I am OCD

I am Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I am an anxiety disorder. I give you unwanted, repetitive, ridiculous thoughts and cause you to act on those thoughts every few minutes. I am more common among teens and young adults than anyone else. I might make you think of death or make you feel helpless in a situation you can't control. Because I make you feel this way, you might wash your hands until your skin gets raw, or open the oven exactly ten times, then put the turkey in the oven and take it out exactly ten times. I cause you to convulse so much that your personal life ends up in shambles and it becomes impossible for you to live the happy life you once took for granted.

Medicating Kids With Mental Disorders

Medicating Kids should be an absolute last resort no matter what. All other options, such as therapy or a change in environment or routine, should be exhausted first. A parent should never put a child on medication simply because they cannot handle the child's behavior. However, if the child is exhibiting behaviors like self-injury or hallucinations or other severe behaviors, medication should be used to preserve a normal quality of life.

My sister is on medication for ADHD, but I still don't know if I agree with that decision. When she was three or four, we took her to a psychiatrist because she would have multiple tantrums each day. [To be honest, I always thought it was because my parents let her do whatever she wanted.] The doctor tried therapy first, which didn't really work all that well. She had us record Melanie's behavior every day for a month before deciding to put her on medication. The first medication she was on curved her appetite to the point where she was skin and bones. With the second medication, she would lay on the couch after school each day and say she just wanted to rest. I had never seen a child so still and lifeless, and I think seeing her that way is what made me decide that I did not agree with medicating her. She is now on a medicine that is not actually behavioral, but rather a very low dose of blood pressure medication called Intuniv. She has a healthy appetite and is still very active, but I do still think that she only acts the way she does because she is never told no. I do, however, agree with the way the situation was handled; and I am glad that medicating her was the very last thing they tried, rather than the first.

In September of 2010, a boy named Kyle and his mother were interviewed by the New York Times about medicating kids. At 18 months, Kyle was on about six different medicines because the doctor claimed he was autistic, bipolar, hyperactive, as well as an insomniac. They put him on two sleeping medications, antidepressants, an antipsychotic, and one pill a day for attention deficit; all by the time he was three. The side effects from the medicines made Kyle gain an obscene amount of weight. He also would drool a lot and seem heavily sedated, said his mother. She said that even at three years old, he barely knew how to speak. He couldn't say simple words like mama or dog; words that arguably, he should have known by the age of one. When she realized that Kyle was suffering from all the side effects, she had the doctors wean him off of all the medications except one for attention deficit. At the time of the interview, he was a normal, happy six-year-old boy. His mother said that if she could go back and do it all again, she'd have tried therapy first and never put Kyle on medication (Wilson, Duff). This story is proof that more often than not, medicating a child should be the last resort. The side effects of these strong antipsychotics and other medications designs for adults could rob a kid of the normalcy and personality that they should be guaranteed. 

Also interviewed were seven-year-old Jessica and her mother Elaine. Jessica was put on an antipsychotic at the age of three. Later in the process however, it was discovered that Jessica was not psychotic at all; rather, she had developmental delays as well as an unstable home life. Because of this discovery, Jessica was weaned off the antipsychotic and participated in therapy until she was six, which was too old for the free therapy program. In the interview, the therapist explains that therapies are much more expensive than medication, which is often why low-income families choose medication over therapies. Elaine told NYT that medicating children is a good idea so that the mothers can have a break from the disruptive behavior of their children, and even if doctors asked her to, she would not take Jessica off medication (Wilson, Duff). A doctor clearly stated that Jessica was not psychotic, but instead had developmental delays and an unstable home life. Yet her mother put her back on medication. Children should not be medicated so that their mother's can "have a little break," as Elaine put it. They should be medicated only if the child truly has a disorder.

 In one CNN interview with Dr. Shan Yin, he said that using medication this way can be compared to abuse. He claimed that often the motive of using drugs on children "could widely vary, such as overwhelmed parents looking for a break, amusement, or punishment." He said that "Anytime you're giving a medication for any other purpose other than for what it's explicitly prescribed for, you run the risk of harming your child." Jill Smokler, mother of a 1 1/2 year old girl, said that medicating your kid is "not the end of the world." She blogged about how giving your child Benedryl or cough syrup so they'll sleep is a selfish thing to do, but "sometimes you just need it" (Park, Madison).

A boy named Gavin, 11 at the time of the interview, took 119 pills each week. He has Asperger's syndrome and schizoaffective disorder, which is similar to schizophrenia. Without the medication, he couldn't tell the difference between reality and hallucinations, and often tried to jump out the second story window in his house, saying he could fly. His parents say that without the medication, Gavin wouldn't have a very good life (Park, Madison). This is a classic case where the child clearly needs medication, and there aren't really any other options.

As in the case of my sister, all options should be tried before medication. As in the case of Kyle, if the medication is ruining the child's everyday life, they should be weaned off and either put on different meds, or try a different way of coping. Jessica's mother should not have her daughter on medication just to get a break from her, but there are cases where the child does need help and medication is the only thing that can be afforded. There are cases like Gavin where medication is the only answer, and it should be used so that the child's life can be as normal as possible. But medication should only be used if absolutely necessary.

WORKS CITED

Park, Madison. "Drugging Kids for Parents' Relief Called Abusive." CNN. Cable News Network, 22 July 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/22/drugged.children.parenting/index.html>.

 Park, Madison. "Little People, Lots of Pills: Experts Debate Medicating Kids." CNN. Cable News Network, 24 May 2011. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/23/kids.overmedicated/index.html>.

Wilson, Duff. "Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young." The New York Times. The New York Times, 1 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02kids.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=homepage&src=me>.

Medicating Kids with ADHD [5 Point Blog #13]

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2012/01/01/panic-time-were-running-out-of-adhd-drugs

I have always been on the borderline about medicating kids with mental disorders, especially ADHD. I feel strongly that way too many kids are being treated for ADHD. There are a lot of factors that go into my opinion, though. I'm not saying that ADHD does not exist; I do believe that some kids do have things like ADHD and bipolar, and they should be treated so their childhood can be happy and healthy.

 HOWEVER, I feel that a lot of times, kids are just being kids. If a child is bouncing off the walls, let them outside and let them play. If they are throwing constant tantrums and you just give in all the time, then they are just acting that way because they know it works. I feel like a lot of times, parents jump to medication way too soon. They need to try a different parenting technique, try therapy, try EVERYTHING they can. I feel so strongly that medication should be a last resort. Especially because a lot of this medication can be so dangerous in the long run.

I found a video on TED.com where a guy named Sir Ken Robinson talks about how schools are squashing creativity. About 15 minutes into the video, he tells a very interesting story about a woman who is now a super famous choreographer; however, when she was a young girl, her teacher told her mom that she may have a learning disability because she never stopped moving. It ties into Sir Robinson's speech because the woman figures out that she is a kinesthetic learner, and that type of learning is relatively frowned upon in public schools. 

The point is, this woman didn't have a disability; rather, she had an amazing talent, and if the doctor had put her on medication, she might never have discovered it. If a child truly has a disorder, then they have every right to medication and a normal life. But I strongly believe that there are MANY circumstances where the child just needs to be put in a different environment, or find a different outlet for their energy, or the parents just need to try a new technique, or maybe the child just needs therapy. But medication, whether it's a mental disorder or a physical problem, should ALWAYS be the last resort.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

My Personality [Blog #12]

The results for each of the personality tests that I took are as follows:

big 5 personality 1:
extraversion: 45%
agreeableness: 8%
conscientiousness: 38%
emotional stability: 72%
openness: 45%

big 5 personality 2:
extraversion: 64%
agreeableness [cooperation]: 20%
conscientiousness [dutifulness]: 45%
emotional stability: 73%
openness: 35%

Both of my extraversion scores were kind of in the middle, and my score for agreeableness is quite low for both [which surprises me, but also does not surprise me]. I'm on the lower side of being in the middle region for conscientiousness. I am very emotionally stable, and averagely open to new situations. The tests are pretty reliable; I got very similar scores for both. It was easy to tell which questions were testing whether I was lying, probably because I knew they were going to be there. I didn't lie on any of them, because I didn't really feel threatened by a score I wouldn't like, or one that one effect me negatively. I do feel that I answered the same question differently once or twice simply because the wording made me think differently and therefore answer differently.

MMPI:
ESTP
Extroverted (E) 62.86% Introverted (I) 37.14%
Sensing (S) 55.26% Intuitive (N) 44.74%
Thinking (T) 79.17% Feeling (F) 20.83%
Perceiving (P) 69.23% Judging (J) 30.77%

These letters don't surprise me at all. I sort of thought that my 'judging' score would be higher than my 'perceiving' score, though, because if I'm going to be honest with myself, I am typically a sort of judgmental person.

What is Intelligence? [Blog #11]

Today my five-year-old sister was trying (and failing) to rap at the dinner table. She said something like Yo yo giggity yo, Hope Kathryn is in da house yall and she's eating her din-din-dinner. And at first, my father responded with Don't quit your day job, kid. And as she went on, I think he was starting to get annoyed because her vocabulary was steadily declining, and vocabulary is something we strongly reinforce in our house. When she said Daddy, I wanna be a rapper when I grow up, he had a sort of please-just-shoot-me-now look on his face. Then my seven-year-old sister joined in with the rap about dinner, and my dad said something like The vocabulary you are using does not make you sound intelligent at all, so knock it off. When he said that, I immediately thought of that ridiculous intelligence test we took in class that had to do with 'black vocabulary' and the other one that basically had to do with drugs. And I thought about how when I was reading the first one with the 'black vocabulary' I could hear people saying the words in my head, and it was hard to listen to those voices because they just sounded so unintelligent to me. But after the test I thought to myself that anyone who knows half these words is definitely smarter than I am.

Term One Reflection [Blog #10]

In the beginning of this class, I was SO excited. I love love love psychology, and I was so eager to learn more  about it. In the beginning of class I read ahead every single day, took notes multiple times a day, I highlighted every important concept in the book. Then as the term went on, I became less excited for class and just kind of lost interest in reading the text. I think it was probably because when you do something every day, it's not really exciting anymore.

In term two I think I should definitely get back into reading every night and taking notes all of the time. I am actually going to start studying for the AP exam this weekend because the longer I study, the easier it will be to recall the information, and I don't want to have any unnecessary struggle during the test.

Studying! [Blog #9]

The last section of Chapter Eight discusses effective ways to improve memory, specifically when studying. It suggests that when you study, you space out your studying so that you keep coming back to it. It also says that you should connect the information to your own life or something else that you remember easily. It says you should allow one thought to trigger another, and use mnemonic devices. It helps to study before sleeping because that's when you encode and process and store all the information learned throughout the day. It also helps to sleep more and to test yourself.

I found a website (linked below) that gives tips on how to study effectively. The key concepts are:
1) Manage your time. In other words, don't cram.
2)Take notes in class and then REWRITE THEM at home. (this works pretty well)
3)Study from hardest subject to easiest.
4)Read the text out loud and read it more than once.
5)Do your homework. If you recall the information outside of class, you're more likely to remember it later.

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/howtostudy.html

False Memory [Blog #8]

When we talked about false memories in class, it got me thinking...how many of my memories never actually happened? I know that sometimes I remember doing things I never did, like filling out a worksheet or loading the dishwasher. But at what point does I thought I did that worksheet turn into I thought I married that man or an elaborate story that never actually happened to me?

 I wondered why memory was so malleable and why we all had these false memories. In the article linked below, I found information about the steps that you go through in order to make a false memory. Some researchers did a really interesting experiment to see if they could create false memories in the people partaking in the experiment. What intrigued me the most was how incredibly easy it was to create a false memory. It makes me wonder if I have more false memories than I thought...

http://www.unisci.com/stories/20012/0613011.htm

Classical Conditioning in The Office [Blog #7]

Sometimes it's kind of hard for me to label things correctly when talking about classical conditioning. I get the concept; that part is really simple. But naming the stimuli and responses is kind of tricky for me. I found a good example of classical conditioning from an episode of The Office where Jim conditions Dwight to want an Altoid when a certain sound comes from Jim's computer. It's a pretty funny video. Anyway, I typed the experiment below in a way that made the most sense to me.

http://www.spike.com/video-clips/0jnov0/the-office-the-jim-trains-dwight

Bad Breath = Desire for Altoid

Sound from Jim's Computer + Bad Breath = Desire for Altoid

Sound from Jim's Computer = Desire for Altoid

 

Messing with Perception [Blog #6]

This week we talked about perception and sensation. When we did the sound perception demonstration, I wondered if I could find any kind of audio online that did the same thing. I found this audio done by a man named Hugo Zuccarelli. In the audio, he is a barber and it sounds exactly as though he is moving around you and you can tell where he is cutting your hair, where the door is when he walks in, everything, it's crazy! Your perception of his location is influenced by the way the audio comes through your headphones; sometimes it will only come through the left, sometimes only the right, and sometimes a mix. If you listen to it, I recommend headphones, because I'm not sure how it works without them.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gLF7nguyok&feature=related

PSA's

This video (with Erin, Courtney, and Alexis) was the best in my mind. It started out with music and catchy footage. It was extremely informative and went more in-depth than a lot of the other videos. I liked that in the video was an interview about the Co-op program; it was a great example and a great addition to the video.The audio as great, the pictures were clear, and it did seem like an actual public service announcement. Great job, guys.

My runners up are
Dave, Taylor, and Dan
Nick, Joe, Matt, and Brady

Adora Svitak [Blog #5]

I have been exploring TED.com in my free time and I came across this TED talk with Adora Svitak, who is 12 years old, and talks about the power of the mind of a child. While she was speaking I thought about the stages of cognitive development that Piaget came up with, and wondered how this girl fit into these AT ALL. She published a book when she was like six years old!!!

 It seems to me like she jumped from preoperational right into formal operations. Anyway, that's my connection to what we're learning, I just really wanted to share this video. I STRONGLY recommend that you watch it; it's only about eight minutes and it will BLOW YOUR MIND how smart this girl is, I promise you.

Ice Cube Addiction

I didn't really have to lie to my parents at all because they didn't seem suspicious at all. I only had to lie to a couple friends, and i didn't really feel guilty, but it felt awkward to lie to them because I wasn't used to lying, especially not about something so simple. I think it's really easy for addicts to ruin relationships because personally, I wouldn't want to lie to my friends and family all the time. I'd probably just withdraw from all my relationships.


My actions didn't really surprise me. It's pretty much just part of my personality to act out of the norm.  And I didn't have to sneak around to get ice, so I don't think anyone really thought I was acting differently than usual.

Almost no one noticed a change in my behavior. It's easy to see how parents and friends can be completely blind to the abnormal behavior of an addict. And a lot of times, when they do notice abnormal behavior, they probably deny and/or rationalize that abnormal behavior because they don't want to believe that their child/friend is doing what they're doing.

Addiction and Parents [Blog #4]

This week we talked about addiction and did an experiment to see how an addict feels, how people react to the odd behavior of an addict, etc. I can't post my ice cube blog yet because I started it after everyone else since I was absent for two days, so I decided to look for videos that were about addiction. The link below takes you to a two or three minute video about a mom who talks about how crappy life is after your kid overdoses.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqDm_IjN2VY

What I paid attention to wasn't what she was saying, but just how surprised she seemed that her son was doing drugs. Toward the end of the video she briefly mentions something along the lines of not knowing what he was into.

Part of me is thinking how can you not notice that your child is on heroin?! I feel as though his behavior would have been so different compared to before the addiction. But the rest of me knows exactly how she wouldn't know. Stereotypically speaking, teens are pretty good at lying to their parents. It's probably not that hard to pass off withdrawal as a stomach bug. And a lot of parents don't want to believe that their kid is going through something like that. If your kid is doing drugs, you're going to feel like a failure as a parent. So you're gonna be in denial and you're gonna rationalize every abnormal behavior and suspicion. And it's so sad to me that parents can't just own up to the fact that their child may be on drugs. Don't get me wrong, I understand the situation as much as I can without actually being a parent. But it just seems to me that a few lives could be saved, if parents and friends would just open their eyes a little.

BRAIN SONG :D [Blog #3]

I realized two things today:

1) Our school sucks at planning. "Let's just do pictures on Friday, which is universally known as 'test day', and while we're at it, let's have a fire drill, too. Should be fun." Also, the entire school was laughing about the whole "GSA and The Closet come down to the gym" thing. Which kind of made my day...

2) More importantly, I SUCK at remembering parts of the brain and their functions.

Dreier talked about different study methods, such as songs about the material, and showed us one from Pinky and the Brain. For some reason that one didn't really help me, even though songs usually are a good aid for me personally. So I decided to find a song that would help. This song was just that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vYwOtTMUz0c

I also found this one, which might help some, but my honest opinion is that it's dumb...it did, however, entertain me for a good three minutes or so just because I thought it was so dumb... Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPLZ_WUsK88

Top Ten Most Unethical Psychological Experiments [Blog #2]

We talked about ethical ways to conduct an experiment, so I decided to look for a few examples of unethical experiments. On the cite linked below, I found ten severely unethical psychological experiments. All experiments on this list are relatively well-known. For example, the 'Monster Study' (where some orphans participate in positive speech therapy and others are in negative therapy) and the facial expression experiment conducted by Carney Landis (where participants had to view pornography, smell ammonia, put their hand in a bucket of frogs, and even behead a rat; if they chose not to behead the rat, Landis did it for them).

David Reimer

The number one most unethical experiment in my opinion was the one by John Money. A boy was circumcised at eight months, but the doctor used the wrong tool and burned his penis off. His parents went to John Money for guidance. John saw this as a good opportunity to prove his theory that environment, and not biology, determined gender identity (but did not tell the parents about this theory). So he suggested that their child have gender reassignment surgery.
His name was changed to Brenda and his parents decided not to tell him about the surgery. As she got older, Brenda acted like a stereotypical boy, but had a lot of questions because she didn't understand why she thought and acted the way she did. On top of these frustrations, her brother was severely depressed, her mother suicidal, and her father an alcoholic.

When Brenda was 14, her parents told her about the surgery, and she decided to go through gender reassignment again and go back to being David. John Money observed David from the first surgery and after the second, but was insistent that his theory was right and David had no psychological damage from this experiment. David committed suicide in 2004 (when he was 38). Many say this is because of the sugeries and serious struggle with gender identity. In other words, if John Money would not have deceived David's parents or would have helped David with his gender identity rather than just insisting that his theory was correct, David would probably never have died.

http://listverse.com/2008/09/07/top-10-unethical-psychological-experiments/

Also on Youtube is a TLC documentary where David tells his side of the story. I'm pretty sure there are four parts (I watched them all), and they're really interesting. Here is a link to the first part:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GhbVFjIaN0

Shocked! [Blog #1]

This is my first AP class, so I'm a little nervous about it but I'm pretty sure I can handle it. I get that the work load will be more than what I'm used to and I am aware that this is a college level course, but I'm excited for the challenge. I love learning about how the mind works; it's so fascinating to me that we all have similarly-functioning brains, but no two minds are alike. I have always felt a need to understand certain things and the mind's inner workings is toward the top of that list.

Anyway, when I was reading the section in Chapter 1 about critical thinking, it was talking about how critical thinking has lead to really surprising findings, and an example was that electroconvulsive therapy is actually a really effective way to treat severe depression. My first thought was something along the lines of Oh my gosh that sounds like mid-evil torture...I wonder if they still do that! 

So I did some research on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and how it works. I found that it is also a treatment for acute mania and certain types of schizophrenia. About three mornings per week, a patient is given a muscle relaxer and anesthesia. Then the doctor attaches little electrodes to the patient's head and it delivers a shock that causes something like a mini seizure. The shocks are usually administered six to twelve times in one sitting.  They do this for about a month. Usually once treatment is over and the patient wakes up, they have no idea what happened right before the treatment.

There's a lot of controversy concerning this treatment (shocker!--no pun intended). Some patients have permanent memory loss and confusion, and many relapse after treatment, even with anti-depressants. But on the other hand, some patients see 80% improvement after ECT. Personally, I don't really think this is a really good idea unless you've exhausted ALL other options.

http://www.nmha.org/go/information/get-info/treatment/electroconvulsive-therapy-ect