10 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2021
    1. The development of psychotherapy in the UnitedStates has a complex history. American psy-chotherapeutics emerged in the 1890s and theearly years of the 20th century. Taylor (1999;2000) has shown that the sources for psychother-apeutics, as it was known then, were a richmix of ideas and practice

      For many patients, psychotherapy has the potential to reduce mental suffering and improve quality of life. Despite promising study findings and a growing awareness of successful treatments, little is known about their possible side effects that I always thought about. One of the side effects that I mostly heard about is dependence from the therapist. Is this a condition that has a solution?

    2. After World War I, in which two of hissons served, Freud revised and expanded histheories to include his now-famous structuralaccount of the psyche: id, ego, and superego.

      Human personality is multi-faceted and includes multiple components. These three aspects make up personality, according to Sigmund Freud's famous psychoanalytic theory. Complex human behaviors are the result of the interaction of these factors. Each component contributes to personality in its own way, and the three interact in ways that have a significant impact on an individual. Each aspect of one's personality emerges at a distinct time in one's life. A question that came up in my mind while reading about this was how do you know whether the id, ego, or superego has the biggest influence over behavior?

    3. Due to bourgeois expectationsthat a man could not marry until he could showthat he was capable of supporting his wife in themanner commensurate with her social standing(an issue that Freud complained about for the restof his life), Freud then decided to become a clin-ician, specializing in patients with diseases of thenervous system.

      We can these kind of " bourgeois expectations" nowadays also with a little change that men and both women want to be able to support each other when they get married. According to Freud Even the most loving and caring connection might be accompanied with negative, nasty, and harmful sentiments, imaginations, and ideas in the unconscious reality. This mixture of love and hate in close relationships is inherent of human nature, not necessarily pathogenic. Is his view of the relationship related to the fact that he complained about the fact of having to be capable to support his wife before getting married?

    4. Although many theories of the etiology andtreatment of mental disorder were proposedby alienists in this period, few had any majorimpact, leading historians of psychiatry to referto this time as an era of therapeutic nihilism, orabsence of belief in the possibility of developingeffective treatment

      Limiting patient care is ethical when doing so would only prolong the patient's suffering or result in an outcome that the patient would find undesirable. Restricting care in certain situations also avoids the enormous cost of medical care that will ultimately be of poor benefit, and it frees up resources for those who will benefit the most. On the other hand, understanding how the anticipation of a terrible outcome might become a self-fulfilling prophesy is crucial when contemplating nihilism and level of care decisions. I was wondering if it is right to be considered ethical the "Therapeutic Nihilism" when at the end of the day no knows with a 100% belief the outcome of a treatment?

    5. Man was conceptualized as a creature of rea-son. The gendered term is intentional; womenwere typically regarded as creatures of emotionrather than reason.

      Gender variations in emotion expression are the result of a mix of inherent behavioral predispositions and education of boys and girls to follow gender-related emotional display guidelines. Emotions are a human adaptation that allows us to thrive on this planet. Assuming that they are just proper for women to feel does us all a big injustice. Because we are all emotional beings. For that matter, women, men, and anybody who identifies as human are creatures of emotion.

  2. Sep 2021
  3. fa21psy352.commons.gc.cuny.edu fa21psy352.commons.gc.cuny.edu
    1. McDougall’s early research was in the field of physiological psychology. He later shifted to the topic of motivation or ‘purposive’ psychology and it is this topic for which his best remembered. McDougall gave a name to his psychology, hormic psychology, but neither the name nor the system became widely used. McDougall used the term hormic to contrast his psychology with the hedonist psychology of Freud. According to hedonistic psychology, behaviour was purposive in that it aimed to seek pleasure. By contrast, hormic psychology suggested that behaviour was purposive because it sought goals for their own sake, not for the pleasure that arose from reaching those goals.

      This part reminded me of one article that I was reading one day which described different type psychology. google Hormic psychology places a higher value on instincts. As a result, it's sometimes referred to as an instinct theory. Hormic psychology is based on the concept of purpose. Purpose involves two things: knowledge of the outcome of a certain action and a desire for that outcome. On the other hand hedonistic psychology states that pleasure is the actual purpose of all effort; that we always try to achieve a predicted pleasure and avoid a known pain; and that we seek such things as food, shelter, repose, and so on, not in and for themselves, but just for the sake the pleasure we will gain from them. Psychological Hedonism is the pleasure/pain hypothesis of conduct.

    2. The effect of functionalism was a tremendous freeing up of the kind of psychol-ogy which could be studied and what psychology was. Not only did this involve a change in the content of psychology, but it also involved a change in methodology.

      Functionalism is very impactful since it examines every part of society, how it works, and how it helps society work. This idea aids in the integration of all areas of society in order to suit the demands of the society's individuals. Functionalism explains how our civilization maintains its equilibrium and I think this is a key factor in everyone's life.

    3. The idea that the mind had a function had been already suggested by James, and one of the functions suggested by James for the mind was that it controlled behav-iour. This idea of the mind having a function derives from Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which leads the implication that the mind has a use and can be observed in use (Boring, 1950). So, because the function of the mind was, in part, to control behaviour, the functionalist psychologists were interested in behaviour, and its relation to the mind. Behaviour rather than just the mind had entered into the subject matter of psychology.

      Does our mind always control behaviour ? Isn't it reasonable to assume that if we genuinely had free will, a larger percentage of us would choose to do something else with our lives? So many times I find myself wondering about the fact that we don't act always as we would like to or don't really follow our thoughts and get influenced by environment around us.

    4. One of the more intriguing aspect modern applications of the James-Lange theory is found in a type of complementary medicine, called the Alexander technique. The purpose of the Alexander technique is to teach a person awareness of their body posture and movement and to promote ‘good’ posture, where good posture means a posture which is associated with relaxation rather than stress. The message of Alexander teachers is that if you put the body in positions of stress (e.g. you hunch your shoulders) or depression (you are slumped on a chair) then the body learns to react in these negative patterns, and you become stressed and depressed. So Alexander teachers apply the James-Lange theory by encouraging people to adopt postures which gives a more a positive message to the body

      I think is really important to be more aware of our body, how to improve poor posture and move more efficiently. First time I learned about this technique and seems to be really interesting. While studying I do find myself sometimes standing not in a proper posture in front of a computer to a point that I'm not able to continue without some stretches. I totally agree with the fact the bad posture, how we move, sit and stand affects how well we function

    5. As a final comment on James as a person, James believed that historical change is brought about both by the contributions of individuals and the social context which shapes them – James was a product of his time, but he also had unique personal characteristics (Viney, 2001).

      Personality traits are numerous, and research reveals that both genetic and environmental factors influence our personalities. These two forces work together in a number of ways to shape our unique identities. I like how it is highlighted the fact that James also had unique personal characteristics. Despite the fact that one of the most important environmental factors that influences personality is culture, I think everyone is unique in their own way.