with sudden firm commands putting the subject into a hypnotic state. The most common form of hypnosis is progressive relaxation and imagery hypnosis. In this form the hypnotist talks to the subjects in a soft slow tone relaxing the subjects into hypnosis. The last form is loss of balance this is most commonly seen in infants as a result of rocking or swaying.
Hypnosis can also be used to treat problems some people may have. Hypnosis is often used to get people to quit smoking. It is also used to rid people of irrational fears and phobias. On some subjects it can be particularly useful to rid patients of pain and other medical ailments but the effectiveness of these treatments is inconclusive. Another application is in law enforcement to pick out dormant memories of interrogated subjects. However, these results are inconclusive as well since the subject while in a hypnotic state does their best to pleas the hypnotist, thus questioning the reliability of these testimonies.
These articles I used to gain background information and information on hypnosis types.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Modern-Hypnosis---5-Different-Types-of-New-Age-Modern-Hypnosis&id=3543613
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/history/blog/
This article I used to learn about practical applications of hypnosis.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/hypnosis9.htm
The person from chapter 12 that interested me the most was Benjamin Rush. He had very unusual and probably harmful techniques for curing the mentally ill in today’s terms, but during his time he was a hero. I really wanted to know more about his career and how he came up with his ideas and contraptions for the mentally ill.
Benjamin Rush was born on December 24, 1745 in a small town outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the fourth of seven children, who had to be raised by his mother after his father died when Benjamin was only six years old. When he was eight, he entered an academy conducted by his uncle at Nottingham, Maryland. He later went on to the College of New Jersey (called Princeton University today) and graduated at the age of fifteen. He then attended the College of Philadelphia to study medicine.
After the College of Philadelphia, he went to Edinburgh, Scotland, then the medical center of the world, where after two years of study, received his M.D. degree. In Edinburgh he embraced a new explanation of disease. Rejecting the older theory based upon the balancing of the four humors, Rush believed that the root cause of disease was irregular circulation especially of the blood vessels. The therapy he recommended to restore the circulatory system to normal was bloodletting. He did further training at St. Thomas's Hospital in London as well. There he met and became good friends with Benjamin Franklin too!
Returning to America, he joined the faculty of the College of Philadelphia as professor of chemistry. In 1789 he became professor of the theory and practice of medicine. He was very popular with his students, and his lectures drew large crowds. His fame brought many students to Philadelphia to study medicine. In 1776 he married Julia Stockton, and they had 13 children!
Rush’s major contribution to the world of psychology was his work with the humane treatment of the mentally ill. A pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness, he insisted that the insane had a right to be treated with respect. He protested the inhuman treatment of the insane at Pennsylvania Hospital. In 1792 he was successful in getting state funding for a ward for the insane. He also created a categorization of insanity, which is strikingly similar to the modern categorization of mental illness.
Part of Rush's treatment of the mentally ill was based upon his idea of the cause of physical disease, bad circulation. He prescribed bloodletting to many of his patients, along with cold baths, a low diet, and kindness. He also listened to his patients tell him their troubles and was interested in dreams, long before Freud’s time. His Medical Inquiries and Observations, Upon the Diseases of the Mind earned him the title of "the father of American psychiatry."
Another method of treatment used by Benjamin rush was the tranquilizer chair in which patients were confined. The chair was supposed to control the flow of blood toward the brain and, by lessening muscular action or reducing motor activity, reduced the force and frequency of the pulse. In retrospect, it did neither harm nor good to patients. He also used a device called a gyrator, and as its name suggests, was a contraption like a spoke on a wheel. The patient was strapped to the board head outward and the wheel was rotated at a high rate of speed, sending the blood racing to his head and supposedly relieving the patient’s congested brain.
Not only is Rush known for his medical work, he was also a founding father of our nation. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. During the Revolutionary War he served briefly as surgeon-general of the armies of the Middle Department. Finding the army hospitals corruptly and incompetently managed and frustrated that his office did not give him power to reform them, Rush wrote letters of complaint to Congress and to General George Washington. He resigned after Washington accused him of personal disloyalty.
He also served as the President of the American Society for the Abolition of Slavery; President of the Philadelphia Medical Society, and was a Fellow of the College of Physicians. He died suddenly on April 19, 1813 after a brief illness.
http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/benjaminrush.html- This website gives a good background of his life and highlights his work with the mentally ill.
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/paharc/features/brush.html - This website describes his tranquilizing chair and some of his other methods for the treatment of mentally ill.
http://www.bipolarworld.net/Bipolar%20Disorder/History/history.html - This site talks about his other device, the gyrator, and gives a good timeline of his works.
http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/rush_benjamin.html - This site has a lot of interesting facts about his life, even though there is not much on his work with the mentally ill.
Reading about the DSM in this week’s chapter really interested me because it was a way to make sure that there was a standard for defining mental disorders and it started with Emil Kraepelin. I was astonished by his dedication and all the observation he conducted over many years. Research that would led to the DSM, started with Emil Kraepelin. He was at the University of Tartu where “he was able to study and record many clinical histories in detail and was led to consider the importance of the course of the illness with regard to the classification of mental disorders” (Bipolarworld.net). He took the finds and classified them into diseases. An important term he created was dementia praecox which is a “sub-acute development of a peculiar simple condition of mental weakness occurring at a youthful age” (bipolarworld.net). He hoped “it would someday be possible to identify the pathologic basis of each of the major psychiatric disorders” (bipolarworld.net). He created the system that was based on pattern recognition and not grouping by common symptoms. He could determine how these disorders were going to affect a person and also found how things are genetically inherited. (enciclopediadetareas.net)
His major contribution to psychology was discovering schizophrenia and manic-depression, although he isn’t know for it. His classification methods are stilled used today “the recent widespread adoption of his fundamental theories on the etiology and diagnosis of psychiatric disorders which form the basis of all major diagnostic systems in use today, especially the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV and the World Health Organization ICD -10 system” (Bipolarworld.net).
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM was created to set a standard for mental disorders. They are currently four updated edition and the fifth edition will be coming out in 2012. “The early editions of the DSM distinguished between a psychosis and a neurosis. A psychosis is a severe mental disorder characterized by a break with reality. Psychoses typically involve hallucinations, delusions, and illogical thinking. A neurosis is a milder mental disorder characterized by distortions of reality, but not a complete break with reality. Neuroses typically involve anxiety and depression” (bipolarworld.net). Over the years things have been removed and added. Interestingly, in the DSM-II homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder but was removed by the APA in 1973. It now contains 374 mental disorders. Unfortunately with that many disorders many people on the streets can be classified underneath a DSM disorder. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu7NDUc5TD4) It is important that we have the DSM because then all across the country there are set definitions and standards for these mental disorders. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOfy3jXuCo).
http://www.bipolarworld.net/Bipolar%20Disorder/History/hist4.htm: gave a brief history of the creation of the DSM and what it contains with informative definition.
http://www.bipolarworld.net/Bipolar%20Disorder/History/hist3.htm: It gave information about Emil Kraepelin who started collecting information about disorder and organizing them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu7NDUc5TD4: Documentary on the flaws of the DSM, gave me a different view on the DSM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOfy3jXuCo: gave a breakdown of all the different DSM editions.
I’m going to do my research on Clifford Beers. I thought it was really interesting that he spent about three years in a mental hospital and lived to tell the tale about it. I would really like to know what he thought about the stay and what he might have gone through while there.
Clifford Whittingham Beers was born on March 30, 1876 in New Haven, Connecticut to Robert and Ida Beers. Beers had four other siblings, all in which had some type of psychological disorder. Sadly, they all ended up in an asylum and would live there for the rest of their lives. Beers would join his brothers and sisters in the mental hospitals later on in life. Before he did, Beers graduated from Yale in 1897.
Three years later Beers was diagnosed with paranoia and depression. He had a great future lined up for him, but after his brother’s death from epilepsy he began to fear that he would have a mental collapse. Beers was admitted to a mental hospital after trying to comment suicide. At the end of the three years, Beers had stayed at two private hospitals and a state institution. During his visit Beers not only seen others being treated badly by the hospital staff, but experienced it first hand as well.
His stay at the mental hospitals inspired Beers to write a book. The book is called “A Mind That Found Itself” published in 1908. This book was a tell-all about his experience and abuse that he had gone through. After this book was published and read Beers gained support from many, including medical professions and William James.
Beers had three main goals. These goals would better the conditions in the mental hospitals. These goals were: work on getting the news out that a person CAN recover from any mental illness, improve both the care and treatment of the patients, and try and help prevent any mental disability. I like these goals. I think he did a great job with his fight in getting better conditions for those with mental health problems.
In 1909 just a year after the book was published, Beers created the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. This movement bettered the conditions at the mental hospitals and also reformed treatments. In this day the movement is called the Mental Health America. In 1913 Beers opened the Clifford Beers Clinic that can still be found in New Haven today.
The Clifford Beers Clinic was founded for children. This place helps children that have either a mental illness or have gone though a traumatic event in their life. It helps with family and individual therapy. Patients can enter as early as birth up to 18.
I’m kind of disappointed. There is very little information out there on Beers background. Since he was the founder of the Mental Health of America I figured there would be a lot more information on him. Either way, Beers is still an interesting topic/person and a great leader in the mental health department.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLqmBTo98H4 --> this is an AWESOME video. The first three minutes is the main focus point. It talks about who Beers was and what his clinic (Clifford Beers Clinic) does. It’s nice to see that this place is still around and going strong!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Whittingham_Beers --> this site makes me kind of sad. Usually Wikipedia is full of information, but there are only about three paragraphs on Beers. But this site did give me his back ground information.
http://sanmateo.networkofcare.org/mh/library/detail.cfm?id=2604&cat=43 --> the best website I found! This fills in the cracks that wiki left out.
http://www.cliffordbeers.org/ --> this is the Clifford Beers Clinic website, I thought it would be fitting to include it.
A) Mesmerism
B) Mesmerism is a type of therapy very similar to hypnosis.
C) A therapy that uses a wand? Who wouldn’t be interested?!
Though Mesmerism is a very controversial topic (Does it work? Does it not work?) it obviously had some impact on the world because we still use the world “mesmerize” today. Those under mesmerism were said to be “mesmerized” by the “mesmerizer”. Mesmer found mesmerism somewhat on accident. The story of how he came to this hypnotic theory dates back to the 1800’s when he were still in school.
Mesmer wrote his dissertation on how the planets have an effect over our health. While doing so he met Maximillian Hell (quite the name, huh? Could be the best one we’ve heard yet) Hell was a “healer” and one of his techniques was curing people using a metal plate. Through Hell’s magnetized healing he had a lot of satisfied clients and therefore it was thought to believe that this theory actually worked. Mesmer then stole Hell’s healing with magnets and went on to explain how the process worked. Mesmer believed that everyone had a small portion of magnetic fluid flowing through them. Sometimes this fluid was disturbed or blocked. Mesmer would then use the magnet to correct the problem. Mesmer soon discovered that he did not even need the magnet at all, thus discovering mesmerism. (This is also known as animal magnetism, which I still don’t really understand, because they are the same yet different? I don’t know – I found different information about this on different websites.)
Mesmerism resembled hypnotherapy, but it was not the same thing. In mesmerism, everyone whispered to minimize distractions and disturbances, the room was dark, and music was playing in alter a patients mood (mood music? Ha – probably not going for the same type of mood). Mesmer conducted the sessions of mesmerism, also known as ceremonies. He wore a long cloak as well as carried short staff (wand) which he used to touch or rub patients. Patients would then twitch, shake, or even convulse. And apparently after these sessions, that, in my opinion, resemble witchcraft more than therapy, would be cured! Though a very strange form of hypnosis, you can’t deny that it is extremely interesting!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism#.22Mesmerism.22
This website was very useful in giving an overview of mesmerism and helped distinguish between mesmerism and animal magnetism.
http://www.skepdic.com/mesmer.html
This site was helpful in explaining the birth of mesmerism and how it started.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/
This URL talked a lot more about Mesmer himself, and his personal journey in discovering mesmerism.
In reading chapter 12, I found a lot of interest in the work of Dorothea Dix. Dorothea Dix fits into the chapter by her role in reforming the care of mental health patients. I found her interesting because not only did she research what she was interested in, she also stood up for what she believed was right during a time when many people were looking the other way.
Dorothea Dix was born in Maine in 1802. Her childhood was filled with instability and abuse. She took on a care giving role for her younger brothers, and dealt with a lot of family conflicts. Dix’s mother suffered from severe headaches, and her father was an alcoholic. The children were moved to their grandmother’s house due to the lack of stability with her parents.
At the age of fifteen, Dorothea opened a “little dame school.” She privately taught girls who could not be taught in a public school system. She kept this school open for three years. She later opened another school, and privately tutored young girls as well. In 1836, Dix’s grandmother became ill. Dix herself soon after developed tuberculosis. Her doctor urged her to give up the school and take a vacation to recuperate.
In 1841, Dix agreed to teach Sunday school to inmates at the East Cambridge jail. She saw scenes of mentally ill, prostitutes, criminals, and mentally retarded people housed together with no heat. She took her observations to the courts and won her case. She then began to travel all over Massachusetts touring jails and houses where mentally ill were placed. Once she faced the Massachusetts legislation and won her case for better treatment, she began to travel to other states to suggest the same reforms. At this time advocates for prisoners began to make it known that they believed that prisoners could change and that a prison stay could have a positive effect, with the reforms in place.
She then took another “vacation” to Europe. There she did the same things as she did in the United states. She visited jails in England, Scotland, France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and Germany, making reforms for the care of mentally ill individuals. While there, she successfully pleaded for human rights to Queen Victoria and the Pope. When she returned to the U.S. she became the Superintendent of Union Army nurses. With her health condition beginning to defeat her, she admitted herself into the Trenton Hospital and died there in 1887.
Dorothea Dix made a lot of differences during her lifetime. At the time when she was attempting to make create special care reforms, women were not allowed to vote. Women did not have any type of political power and were seen only to bare children. She played a direct role in the establishment of 32 state institutions for the care of the mentally ill.
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/dorotheadix.html This was a very useful website for me. It gave me very detailed information about the different stages of her life and works.
http://learningtogive.org/papers/paper89.html This page gave me a lot of biographical information.
http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id=35 This was used as information about the work Dorothea Dix did during her lifetime.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/26d.asp This site wasn’t used much, but it gave me some personal knowledge about the asylum reforms.
The person that I found in chapter 12 that I am interested in is Anna Freud. She fits into this chapter because her father Sigmund Freud was a very important person and contributor to psychology. I thought it appropriate to give her attention and see which characteristics of her father she holds. I am interested in Anna Freud because I absolutely love Sigmund Freud's work. If I love one Freud, I may as well learn about the other one.
Anna is daughter to Sigmund and Martha Freud. She was born in Vienna and is known for following her father’s career in psychoanalysis. It is often said that Anna could possibly be the founder of psychoanalytic child psychology. Anna was known to be devious and miss school a lot. Most of her education came from her father and his colleagues. She had learned various languages as well as many psychological terms. A dream of hers even appeared in her fathers' book the Interpretation of Dreams. In 1912 she graduated from her school Cottage Lyceum. In 1914 she became a trainer at the same school, but had to stop working due to tuberculosis.
Sigmund Freud started his psychoanalysis in the year 1918 and Anna was very interested in this. Anna's analysis was completed and published in 1922. It was called "The Relation to Beating Fantasies to a Daydream". This paper was presented to the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society which earned herself a spot as a member. In 1923 Anna Freud began to work with children of her own psychoanalytical practice at the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society. She became the secretary of International Psychoanalytical Association.
Unfortunately, in 1938 the Freud's had to flee Austria due to the war. They then moved to London where Anna took care of her father Sigmund as he was dying of jaw cancer. It was said that Melanie Klein was also a founder with Freud of psychoanalytic child psychology. They then came to disputes over different psychological principles of children regarding their development. The effects of the war gave Freud the perfect opportunity to start new studies from what she had observed. She then began to study the effects of deprivation of parental care on children. During the war, Freud created a center for young war victims. This center was called "The Hampstead War Nursery". The idea of this was to give children continuing care and to observe them make attachments. Anna published a series of books based on her child observation with her good friend Dorothy Burlingham-Tiffany. These books covered the impact of stress and their ability to find affection outside of a parental setting.
In the 1950's Anna Freud started studying the effects on children who are emotionally deprived and socially disadvantaged. In the 1970's Freud studied the deviations in delays in development. Importantly, Freud taught at Yale Law School. Sadly, Freud died in November of 1982. A year after her death a lot of her work had started being published. Her home in London had been transformed into the Freud Museum and was dedicated to her father and the psychoanalytical society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Freud
The life of Anna Freud and specifically where she grew up at.
http://psychology.about.com/od/profilesofmajorthinkers/p/bio_annafreud.htm
Biography of Anna Freud and various contributions made to psychology
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/annafreud.html
This link shows Anna Freud's research on children.
I chose to write this topical blog post about Sigmund Freud.Sigmound Freud is one of the pioneers in psychology and his work has been mentioned in the chapter as his primary area of work was in the treatment of mental ilnesses.I have always being interested in knowing more about Freud and psychoanalysis hence ,decided to write about him.
Sigmund Freud was born in Austro Hungarian empire and later shifted to go live in Austria as it was occuied by the German forces.After moving to Austria freud grew up to go to collge in austria itself where he initially studied biology after a while he worked on the the treatment of psychologcal disorders.He spent a part of his life in Paris, where he got interested in the studying hypnosis as a potential technique for the treatment of hysteria.When he returned to Vienna he tried it on some of his patients but was not impressed by its effects.This lead Freud to develop his own psychoanalytic theory.His theory was sexual in nature ie sex was an explanation for almost all the abnormal psychological conditions.
Freud also wrote on and studied dreams as a way to know about the unconcious mind.All his work became extremely popular regardless of the criticism he recieved he still maintained to make a name for himself and establish a school of psychology.Freud spent his last days in England.He died due to jaw cancer.Regardless of the criticism he has recieved freud's work and his theories are extremeky interesting and he is my personal favourite.
This website has detailed information about Freud's thoughts.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
This website had a good arrangement of his work/theories.
http://www.freudfile.org/self_analysis.html
The following website had information about Frueds early life /biograpical information.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhfreu.html
The topic I was most interested in was the early treatments of mental disorders since the book did not describe many of the treatments besides devices such as the gyrator and the tranquilizer and also the use of bloodletting. I have heard of a few treatments such as a lobotomy or shock therapy but I was also interested in what other treatments were used and what people of the past did when mental illness struck a person.
Attempts to treat mental illness have been around for a long time. Some of the earliest occurred in 5000 BCE. Often times mental illness was thought to be from supernatural things such as demons. To treat those with mental illness evidence has shown that to treat those with mental illness holes were often put into a persons skull to release the demon or other evil with in the persons head. Skulls have been found of these individuals showing that some people did indeed survive the procedure. Other treatments often revolved around the belief that demons or evil had afflicted the individual. The included exorcisms, prayer, punishments, and bribery. Some early treatments were not so cruel. Egyptians actually recommended those with mental ailments participate in activities such as dances and painting to help them feel normal.
Treatment evolved thru the centuries and eventually asylums were created to house the large numbers of the mentally ill in the 16th century. These facilities mostly did not try and treat mental illness and were used almost as a dumping ground by families and the penal system. The mentally ill lived in horrible conditions and suffered cruel treatment and often were paraded around a freak shows for amusement of the town. However, when staff did try and help individuals its was done by purging and bloodletting. Later they used treatments such as hydrotherapy, wet packs, straitjackets, and powerful drugs meant to exhaust patients and to keep them docile. Some of these drug treatments were meant to induce seizures such as insulin therapy.
Four page history from 5000 BC to current.
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/283/1/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills
Mental illness and Early asylums
http://ezinearticles.com/?Mental-Illness-and-the-Early-Insane-Asylums---A-Shameful-Past&id=1678891
Video showing some early treatments of mental illness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Izmyru5T_w
I chose to research more on Franz Anton Mesmer and his Animal Magnetism theory. I chose this topic because I wanted to compare and contrast it to Reiki healing treatments. I knew little of each, but I found them both very interesting and worth looking more in to. This fits into the chapter well, because it was in the chapter. When reading about Mesmers animal magetism ideas, it really rang a bell.
Reiki is an ancient Japanese healing technique, now used by many people. It is a really in depth thing to understand in order to become a Reiki message artist. From my understanding, Reiki has to do with healing the body with the energies of the body. Moving the energy, getting rid of bad energy, taking in good energy. As far as the history of Reiki goes, it was passed through many people by word of mouth, so the truth isn't really clear. All is known now is that it really does help people with all sorts of healing. The videos that I posted give a better look at how Reiki works, and what it does to people. Personally, I know a lady who is a long family friend of mine who is a Reiki message artist. She has not worked on me, but has helped my brother, who suffered from a terrible accident a few years back. His body hasn't fully recovered, but he claimed that Reiki gave him temporarily healing sensations. My mother swears by it as well.
Mesmers animal magnetism idea seems to be quite similar. In my own opinion, Mesmer was ahead of his time. Some people of his time had a hard time believing what he did really helped heal. Although, with the 5 years that he spent practicing his "magic" healing, he helped nearly 2000 people. He did begin to pave a road into the world of hypnosis.
Watch the videos about Reiki, and you will get a good understanding of how similar these ideas really are.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/
--A good overview of what Mesmer's animal magnetism really is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfElG-JwR9Q
--How to use Reiki energy, video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufYPMM4zjRk&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SPF00349D0E4082ED0
--Benefits of Reiki healing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfDstfg-2oI&feature=related
--**An actual reiki session.. RECOMMEND watching!!!
I devoted my interest to the search of info related to Clifford W. Beers. He wrote an autobiography while in mental institutions and in a state of depression. He wrote of maltreatment and experience. I would be very interested to read this book, A Mind that Found Itself. I think it is so interesting how Clifford Beers “used misfortune into a tool to help others.” Clifford Beers also found American Mental Health, and there is also a Clifford Beers Clinic in Massachusetts. Sometimes it takes first-hand accounts of abuse to reach public and reform, reducing stigma is so important as we find connections is previous chapters concerning changes and advancements at times coming from times of needed application. We can all learn something of other perspectives whether it is job shadowing in human service, community service itself, and personal accounts of treatment. History is so important in this case, to know how bad things were and how they will return if not kept up with better and safer and with more dignity in service. Thanks!!
http://www.cliffordbeers.org/clifford-beers-his-legacy/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Whittingham_Beers
http://www.nmha.org/
The person that stuck out the most to me in chapter twelve was Franz Mesmer. I wanted to look into Mesmer’s life and work in more depth because what I got from the book was that he was an interesting man. Mesmer’s early cure with the use of magnets really stuck out to me and that’s why I wanted to find out where it all began.
Franz Anton Mesmer was born May 23, 1734 in the village Iznang found on the shore of Lake Constance in Swabia, Germany. He was the third of nine children in his family. Mesmer’s parents were strong Catholics and tried to encourage him into priesthood. Once he was done studying at the Jesuit universities, Mesmer decided to go study medicine at the University of Vienna. He then began to discuss the different views he had dealing with the human body and disease. In the year 1774, Mesmer produced an “artificial tide” in a patient by having her swallow preparation containing iron, and then attaching magnets to the various parts of her body. After doing this, she reported that she felt streams of mysterious fluid running through her body and she believed that she was cured. However, Mesmer was skeptical and believed that the magnets could not have achieved the cure on their own. He thought he had contributed to animal magnetism.
Mesmer treated patients both individually and in groups. Mesmer would sit with individuals with their knees touching each other, pressing the individual’s thumbs in his hands, looking directly into their eyes. Mesmer would then make “passes,” moving his hands from the person’s shoulders down along their arms. He then pressed his fingers on the person’s hypochondrium region (the area below the diaphragm, sometimes holding his hands there for hours. Many people receiving this felt peculiar sensations or had convulsions that were regarded crises and supposed to bring about cure. Mesmer would often conclude his treatments by playing some music on a glass harmonica. However, without Mesmer knowing, King Louis XVI sent out four members of the Faculty of Medicine to investigate animal magnetism. The King also had five additional commissioners from the Royal Academy of Sciences to go out and investigate. They discovered through a series of experiments that there was no evidence for such a new physical fluid. From this, they determined that whatever benefits the treatment produced was attributed to “imagination.”
Mesmer is considered the first one to lead hypnotism into scientific study; however, there is some controversy with that statement. Mesmer was, at the time, increasingly dissatisfied with the approach to medicine, which included a combination of bleeding, purgatives and opiates that were often more painful than what they were trying to treat. Mesmer wanted to create a more gentle approach that he found was possible with the use of magnets. Mesmer claimed to have impressive results in curing blindness, paralysis, convulsions and other hysterical conditions, as well as effective treatment of menstrual difficulties and hemorrhoids. All of Mesmer’s work demonstrated the power of suggestion. This made him famous and took him on tours where he gave dramatic demonstrations of his techniques and powers at the courts of the European nobility. Despite being criticized about some of his results, Mesmer still practiced without worrying about what other people thought, even though sometimes that got him in trouble.
Franz Mesmer just wanted patients to be treated better than what they were at the time. He may not of had all the answers and people may have felt that he was kind of crazy, but at least he wasn’t physically damaging anyone. I would like to continue to do more research on Mesmer just because I feel that there is so much more information out there; but for homework purposes I felt that it was best to limit my search for the time being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer : I liked this link because it gave some background information on Mesmer as well as talk about his procedure and the investigation that was done having to do with his work.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Applied_History_of_Psychology/Pseudoscientific_Schools_of_Thought : I liked this link because it went into greater depth about Mesmer’s life as well as discussing other people that were a part of it. This link also questions some of Mesmer’s work, which is not unusual.
http://www.historyofhypnosis.org/franz-anton-mesmer/ : I liked this link because I felt that it did a good job presenting the conflicts that Mesmer ran into and how there were people who were not very supportive of his work, but there were some who still followed him and believed that he had good ideas. I guess it’s just a matter of opinion.
Chapter 12 was very interesting. Mental illness and its treatment are so important to psychology and to my own education. In my career aspirations, I hope to work with those that suffer from mental illness and those that are misdiagnosed with this mental illness as well. The part of reading that I chose to think more about was Franz Mesmer and his mesmerizing animal magnetism approach. According to our book and other information on the World Wide Web, Mesmer believed that had humans had aligned magnetic forces within them. When these forces were “off” or shifted, illness was believed to be the result. Mesmer was correct in one aspect of his work, and this was that he had the ability to help those, especially those with mental illness, feel better. In the early part of Mesmer’s experiments with animal magnetism, Mesmer literally used magnets. He would give his patients heavy doses of iron and then run magnets along their body, Mesmer found that these patients would then go into a state of crisis, but when they returned to a state of calm, their health had improved. At this time, Mesmer did not realize that he had created hypnosis. While, Mesmer was conducting these procedures, he would suggest to the patients that things would improve. Although our textbook does not mention the placebo effect, I can’t help but be reminded it. In other classes that I have taken, I have learned that innovative medications and procedures often compare the results of patients on the medications to those of patients given a placebo. It is interesting to think what Mesmer’s patients would have said if they only thought that they were given the dose of iron. Although our book does state that Mesmer was asked to leave Vienna because of the lady touching, it does talk about the investigation that launched against Mesmer and animal magnetism by King Louis XVI. This investigation also included Benjamin Franklin. I am glad that animal magnetism was discussed in this chapter because although I heard the term, I never really quite knew what it meant. And after all, the brilliant minds of Dinner for Schmucks and Paste Magazine are throwing around this term, it was high time I learned it anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
for once, I was really interested in what Wikipedia had to say about something, and I feel that it is reliable information
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/25747/animal-magnetism
this site was a great addition source for explaining more about animal magnetism
http://library.thinkquest.org/22254/Mesmer.htm
A great resource for biographies, such as Mesmer’s
One thing that I find very interesting is dreams. I typically remember my dreams in the morning, sometimes in great detail, and other times just pieces of them. It is so fascinating to think that our mind can create such vivid imagery that is so realistic that we do not realize it is not reality until we wake up. This is something that Sigmund Freud did a lot of research in, and looked at the unconscious to answer some questions about dreams which is how this relates to the chapter.
Freud believed that our uncoucious is very complex. He theorized that we have an id, ego, and a superego. The id is our desires and pleasures, and if it goes uncensored our unmoral desires would be fulfilled. The ego is our rational and moral side of ourselves. The superego is what keeps our id in check to make sure we don’t pursue unmoral desires that the ego is portraying. Frued argues that when we enter into a dream-like state the desires of our id act out because we are in an unconscious state. Freud also argues that the desires of our id can be so disturbing that it would cause us to wake up, so there is some censoring that occurs, and things occur in a more symbolic manner as opposed to being unmoral.
One of the things that Freud did was come up with the meaning for certain things in dreams that are just symbolic of something else. He said that there was the manifest content which was actually what happened, and the latent content which is the meaning behind it. For example, a train may symbolize a major shift in an individuals life. Dancing is symbolic of conformity because dancing conforms to the music that it is danced to. Pregnancy in a dream can be symbolic of desiring a different social position in your life. These are just a few of the dream interpretations that Freud came up with. He used these to help people better understand their dreams.
Freud believed that there were four elements to dreaming, which are condensation, displacement, symbolization, and secondary revision. Condensation occurs when many different ideas and concepts are presented within the same dream. Displacement is when the significant and non-significant concepts are disguised so they are unable to be differentiated between. Symbolization is when the latent and manifest concept do not align, and the concept is symbolized by something else. Lastly, secondary revision occurs when the content of the dream is reorganized so that some sense can be made from the dream.
http://www.dreammoods.com/dreaminformation/dreamtheory/freud.htm-a good overview of the id, ego, and superego, and how they tied into dreams
http://dreaminterpretation.freudfile.org/dream_symbols.html This site had the dream symbolism.
http://www.dreaminterpretation-dictionary.com/freuds-theory-on-dreams.html This site had a good section about manifest and latent content of a dream.
http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/p/dream-interpret.htm this described the dream process well.
Hello, TAs. I've already spoken with Otto about being out of state this week for a funeral and he knows that I'll be posting these late, although you may want to double check with him on everything. I'm posting both Tuesday's and Thursday's posts here, back-to-back, so they'll be easier for you to find. Thanks!
The first interesting thing I found in Chapter 12 was Dorothea Dix’s crusade to reform mental health institutions. She traveled more than 60,000 miles – while ill with what they now believe was TB – and wrote stunning reports or “exposés.” She presented them to multiple state legislatures and was the reason that many of them enacted regulations to better the lives of the mentally ill and institutionalized.
Another fascinating person was Clifford Beers. He was a Yale graduate who tried to commit suicide and was institutionalized for a year with depression. He was later released and wrote a book titled A Mind That Found Itself. I thought it was interesting that his story was taken very seriously, not only because he could expose the ugly truths to the emotional and physical abuse he endured at the hands of the attendants and the incompetence of the psychiatrists, but because he was a success story that mental illness COULD be “cured.”
I knew that Franz Anton Mesmer had stumbled upon human suggestion and hypnosis (hence “mesmerize”), but the best part of this story comes from the magnets involved. He’d been using magnets to create his effect, but he found that he could create the effect even without the magnets and just by passing his hands over the patients. Instead of coming to the (now obvious) conclusion that maybe it wasn’t the magnets but the motion and verbal process that created it, Mesmer believed that he’d become magnetized.
Less interesting to me was the section on Freud and psychoanalysis, but only because I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last five years learning about him and his theories on sexuality, projection, and the human ego. (Don’t get me wrong… it’s an interesting subject, but I’m more interested in the parts I haven’t already read 100 times.)
The most interesting applied psychologist in Chapter 12 involves a confounding variable. It belongs to Benjamin Rush, the surgeon general to the Continental Army of the American Revolution and signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as a trained doctor who believed that mental illness involved the blood and the circulatory system. He promoted bloodletting to cure the hypertension of the brain that was causing the mentally disturbed to be agitated, but we now know that it worked simply because the patients were too weak to be disruptive. Hearing things like this reminds me to be cautious when evaluating therapies/treatments.
Also belonging to Rush was the invention of two unusual devices: the gyrator and the tranquilizer. The gyrator was a “revolving board on which a patient would be spun rapidly.” The tranquilizer was a chair paired with a box over the patient’s head. Strange therapy, but it was a beginning!
As far as being most useful to the history of psychology, I think the most relevant bit was Benjamin Franklin’s response to his friend when considering a trip to a mesmerist and his acknowledgement of a placebo effect. He told the friend that hypochondriacs may be “cured” by Mesmer’s treatment, but that the true cause of the cure is obscured.
Rather than choose one person or detail from previous chapters to draw comparisons, I thought it appropriate to compare themes. One thing I noticed from Chapter 12 that was similar to many other chapters was that there were one or two infamous psychologists in each, surrounded by a dozen less well-known names belonging to people who’ve helped psychology make great strides. For instance, we could compare Watson and the lesser known Mary Watson Jones (who pioneered systematic desensitization) from Chapter 10 - very similar to the Freud and the lesser known (although far from obscure) Dix of Chapter 12. Perhaps more obvious would be Freud versus Beers or Rush.
I think I’d like to learn more about French physician Phillipe Pinel. During the French Revolution, he advocated a traitement moral or “moral treatment” of patients and removed chains on about 15% of patients and began using a reward and punishment system to encourage good behavior.
Here's part 2 for this week (see above post). Thanks again...
I chose Philippe Pinel and his moral treatment. This is important to the discussion of Chapter 12 because he was one of the pioneers who changed the face of the mental institution and treatment of the mentally ill. He helped start a shift away from the harsh treatments and chains that became common up to that point.
Philippe Pinel was a Frenchman born into a family of physicians. He studied medicine at Toulouse and tried and failed twice to win a competition that would have given him funds to continue his studies. (Because of what he later accomplished, many have claimed that his “failure” was politically motivated sabotage and not due to a lack of intelligence, as the judges had claimed.)
Pinel’s obsession with mental health intensified after a friend devolved into mania and committed suicide via running into the wilderness and being eaten by wolves. Pinel sought out employment that put him in direct contact with the mentally ill. (He would later push for “traitement moral,” and would become referred to by some as the father of modern psychiatry. He also wrote the Nosographie in which he made classifications of illnesses, and thus, many consider him a master of internal medicine as well.)
Many have incorrectly interpreted Pinel’s moral treatment. The word “moral” meant less about morality (le morale) and more about the psyche and the passions (le moral). Too much of the passions – which might manifest in drunkenness, gluttony, sexual deviance and other excesses – was bad for a person’s mental health. This is how one might perceive the moral treatment to contain a value system, when in reality, science is supposed to be devoid of traditional and religious values. Also considered an excess of passions were jealousy, ambition and religious devotion, all in the extreme, of course.
Along with the help of Jean-Baptiste Pussin, the harsh chains of patients at Bicetre were removed and replaced with more humane “shackles.” Pinel did away with bleeding, blistering and purging in exchange for careful observation of patients and a punishment/reward system. He encouraged students to take notes at the patients’ bedsides and document every minute of the illness. He promoted the idea that patients should use good hygienic habits, get exercise, and be given purposeful work. They considered it important that the patient’s self-esteem be built up, and they focused on discipline and addressing inner struggles.
It should be noted that Pinel and Pussin were not alone; Samuel Tuke also applied a humanitarian approach at the York Retreat. He was considered the “lay version” to Pinel’s medical aspect.
http://www.pinelschool.org/pp.htm Very comprehensive report on Pinel’s life. I used this link to gather personal details on Pinel and his moral treatment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Pinel Provides a nice overview of Pinel’s life and works with references and links. I chose this link because it gives the larger picture.
http://www.jemh.ca/conferences/2010/documents/LouisCharlandJEMH2010conference.ppt Has a lot of nice pictures of the institutions and bits of data on the Moral Treatment movement in its early stages. Gives a breakdown of the moral treatment and the ethical implications.
I was pretty interested in our discussion on hypnosis in the last class. Specifically, I was interested in the use of hypnosis as a way to relieve pain, so I decided to do a blog about hypnosis and pain relief. I think this is really interesting, because hypnosis has always seemed so sketchy to me. I never really knew that there was research support for it, and my experience with stage hypnotists did not help. A year ago I was even hypnotized as a part of a show, but I did not experience any of the symptoms that the hypnotist said we would (memory loss, etc.). I think a consequence of the pop-psychological mystique of hypnosis is this blurring of the line between real psychological phenomena and stage show suggestibility. An example of this line being blurred in the text, even way back in the nineteenth century, was Martin Charcot and his "hysterical" subjects. Undoubtedly, much of that was for the show, but where is the line between genuine hypnosis and sheer suggestibility?
This topic fits into the part of the chapter that discussed Mesmerism and the evolution of hypnosis from sheer quackery into a legitimate subject of study. In particular, it is relevant to the section on James Esdaile, the Scottish surgeon who used mesmerism as an anesthetic in India. He was widely criticized at the time, but later research has born him out.
We now know that much of pain is psychological: we expect something to hurt, and it does. My impression from this research is that pain seems to be largely an interpretation of stimuli (more perception than sensation), and so by processing those stimuli differently, it is possible to avoid the experience of pain to a large degree.
There is also neurological evidence for hypnosis in that it seems to deactivate the pain center of the brain, or by affecting various levels of pain recognition in the nervous system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqYpc8FAb64
This BBC video investigates hypnosis and pain relief first hand (literally, they put a needle in this guy's hand, don't watch it if you're squeamish).
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/1999F/Hypnotism.pdf
This article provides a good review of the evidence that hypnosis is effective at relieving pain. I used it because I thought it was all-around very informative about hypnosis and pain relief, as it detailed the psychological and physiological evidence for the therapy.
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/60/5/713.pdf
This is an article in a clinical psych journal about the use of hypnosis to treat burn pain. I used it because burns are extremely painful, and so I thought this study demonstrated a good example of the potential of hypnosis as a pain reliever.
I decided to read more about Freud and his collection of art and antiquities. I am interested in these subjects myself; and I think that, considering how Freud saw unconscious desires as being behind all actions, an examination of his collection might yield some insight into the man himself.
Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis, and as his work was concerned with exploring the subconscious (Goodwin, 2008, 414). As such, he was described as an "archaeologist of the mind" by one of his biographers (Dudar, 1990). Anderson claims that Freud left behind no explanation for his interest in antiquities (Anderson, 2008), but there are in fact records of comments that Freud made about them. Anderson cites one of these comments herself: “He once observed to a patient that what is conscious in the mind ‘wears away’ while the unconscious remains more or less intact. Freud had pointed to objects in his rooms saying they were: ‘objects found in a tomb, [but] their burial had been their preservation’” (2008).
Freud’s interest in artifacts and antiquities (especially, those from Egypt) was not uncommon at that time; there was great interest in Egyptian artifacts across Europe in the 19th Century, a phenomenon known as ‘Egyptomania’ (Wikipedia). Scientists and wealthy collectors alike delighted in acquiring and studying these items.
Freud clearly understood archaeology as a metaphor for psychoanalysis; but did the artifacts in his collection hold more significance for him?
Freud had to flee Vienna in 1938, when the Nazis occupied Austria. Threatened with the loss of his entire collection, Freud selected a small bronze of Athena, goddess of war and patron of the arts, to be the sole piece smuggled out of Austria; at his new home in London (now the Freud Museum), he gave her pride of place in the center of his desk.
Referring to the image of Medusa’s head which appears on Athena’s breastplate (Medusa was a beautiful woman, but Athena changed her appearance after Poseidon raped her in Athena’s temple [Wikipedia]), Freud said, “This symbol of horror is worn upon her dress by the virgin goddess Athena. And rightly so, for thus she becomes a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. Since the Greeks were in the main strongly homosexual, it was inevitable that we should find among them a representation of woman as a being who frightens and repels [a male] because she is castrated.” (Freud, 1922, SE, 18, p273, as cited in Freud Museum). So it seems that Freud found the artifacts in his collection to be useful both as symbolic references and as historical evidence for his own theories.
Anderson, P. (2008). Sigmund Freud's antique gods. Quadrant, 52(5), 30+. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE|A179456207&v=2.1&u=uni_rodit&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1
Dudar, H. (1990). The unexpected private passion of Sigmund Freud. Smithsonian, 21(5), 100+. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A9236651&v=2.1&u=uni_rodit&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w
Freud Museum: Greek and Roman Antiquities
http://www.freud.org.uk/education/topic/40037/subtopic/40050/
Descriptons of the objects in Freud’s collection, with quotes by Freud.
Laura Brandt Freud Museum. Uploaded by psychologyforyou on Mar 6, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LukWVjD_Ms0
Video footage of Freud’s preserved office, including his collection of antiquities.
Freud Museum. Uploaded by CamdenCouncil on Aug 28, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzBipozcuD8
Video footage of Freud’s preserved office, including his collection of antiquities.
Freud'sLondonHomeEgyptianArtifacts.mov. Uploaded by PACIFICRIMHI on Jan 7, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pKMqmr-JRw
Wikipedia: Egyptomania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptomania
Wikipedia: Athena
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena