Make Hay while the Sun Shines

Why are we here? We couldn’t choose it...the chance of us being born. That sperm hitting that egg - 400 trillion to one. We’re just lucky and this is a holiday. We didn’t exist for 14 and a half billion years. Then we get 80 or 90 years - if we’re lucky. And then we’re never going to exist again. So let's make the most of it.

Stop Caring What Other People Think

Please listen when I say that the shame and guilt you feel when you're trying so hard to not give a f**k. It's usually not because you are wrong to not give that f**k. I's because you're worried about what other people might think about you're decision.

And guess what?
You have no control over what other people think.

For God's sake, you have a hard enough time figuring out what you think! Believing that you have any control over what other people think - and wasting your f**ks on that pursuit - is futile. It is a recipe for failure on a grand f**king scale.

Embrace your not giving a f**k by reading more in The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k by Sarah Knight (2015). Worth a read!

Another Pint of Commotion Lotion Please...

An interesting read from Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest, titled 'My drunkenness means you did it deliberately' (2010).

With our brains gently soaked in alcohol we’re generally more sociable and relaxed – it’s a sedative after all. So why do drunk people seem so prone to aggravation and argument? One reason, say Laurent Bègue and colleagues, is that alcohol exacerbates the ‘intentionality bias‘, our natural tendency to assume that other people intended their actions. So when that guy jolts you at the bar and you’re drunk, you’re more likely to think he did it on purpose.

 

Bègue’s team recruited 92 men (aged 20 to 46) to take part in what they were told was a taste-testing study. They were given three glasses to taste, each containing a cocktail of grapefruit and grenadine cordial, mint and lemon concentrate. For half the participants, the drinks also contained alcohol – approximately the same amount found in five to six shots of vodka. To control for expectancy effects, half the participants with the alcoholic drinks and half the non-alcohol participants were told the drinks were alcoholic. Next, the participants spent 20 to 30 minutes on filler tasks, in keeping with the cover story that this was a taste-test study, and to allow the alcohol to kick-in. Finally and most importantly, the participants read 50 sentences about various actions (e.g. ‘He deleted the email’) and gave their verdict on whether the actions were intentional or not.

 

The intoxicated and sober men alike said that obviously intentionally actions (e.g. ‘she looked for her keys’) were intentional, and that blatantly unintentional actions (e.g. ‘she caught a cold’) were unintentional. But crucially, when it came to more ambiguous actions, like the email deletion example, the intoxicated men were significantly more likely (43 per cent) than the sober men (36 per cent) to say the action was intentional. Whether participants were told they’d had alcohol or not made no difference.

 

Why should alcohol have this effect? Bègue’s team think that it takes cognitive effort and control to overcome the intentionality bias, especially so as to take in all the information necessary to consider alternative explanations. Alcohol’s well-known disinhibitory and myopic (the ‘narrowing of attention’) effects would clearly undermine these faculties.

 

‘In summary,’ the researchers concluded, ‘alcohol magnifies the intentionality bias. Napoleon said, “There is no such thing as accident.” Our findings suggest that drunk people are more likely to believe Napoleon’s statement than are sober people.’

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Begue, L., Bushman, B., Giancola, P., Subra, B., and Rosset, E. (2010). “There Is No Such Thing as an Accident,” Especially When People Are Drunk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36 (10), 1301-1304 DOI: 10.1177/0146167210383044

No exceptions for nice people

I pretty much feel that this reading material today may be slightly taxing for being hung-the f**k-over (When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Harold Kushner); but sometimes you can't but help get roped into a few pages of thought provoking material.

 

''Laws of nature treat everyone alike. They do not make exceptions for good people or for useful people ... If Lee Harvey Oswald fires a bullet at President John F. Kennedy, laws of nature take over from the moment that bullet is fired. Neither the course of the bullet nor the seriousness of the wound will be affected by questions of whether or not President Kennedy was a good person, or whether the world would be better off with him alive or dead. Laws of nature do not make exceptions for nice people. A bullet has no conscience; neither does a malignant tumour or an automobile gone out of control ... '' (p. 67, 1978).

 

While the laws of nature have no consideration for my hangover right now; the sh*t load of burgers and absolute junk I've been throwing down my flavour shnout are putting up a fight. 

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''Nature never breaks her own laws'' ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Depressive Disorders

The causes of depression are mixed. There is no one cause for depression - even for a single person. And so we think of it as a risk factor model: where depression develops in the context of risks, and when those risks get high enough, the person goes over some threshold to develop this self-sustaining depression. Those risks might be divided into three categories; psychological, environmental and biological.

On the biological side we have genetics and other physiological factors which can give the person a predisposition towards being depressed. The psychological aspect can include thinking patterns or cognitive style personalities that may leave a person at a greater risk for depression. While environmental factors can include the stressors the person faces and a lack of social support. When the sum total of all these risk factors get high enough, then that can push us over some threshold and we go into a period of clinical depression. For some people, one of those three factors may be stronger than the other but it's unlikely that there is one cause - there's usually some balance of all of the factors. Nevertheless, all of the risk factors should be attended to.

As depression begins to take hold, people stop performing behaviours that previously provided reinforcement, such as hobbies and socialising. Moreover, depressed people tend to make others feel anxious, depressed and hostile (Joiner and Coyne, 1999). Eventually, these other people begin to lose patience, failing to understand why the person just can't snap out of it. This diminishes social support even further and may eventually cause depressed people to be abandoned by those who are most important to them (Nezlek et al., 2000). Additionally, longitudinal studies show that reductions in social support are a good predictor of subsequent depression (Burton, 2004).

 

In short, behavioural theorists believe that to begin feeling better, depressed people must break this vicious cycle by initially forcing themselves to engage in behaviours that are likely to produce some degree of pleasure. Eventually, positive reinforcement produced by this process of behavioural activation will begin to counteract the depressive affect, undermine the sense of hopelessness that characterizes depression, and increase feelings of personal control over the environment.
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''If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather. Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.''
              ~ Stephen Fry

The Matrix: Was Neo Psychotic?





Auditory Hallucinations

Psychosis is a mental health problem that can  stop the person from thinking clearly, telling the difference between reality and their imagination, and acting in a normal way.

Morpheus: What is "real"? How do you define "real"?

It is a loss of contact with reality that usually includes delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs about what is taking place or who one is, such as thinking that someone is plotting against you or that the TV is sending you secret messages. Hallucinations are false perceptions, such as hearing, seeing, or feeling something that is not there. 

Neo: What did she tell you?

Morpheus: That I would find the One. 

Signs of Psychosis

The early stage of psychosis is marked by a difficulty in concentrating, depressed mood, sleep changes - sleeping too much or not enough, anxiety, suspiciousness, withdrawal from family and friends and on-going unusual thoughts and beliefs. While the later stages involve being confused and having impaired reality testing; that is, people are unable to distinguish personal, subjective experiences from the reality of the external world. This can progress onto delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech (switching topics erratically), difficulty functioning, depression and even suicidal thoughts or actions.

 

Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth.

Causes:


A Psychoactive Aetiology?

A number of medical problems can cause psychosis, including:

- Alcohol and certain illegal drugs (or blue and red pills?)

- Brain diseases, such as Parkinson's  
- Huntington's disease, and certain chromosomal disorders

- Brain tumours or cysts

- Dementia (including Alzheimer's disease)

- HIV and other infections that affect the brain

- Some prescription drugs, such as steroids and stimulants

- Some types of epilepsy

- Stroke

Symptoms:

Psychotic symptoms may include: disorganized thought and speech, false beliefs that are not based in reality (delusions), especially unfounded fear or suspicion, and thoughts that "jump" between unrelated topics (disordered thinking).

Neo: I thought it wasn't real

Morpheus: Your mind makes it real

Exams and tests:

Psychiatric evaluation and testing are used to diagnose the cause of the psychosis. Laboratory testing and brain scans may not be needed, but sometimes can help pinpoint the diagnosis. The type of tests may include; blood tests for abnormal electrolyte and hormone levels, blood tests for syphilis and other infections, drug screens, and sometimes an MRI of the brain.



''Yeah...ehmm...sorry about that''

Possible Complications:

Psychosis can prevent people from functioning normally and caring for themselves. If the condition is left untreated, people can sometimes harm themselves or others (or Trinity).



 Morpheus: You've been living in a dream world, Neo.

 

 

''Your 50 minutes are up young man''

 

Treatment often depends on the cause of the psychosis. It might involve drugs to control symptoms and talk therapy, which can help address the underlying cause of the psychosis.

For example the talking therapy cognitive behavioural therapy has proved successful in helping people with schizophrenia.  Hospitalization is an option for serious cases where a person might be dangerous to himself or others.



''Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions'' ~ Agent Brown 

 

Social support should also be addressed, so as to help support the person with psychosis, who may have social needs such as education, employment or accommodation.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Agent Smith: It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

''The need to prove who you are will vanish once you know who you are''
~ Pierre

 

 

 

 

Similar to Parkinson's Disease and Schizophrenia, dopamine levels are thought to be too high during psychosis, or better, there is a 'functional excess' of dopamine in the person's brain. This can affect memory, emotion, social behaviour and self-awareness.

Bizarre delusions are often experienced during psychosis.

Examples of psychotic delusions include the paranoid type - more likely to be associated with schizophrenia - and delusions of grandeur.



''Sure ye do''



Delusions of grandeur: clearly false but strongly held beliefs in having a special power or authority - the person with psychosis may, as examples, believe that they are a world leader, very rich, that they are able to bring dead people back to life, or that they can control the weather.

 

While the classic hallmarks of psychosis are hallucination and delusion, other symptoms persist in disorders such as schizophrenia - known as negative symptoms. That is, cognitive and motivational impairments, which can be disabling and do not respond to drug treatment.



I think he saw me...

 

 

Paranoid delusions: these may cause the person with psychosis to be unduly suspicious of individuals or organisations, believing them to be plotting to cause them harm. Such delusions can be very frightening and may result in unusual behaviour to avoid things - for example, staying out of a room with certain devices in it, believing them to be controlling thoughts, or locking up the front door with an excessive number of padlocks.

 

Similar to Eric Bui and colleagues examining Borderline Personality Disorder and Darth Vader (2010), it is interesting to compare a disorder with something relevant, in an attempt to try and identify with it. While one is the work of fiction and the other a real life debilitating disorder, slight overlap can be seen and the crude comparisons hopefully elucidate the disorder a little.

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Freudenreich O, Weiss AP, Goff DC. Psychosis and schizophrenia. In: Stern TA, Rosenbaum JF, Fava M, Biederman J,    Rauch SL, eds. Massachusetts General Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry. 1st ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Mosby Elsevier; 2008:chap 28.

 

Katherine Darton, Mind. Psychotic experiences. London, UK: Mind, 2011. Information published online, accessed November 21st, 2013.

MedlinePlus. Psychosis. Bethesda, MA, US: National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.

 

NHS Choices. Causes of psychosis. London, UK: National Health Service.

 

Van Os J, Kapur S. Schizophrenia. The Lancet, 2009, volume 374, number 9690, pages 635-645 (DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60995-8).

WHO. Chapter V: Mental and behavioural disorders. In: International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (ICD-10). Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2010.

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''Minds that have withered into psychosis are far more terrifying than any character of fiction''
                                                                                                                                   ~ Christian Baloga

Some Principles that allow me to understand Self-Injury.

With 12,000 people attending Irish hospital emergency departments in 2010 due to self-harm (Ring, 2011), it is important that ways of alleviating its prevalence in society are addressed. Furthermore, it is believed that cases which present to hospital are only the tip of the iceberg. Unfortunately there is no panacea to ameliorate the suffering of the person who self-harms, and it would be naïve of me to assume that the following principles alone would be enough to suffice for an approach to understanding and responding to self-injury. Nevertheless, they stand out amongst others.

        
The first of these principles is that 'the injury is not the problem'. You would be by-passing a host of problems if it was only concern for the person’s actual injury. Having an erroneous assumption that the injury should be the focal point of attention would only be delivering a lump of verbal refuse to the client.

             

There should instead be a focus on their feelings before their behaviours. Most of the 'problems' with self-injury are nothing to do with the person who hurts themselves. While the scars may be psychologically detrimental to them, underlying deep seated issues should be regarded as a lot more insidious. The injury has to be viewed as an outward expression of their inner pain.