Conclusion

In this assignment I developed my writing technique based on all the topics about my studies field. Practically I enjoy this, because I could improve my writing and develop my critical thinking. I have to accept that this assignment had been very helpful regarding my concentration. Searching for all that information concerning my department helped me clarify my doubts about what I want to pursue in the future. At the beginning my first entry says that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist, and I still hold on to that statement. All that information made me learned what I liked and dislike about my concentration and I decided that in a future I would like to work in a psychiatric hospital, because mental disorders are my best interest.

Serial Murderers

Serial murderers or better known as a multiple murderer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of time that typically ranges between thirty days or more, leaving a cooling period between each murder. The motivation that these criminals had is based on psychological gratification that drives to the act. For years, psychologists have studied the minds of these criminals to know the reason for their actions and had come to some conclusions. There is a theory that explains differentiation between a serial murderer and a normal person: abuse, mental illness and dysfunctional mind, which mean neurological damage.

There are a huge variety of serial murderers, but one that caused great controversy was the serial killer clown, and no is not the clown from the movie “It”, but a man who disguised himself as a clown to catch and kill their victims violently. This began by killing two children and then when he got out of prison he kill eleven prostitutes by strangling them, although there were a lot of more victims. He confirm the theory all ready mentioned because he was found with neurological damage due to many falls that suffered when he was young. The abuses are clearly in his past because when he was a child his mother sexually abused him. Finally he was also diagnosed with mental illness.

Not all serial killers confirm this theory, since there have been cases where murderers do not experience any of those three factors but can be more dangerous and ruthless than the above. The murderers who do not follow this theory are considered psychopaths; they are more dangerous and ruthless. The difference is that the emotional response of a psychopath in less active, meaning they lack of feelings and what drives them to be even more dangerous is the lack of fear. The lack of emotion and fear is who leads them to commit more crimes and deaths.

There are a huge number of serial murderers cases, each with a different story and strategy. What makes this interesting is that the brain of a killer is different of the brain of a normal person, because of the prefrontal cortex, among other characteristics. There are a lot of studies and investigations that identify whether a person is a killed or not. It's a fascinating and important topic in psychology because with these new discoveries it becomes easier to identify these people and prevent them from causing more damage and harm, in order to live in a world with less violence and crime.

Technological Diseases

It's not a secret that technology has advanced in a surprising way that benefits as it affects us. Lately it affects more than it benefits, this is why there is a wide variety of investigations and studies according to technology. Not only there are biological diseases but also there exist diseases or disorders due to technology. Research and studies concerning this aim to know the effects they have on our brain according to the new technologies. These exciting new diseases have to do with the Internet and mobile.

The most common psychological disorders among Internet and mobiles users are: syndrome of the imaginary call, this is when it feels that the phone rings either normal sound mobile or feel you got a message but it is all in the mind, it’s not happening in reality and usually happens when the person is stress out. Nomophobia, is when the person feels phobia about not having their mobile close.  Cyber Dizziness is the most absurd of all but is true and this is when users of virtual reality feel dizzy. Depression by “Facebook” is another disorder, I remember talking about this in my social psychology class, may seem ridiculous, but many people feel depressed to see that other people have "a better life" through “Facebook”. Internet dependence is the most common of all, is when people depend on technology constantly, as the dependence on online games. The “Cibercondria” disorder is when you feel that you have a disease that read or see online at the moment. Finally the Google Effect disorder, has to do when if you are wondering about something you Google it instead of thinking yourself about it.

In the process of acquiring knowledge about this, I conclude that technology is finishing with humanity, I might be exaggerating a little bit but it’s slowly happening over time.  These new diseases may appear to be absurd and ridiculous but it is the reality in which we live today. At least we must recognize that we suffer some of them, because I admit that I suffer from the imaginary call syndrome, perhaps of stress, who knows. I also recognize that these disorders shouldn’t exist, because there are limits and we have the benefit of using the technology to use it right and productively but the reality is that rare time we use it for these purposes. We should be more aware regarding the excessive and unhealthy use we give to technology, because ultimately we are the ones who seem to be affected.

Teletubbies

"The Teletubbies" is a children television series, targeted pre-school viewers that appeared in the late nineties. It is based on four main characters: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, each one with a respective color, with antennas of different shapes, each with a TV in their belly and another character that is a vacuum cleaner named Noo-noo. Takes place on a field surrounded by grass, artificial flowers, real rabbits all over the place, a sun with a real baby face on it and a strange house with some technological base. You may wonder why this topic in a blog based on psychology, well this have an explanation. This children's program has caused quite controversy not only for parents who allow their children to watch TV but also for psychologists. Psychologists seem interested in this topic, they had asked: why this show is categorized for twelve-month-old children’s? It has any educational purpose? How this program helps in the development of a child? Why so many parents have created a negative controversy regarding to this show?

At first the "Teletubbies" show, seems harmless, very colorful and happy for early childhood, which aims to help preschoolers, acquire skills, prepare for school, to help in their language development, find comfort in technology and to stimulate imagination and facilitate motor development. Psychology research has concluded that there is no evidence that the program is educational in any aspect for a one-year-old child, that don’t contribute in their language or help them to feel comfortable with technology. In conclusion there is nothing to suggest that can facilitate motor development of a child 12 months old or that it has an educational value at all. On the contrary, it was found that children 12 months old shouldn’t be watching TV, but after being three years old, because early television results in obesity, decreased school participation, causes changes in the arteries located in the eyes, increased risk of high blood pressure, among other consequences.

I had read so many articles in relation to this subject and it appeared to have so much controversy regarding to this show such as; the history, symbols, characters, setting, etc. One of the controversies which many agreed about was referring to the character Tinky Winky (the violet one) for being gay and Dipsy (the green one) for being black, but as I have no homophobic or racist problem I will not go into detail. Not only this, it is said that the characters are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, also identifying them as demons. It is said to that it shows subliminal messages that go directly to the subconscious of the child using collective hypnosis, which is quite interesting, since I had previously made an entry regarding to hypnosis. Recently had read an article by a mother who said that her son after seeing this program attacked her at midnight, describing that his son was possessed in some way. The last article that I read about the “Teletubbies” was that the show was inspired by a horrifyingly true story based on children of an institute of mental disability in Bulgaria that have a sad/horrible end and the show was created to make this a happy ending for the children’s that had suffered in the past.

Ignoring all these numbers of stories and articles relating to this popular toddler program, I found the task of seeing an episode of “Teletubbies” to be able to jump into my own conclusions. After watch a whole episode I concluded the following: It is a very absurd program without any logic at all, the characters are creepy as hell, not a sign of any early childhood education, moral or teaching, and the language used in this case the babbling does nothing regarding to the child development of language. The “Teletubbies” are not the only infant program that lacks education and contain subliminal messages, there are many others like this but at least in this case there have several psychological researches. I'm not a mother, but I’m an aunt and I care about the education and development of my niece and if I understand that there is a programs that are unsuitable for them is my responsibility to prohibit the access of it. It is very important if you are in charge of an infant and you let them watch TV, make sure is something appropriate to his age or appropriate at all. 

The Stanford Experiment

Some psychologists decided to do an experiment with the participation of students from the University of Stanford. This experiment was carried out in the prison of Stanford University who was located in the basement of the psychology building. The experiment in the psychology of imprisonment occurred in the late seventies, in order to see what happen to good people when they deal with a bad situation, which in this case is the prison. The volunteers were examined to verify that they were physically and mentally healthy, and then randomly selected who would play the role of prisoners and guards.

This whole process made it look very realistic, the future prisoners were arrested in their own homes and then took them through a process, like everything was real. The results of this experiment were surprising and caused great controversy in the world of psychology. Fantasy became reality, as the results of many changes in their behavior. Young good college guys became brutal guards, healthy boys got sick and active boys became passive prisoners, almost like zombies. Many of them had to be released because of the extreme situations they were in but they never said that wanted to voluntarily leave the experiment because they were so catch up in that fantasy. They abandoned the experiment in six days when it supposed to last two weeks.

This experiment gave so much to talk about, because many psychologists believed that this study broke the ethical principles of psychology and expressed that the experiment should never happened. Is quite odd because the participates otherwise expressed that they were fascinated by the results, because they could not believe that they were able to do the things that they did, now they know their bad side.  I believe that despite of the problems with the professional ethics that a psychologist should have, the experiment was very good and was very successful, as it explained things that were unknown and participants learned about this experience. I understand that there are two important points in here: when you live a fantasy role you may end up believing it and there are parts of us that we not know about, that are hidden unless we see our self in some sort of extreme situation. 

Bipolarity Disorder in Children

Bipolarity is a mental disorder marked by episodes of mania and depression. In children, the disorder can be much difficult to define and treat. Bipolarity can be seen as a series of outbursts and tantrums that may be daily or temporary and in disproportionately form, compared to other children who do not suffer from this disorder. A child with bipolarity can be identified for their constant tantrums; the face change, look constantly at the floor, roll their eyes almost blank, clench their fists and make grunting; in some cases. The change in the mood is another factor, first it’s happy and calm and suddenly the mood changes drastically, can get depressed and enrage for not understanding what is happening.

They are by episodic nature, meaning they begin to have manic and depressive episodes. When they are angry, they do not measure what they say or do because it is hard for them to control it on their own, and may even cause harm not only to itself but also to others. The worst thing of all is that these children can destroy the benefits and welfare of their family. The problem of treating children with this disorder is the medication, because this has to be treated with so much carefulness, although it is proven that sports help them as a therapy.

This mental illness is very worrisome because it plays with the life and innocence of the children’s. Their lives are like a roller coaster; it goes up and down their emotions so constantly. In consequence of this disorder children’s are being bullied, don’t have friends because other kids don’t know how to handle the episodes situations, they tend to become depressed and find it difficult to be at social events. I remember being in situations in which children have tantrums and outbursts, not saying that necessarily mean they are bipolar but people tend to judge, thinking that is nurturing that is given to the child, without having in mind that the child could be suffering from some type of disorder, that’s why it is so important to be informed.

Psychosis

The concept of psychosis is used to refer to those mental disorders characterized by some loss of contact with reality. When a person suffers from this type of disorder is said that the person had a psychotic episode. Psychosis is a common disorder that affects mostly young adults. Often cause changes in mood and mindset, causing abnormal ideas and this make it difficult to understand what the person with the disease is felling.

This disorder can be identified by the following symptoms: confused thoughts, false beliefs, hallucinations, emotional changes and perceptual and behavioral changes. It’s important to emphasize that psychosis affects each person differently. This is extremely complex, since there are to many different types of psychosis, which differs each one and have different ways to be treated. Some of these might be: drug-induced psychosis, organic psychosis, brief reactive psychosis, delusional disorder, schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, bipolar disorder and finally psychotic depression.

This disorder is extremely complex and the strangest thing is that it can come from nowhere. I don’t know anyone who suffers from this disorder, but I've seen so to many movies, read about cases, as I have also read articles regarding this and I find psychosis in general extremely fascinating. It is so different to read the information that Internet provided to us and compare it to real complex cases of people who suffer from this disorder, because the Internet makes you see this problem as something appease and normal, but the reality is different. The problem is that many people with this disease do not seek for help, don’t have any professional help or simply do not follow their treatment or don’t take the medications. As a result of this, the disorder may increase to the point of putting at risk the lives of others or putting the person own life at risk.  

Nightmares

A nightmare is a dream, which causes distress or fear in the person. The nightmare has become a topic of discussion in psychology, as it studied; the causes, has to do with brain function, it comes from the unconscious, among other things. It is said that the nightmare may have a psychological motive, either by anxiety disorder or trauma, as well as by physiological reason. It is also said that the negative attitude toward the self, insomnia and fatigue are the most common risk factors for having frequent nightmares. These three factors are correlated with insomnia and depression. Previously I had discussed a little about depression but had forgotten to stand out that nightmares could be an early indicator of the depression disorder and is quite interesting to know that nightmares are more common in women than in men.

One of the most interesting things about nightmares is that like in the dream, it appears a series of symbols that can be interpreted as key messages from our subconscious. Many people had been giving to this symbols meanings and associations key concepts that occur in our dreams or nightmares, for example, if you dream of a tsunami wave it means you have many worries and concerns. I understand that everyone writes his own dreams or nightmares according to their own experiences, fears and concerns, and is not that everything has a specific meaning. The nightmares also appear from fear, uneasiness or pain that someone had experienced or by a problem. Now you understand why you have nightmares after watching a horror movie.

Somehow we all had experienced nightmares but it is interesting to know why. The psychology field is pretty interested in this topic, because if the nightmares occur frequently it’s considered a sleep disorder that has to be immediately treated. Experience nightmares are very normal, unless they are frequent as the above. Is nice to know that as you get older the nightmares decrease, because it’s very common in children and these are hardly frequently in adults. It is interesting that as you get older you begin to realize that everything has an explanation, even the nightmares that we thought as kids that they occurred without any explanation, now we know the reason of why. 

Depression

Depression is an emotional disorder that makes the person feel sad and lethargic, experiencing inner discomfort and hindering their interactions with the environment. We are surrounded daily by people, but to know a person is facing this disorder is a little bit tricky, because this is not something you seen with the naked eye nor people are saying out loud that have depression...well it is not something that common. Unfortunately it is an invisible illness  that like to play with the mind of people who has it. People with this mental illness feels useless, constantly crying, anxious, have low self esteem, low energy, difficulty sleeping, physical in pain and sees future somehow blurred. Depression is caused: biologically, cognitively, by gender, by medications, genetically and for some types of situations.   

       Depression is a bit complex and can be different for each person that has it. People with the disorder can have the same symptoms but can be manifested differently. There is a huge number of very interesting facts regarding this disorder, but most of them are: blurry memory, exercise helps with depression as well as prevent it in the future, causing more physical pain than someone without the presence of this illness and that women suffer this disorder twice as men. The disorder often tends to confuse and because of this, the person who suffer of depression may not being treated properly. It is tended to prejudice a person who is suffering from this disorder, thinking that the person is being weak, slow according to overcome past events, being so dramatic and the worst of all is thinking that the person can control simply this illness. The reality is that the person cannot control this easily and the person that doesn’t have this disorder cannot even imagine how strong and hard is to have it and fight it.

It has to be understood that depression is a common serious illness and not a personal weakness and it can happen to anyone. Currently I know two people who are going through this disorder and I had learned gradually how to handle such situations by helping, advising and especially having a lot of patience towards them. I understand that we should be more informed and educated concerning this topic, because lately we live in a world where we only worry about ourselves and we do not realize that the person next to us may be suffering or fighting this mental illness. This is a very serious issue because not everyone handles situations in the same way and many of these cases end in suicide.

Hypnosis

For this topic is taken as reference an article about hypnosis: “El Trance Hipnótico”, by Alfredo López, published on December 19, 2008. Hypnosis describes the procedure and techniques taught by a hypnotist based on suggestion (and using an own imagination) to produce changes in the hypnotized such as alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behavior. This article discusses what is and what is not hypnosis on cognitive processes such as memory and perception of pain, researchers and fundamental principles of hypnosis, behavior of the subjects to be hypnotized, brain activity, identifying a subject to be hypnotized (if pretends to be) on experiments, studies, meta-analyzes that have been conducted and finally how hypnosis work.

The process of hypnosis begins with the suggestion phase, where the specific goals or impressions are presented, it is also the most famous stage where you ask questions to the subject, and explore their memories. Then you move to post-suggestion phase that occurs after the subject returns to its normal state of consciousness, in this state the subject may experience different behaviors due to hypnotic suggestion. All this in order to achieve an altered state of consciousness in which the mind is relaxed in order to have greater access to the unconscious mind and thus this subject more susceptible to suggestion for better result or benefit. An interesting point in the article is the observation by Hilgard and Eva I. Banyai, which concluded that they are no difference in where and how to do hypnosis because it will have the same result. For example, observing a subject on a stationary bike responded to hypnotic suggestions exactly like the one being hypnotized in a comfortable seat. Hypnosis has many benefits but one of the most important is that relieves or reduce pain and this makes it a more effective practice, since it is more effective than many prescription drugs, have no side effects, helps relieve symptoms and reduce the effects disorders: chronic, anxiety, psychosomatic and addiction.

Hypnosis is an extremely important component not only in psychology but also in medicine. The article mentioned previously served as a great benefit to understand the concept of hypnosis, because people often tend to misinterpret this therapy. Taking for example; people who are hypnotized do not lose control, they are aware of who they are and were they at, and they usually remember what happened during hypnosis and this do not force anyone to experience the suggestions but to facilitated. This therapy can be useful to achieve control of certain behaviors or emotions as well if you need relief from any pain. I remember previously seen a section of hypnosis in a movie called "The Forth Kind" and made me wonder about this practice, and how this helps not only to remember past events delving into the memory but also is very broad and complex in the world of psychology.

Why Psychology?

          I will like to start this entry giving the definition of this discipline. Psychology is a science, which studies human and animal behavior. This discipline is concerned with both the theoretical, performance and development of the mind as the study of biological, social and cultural aspects of behavior, socially and individually. It is widely diverse, full of sub-areas and branches field because in psychology you can apply the skills, knowledge and understanding of various activities undertaken by humans and this is reflected in your daily activities. These activities can be events, socialization, education, employment, personal relationships and even mental health treatments. The funny thing is that this discipline is like any other science that requires various other areas of study in which correlate such as: need of humanities, natural sciences, social sciences among others.

      Psychology is very interesting because it focuses on feelings, thoughts, adaptations in the environment in which people live and how this also defined, all conclusions product of the analysis and direct observation, lean them into theories that serve as guide to learn, explain and even predict future actions. The study of psychology teaches how humans think, their behavior and how they get to make decisions. The study of this field goes for a deeper understanding of the personal world. This study applied to other disciplines to give students more tools to understand the underlying behaviors in various fields of study. The application of knowledge of psychology to various spheres of human activity, including issues related to the daily life of the family, education, work and treatment of mental health problems.

          My first approach and study was the natural sciences, I had my ups and downs in this field but I realized that the road of medicine was not for me. The second option was psychology and until today there are no regrets. It is a broad and interesting field because everything you do has to do with the brain and mind. According to the branches of psychology I will incline towards clinical psychology. I consider this very interesting branch because is responsible for investigating, evaluating, diagnosing, predicting, rehabilitate, treat and prevent everything that affects mental health.

Introduction

       Hi my name is Geralisse Carrión Cruz, I’m at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey and this is my blog. In this blog you will enter into the world of psychology, that is my current field of study and I am thrill to introduce a variety of topics, discussions among many other things in this blog. This will help me as a student of this field and to you to learn and understand a little bit about this discipline.  Each week a will be presenting a topic of this field that will be narrowed and discussed. In these topics I will develop and apply my skills and knowledge of writing and will express my thoughts. In addition you will find photos or videos on each topic, to help you visualize what I’m talking about. In this process I’ll realize already stated objective and present what I've learned.