Brandon+Appel+Project+Page

This is Brandon Appel's semester project page. **This is a video summery of everything we have learned in class through the scope of society and and how it sees the abnormalities in Psychology. What you will see is a series of videos, that I feel have a good representation of what we have been taught in class, and a description of how accurate or inaccurate the videos are in regards to how society sees each topic.**

HISTORY OF MENTAL DISEASE please see video

In the beginning of the video, it talks about how the maker is a sufferer of bipolaracy, a mood disorder. The video is created through the eyes of an individual who suffers with a disease much like the subjects in the video. She can effectively reflect the emotions felt in the video and uses different examples of how mental disease was dealt with, whether it be using Plato's words to describe it, using the bible to see how it can be mistaken as a demonic possession, or showing how political groups like the Nazis saw mental disease and how it is dealt with now a days.

Models of Psychopathology

[|psychoanalytic example]

This example shows a therapists having the patient transfer his pent up emotion to his boss. This makes for a funny video, but the real goal of the excersize is to release the emotion that has built up from years of repression and bring out the true cause of the issue disturbing the sufferer.

[|behavioral example]

The video from the program "Big Bang Theory" shows Sheldon conditioning his roommate's girlfriend to keep doing activity that he seems appropriate by giving her a chocolate. Though humerus in how is conditioning her, this is a major method for therapy used by behavioral therapists. Examples of conditioning can include operant (which is what Sheldon was doing) and classical conditioning, which associates neutral stimulus to activate a conditioned response.

[|cognitive example]

Big man has a fear of puppies, what does a little blond woman do? She gets a puppy. This example of cognitive therapy deals with exposure therapy where you slowly expose a person to their fear or anxiety source and make them get closer and closer to it until they can actually interact with their fear.

[|Humanistic example]

Instead of being a funny example, this shows what a humanistic therapy session looks like. The therapist is very open with the patient and their goal is to be as sensitive to the person as possible while allowing them to talk out their problems so they can work through them in a stress environment.

[|Biological example]

The biological paradigm focuses on neurotransmitters and the nervous system. It looks for biological reasons for why there is dysfunction in the brain, whether it bea viral infection, brain damage, or some type of chemical imbalance in the brain.

__DIAGNOSIS AND ETHICS__ When television shows depict diagnosis of a psychological disease, they usually show some type of therapy session, the doctor may show the patient some ink blots and ask what the patient thinks of, or they may sit and talk to the patient, but that only scratches the surface of how a psychologist can diagnose a patient. They can use neurological tests like doing an MRI or a PET scan, they can do evaluation tests that make the patient answer a series of questions and how they answer will place them in certain areas on a scale referring to their psychological status, and they generally use a diagnostic manual, the DSM, to find a disorder to match the symptoms present. This video obviously uses a few different methods to make for a comical representation of therapy, but uses the methods appropriately.

[|Stuart and his Therapy session]

Dealing with the mentally insane, there are certain guidelines that must be followed when dealing with the legal aspects. Generally when psychological diseases are referenced in a court room on some type of television show it is due to the fact that the lawyer is trying to claim that his patient is not guilty due to insanity. In reality that claim is used very little, and an extensive amount of proof is needed in order to make that claim hold any significance.

__Anxiety Disorders __

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Anxiety disorders take many forms, from panic attacks to post traumatic stress disorder and even obsessive compulsive disorders. These disorders inhibit the sufferer from doing many of the normal tasks done on a daily basis and often takes years of counseling and medication to control.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Panic Attack]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Panic attacks can happen at any time and when it does happen the sufferer generally removes themselves from the situation in which the attack occurred, potentially causing issues in normal day to day life.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|PTSD]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Post Traumatic stress disorder is triggered by reminders of past traumatic experiences and causes elevated anxiety and leads to avoidance of human interactions. In society, most of these cases are found in veterans, and like in the example, it is a big topic for reality shows and documentaries.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|OCD monk]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">OCD is an anxiety disorder that occurs when the sufferer has a compulsion or multiple compulsions that causes them to not be able to function properly in day to day life. This is an exaggerated example of someone with a obsessive compulsion disorder.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">__MOOD DISORDERS__

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">A mood disorder is deviation from ones normal mood. It can take the form of Major Depressive disorder, Bipolaracy, just being the main diseases. Mood disorders effect women more than men and can be difficult to treat due to the negative outlooks on the world in general and their lack of motivation at times to do anything, let alone get help for their ailment. They are a usual effect of a chemical imbalance of serotonin and cortisol or can be triggered by a traumatic event that has taken place in one's life.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Virginia Woolf suicide note]

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Virginia Woolf was one of the many famous people with bipolaracy and in this video it gives the contents of her suicide note. Suicide is a big worry looking at those with a mood disorder, and it can effect even the most famous of people, simply because they could not deal with their depressive moods.

__<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">SLEEP DISORDERS __

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">There are two types of sleeping disorders, those that effect the amount and quality of sleep a person can have and those that cause events to happen while sleep in occurring. Disorders can include insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and night terrors. Sleep disorders are some of the most common psychological disorders present and if untreated, can disable someone from functioning normally in day to day activities.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|insomnia]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">This example shows a dramatized rendition of what sleep deprivation can do to a person, but that same concept can be applied to those suffering from insomnia, only at a more extended rate. Other sleep disorders as well can cause the sufferer to make poor decisions, can effect their overall health, and can even keep them from performing normal tasks. The officer in this movie is obviously affected by his lack of sleep, and those same things can occur in someone who either cannot sleep or sleeps too much, like those with hypersomnia.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">__SUBSTANCE ABUSE DISORDERS__

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Substance abuse can range from a multitude of causes, from depression, to curiosity. Addiction to narcotics happens due to the fact that many of the drugs trigger dopamine and GABA receptors that makes the body feel pleasure, causing it to crave more of the substance that made it feel that way, creating an addiction. Millions suffer from substance abuse and generally only can get help when they want the help. Our society glorifies drugs as a positive recreational activity for all ages, but really doing them is a destructive activity that can ruin the lives of the abuser and everyone surrounding that person.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Funny drugs]

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">This is an example of how television can make drugs look appealing and enjoyable. In reality, the example below is what the behind the scenes look at what drugs can really do to the rich and famous or to anybody else. '

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Drug deaths]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">__SOMATOFORM DISORDERS__

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Somatoform disorders deal with physical ailments of the body, but when analyzed, there is no reason for the ailment. Some diseases include hypochondriasis, conversion disorder, and body dysmorphic disorder. These diseases can cause sufferers to overreact about a small cold or deformity and could cause them to not want to interact with people for fear of getting sick, or just because they are ashamed of a part of their body that is not actually abnormal.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|hypochondriac kid]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">The child in this clip puts a lighter twist to hypochonriasis, but the reality of the situation is that people with this disease worry so much about having any disease they see on TV that they cannot function normally, and are very hard to cure.

__<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER __

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Dissociative disorders are disorders that cause the suffer to have an extreme detachment and distortion of reality. They often lose track of the normalities of the external world and it often effects their identity and memory. The most notorious disorder in this group is the dissociative identity disorder.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Sybil] <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Me Myself and Irene] <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">As seen in these videos, the disorder can cause extreme confusion, disorientation and hysteria when the sufferer comes to reality in a place or doing something that they were not doing when another alter appeared. While Hollywood makes the disorder seem more dramatic than it is, the same ideas are all present in the representation. Like in the Sybil scene, the disorder can be adopted due to some past trauma, where in her case was sexual abused as a child. The disease is seen as a way for the person to deal with their problems and distress by becoming someone else that can handle the issues they personally cannot.

__<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">PERSONALITY DISORDER __

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Personality disorders are disorders that effect a person's personality, as the name suggests, which makes them hard to diagnose and treat. The disorders can range from those that have odd and eccentric symptoms to those that have dramatic and erratic symptoms. Personality disorders effect less than three percent of the population and usually arise due to a genetic predisposition showing their effects early in life.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Schizotypal personality disorder]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">This video gives a description of what SPD is and gives examples of Nicolas cage in a variety of his movies to show what it is, while giving general aspects of the disorder. As seen in the video Schizotypal personality disorder has similar symptoms to schizophrenia in regards to the detachment, delusions, and odd and eccentric behavior.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|The Joker] <span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;"> [|Dexter]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">ASPD is a disease that effects many of the serial killers in history, keeping the individual from knowing true emotion which leads them to commit certain acts that others might not do, based upon their morality or emotional standings on the topic. The examples of The Joker and Dexter Morgan, both from a popular movie and television show, gives a good depiction of how a psychopath may act. They might not go to the extend of blowing up a hospital, but those with antisocial personality disorder go through life not feeling the emotion of normal individuals, leading them to potentially do violent acts, in an attempt to feel some type of emotion. They generally lack a conscience or are empathetic towards other individuals, leading them to their violation of social norms.

__<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">SCHIZOPHRENIA DISORDER __

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Schizophrenia is a disorder that has many different subtypes and is one of the more studied disorders. Those with schizophrenia experience both positive symptoms, or delusions and other distortions of reality, and negative symptoms, or lack of capacity to speak clearly and anhedonia, or lack of emotional arousal. Schizophrenia is broken down into subgroups consisting of paranoid, catatonic, residual, disorganized, and undifferentiated. The disorder is said to be a genetic predisposition and a large amount of stress has the potential to trigger it. The schizophrenic tendencies occur when there is too much dopamine in the brain, which is why it is treated with anti-psychotics that inhibit the bulk flow of dopamine.

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|The Uninvited] <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Black Swan]

<span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">The examples given are some positive symptoms that can be had when living with schizophrenia. Obviously not all individuals who have the disorder are going to kill someone close to them because they are hallucinating, but the movies give a good depiction of the delusions and hallucinations present with the disorder.

__<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS __

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Developmental disorders are those that deviate from the normal developmental scale in individuals and often have to do with disruption in development of early skills. These disorders include learning disorders, mental retardation, attention deficit disorder, and autism. Many of the diseases are hard to effectively treat with medication, and a lot of times the doctor has to use more hands on treatment approaches, such as attempting to reteach skills learned in early development and teach the people around the sufferer how to deal with their disorder.

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Forrest Gump] <span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">[|Rain Man]

<span style="color: #ff4d00; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Developmental disorders as seen in Rain Man and Forrest Gump cause the person with the disorder difficulty getting along in normal interactions. Whether it be Rain Man with autism having an undeveloped ability to speak and sensitivity to touch or Forrest Gump and his lowered IQ, slowed ability to walk on his own, and his learning issues, developmental disorders require more sensitive attention as well as a more direct, hands on type of therapy. With the right attention individuals with developmental disorders are more than able to function efficiently and happily through life.

//YouTube//. YouTube. Web. 08 May 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/>.