Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatments.

Cognitive behavioral treatments for PTSD have been found to be very successful in reducing peoples' symptoms.Several different therapies would be considered "cognitive-behavioral" that are regularly used to treat PTSD:

• Exposure Therapy
• Stress-Inoculation Training
• Cognitive Processing Therapy

1- Exposure Therapy --> Over time, people with PTSD may develop fears of reminders of their traumatic event. These reminders may be in the environment.The goal of exposure therapy is to help reduce the level of fear and anxiety connected with these reminders, thereby also reducing avoidance. This is usually done by having the client confront (or be exposed to) the reminders that he fears without avoiding them.

2- Stress-Inoculation Training -->  The basic goal of Stress-Inoculation Training is to help a patient gain confidence in his ability to cope with anxiety and fear stemming from trauma reminders.In SIT, the therapist helps the client become more aware of what things are reminders (also referred to as "cues") for fear and anxiety. In addition, clients learn a variety of coping skills that are useful in managing anxiety, such as muscle relaxation and deep breathing.

3- Cognitive Processing Therapy --> Cognitive-Processing Therapy (CPT) was developed by Resick and Schnicke to specifically treat PTSD among people who have experienced a sexual assault. Like exposure therapy, in CPT, the patient is asked to write about his traumatic event in detail. The patient is then instructed to read the story aloud repeatedly in and outside of session. The therapist helps the client identify and address stuck points and errors in thinking, sometimes called "cognitive restructuring". The therapist may help the patient address these errors or stuck points by having the client gather evidence for and against negative thoughts.

Medication is used with Cognitive-behavioral  therapy to help heal the patient more effectively and faster. The medications are used to bring the patient to the state of mind that allows him to come to terms with their fears and continue with the Cognitive-behavioral treatment.

Memory and Emotion in Real-life: PTSD

Post traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can occur after a person goes through a traumatic event. Psychiatrists believe that PTSD can only be correctly diagnosed after at least a month has passed since the traumatic event. Before then the condition is considered a post-traumatic stress, but not yet post traumatic stress disorder.

There are 3 main symptoms that help psychiatrist determine whether the person is suffering from PTSD and they are :
               1- The sufferer re-experiences the traumatic incident.
               2- The sufferer displays avoidance, wants to stay away from anything that may possibly
                    remind her/him of the trauma. May also display lack of responsiveness or interest
                    towards everything.

               3- hyperarousal  (EX . irritable all the time or unable to sleep)

Memory and emotion could easily be related to PTSD, When a person experiences a traumatic event their emotions are acting up as their brain tries to process how to deal with it. The terrible memory of the incident will be stuck in his/her mind because it was very emotionally scarring.

Emotion and Memory = Flashbulb Memory?

Brown & Kulik (1977):-

The aim of this study was to investigate whether dramatic, or personally significant events can cause "flashbulb" memories.The procedure was that the psychologists asked the 80 US test subjects a bunch of questions to asses their memory of what happened that day and how they found out about it. It was discovered that Flashbulb memory is more likely to occur when a person is faced with relevant shocking news. They concluded that dramatic events can cause a physiological imprinting of a memory of the event.The weakness when it comes to the study was that the data was collected through questioners,so it couldn't be accurate.

http://www.nickoh.com/emacs_files/psychology/ss_dir/brown_kulik1977.html

Neisser & Harsch (1992):-

The morning after the explosion of the Challenger,106 students were given a memory questionnaire. 21 and a half years later,44 of the students filled out a second questionnaire. A weighted accuracy score was calculated by comparing the two accounts on these elements, using a 3 point scale. The findings showed that memories had in fact dimmed. Of a potential 220 ‘facts’ produced in the original questionnaire, they were partially or completely wrong on 150 of them. They concluded that accuracy is not entirely there or not there at all.



Talarico & Rubin (2003) :-

On September 12 they gave 52 student volunteers a questionnaire about their memory of September 11 and an ordinary event of their choosing from the preceding few days. They then divided the volunteers into three groups, and had each group return for a follow-up questionnaire session after a different amount of time had gone by: 7 days, 42 days, and 224 days. In the follow-up session they were asked the same questions about their memories about both the ordinary event and the flashbulb memory. They found out that the memory of September 11 was much stronger than a memory of a normal day. They concluded that flashbulb memories are like any other memories. One limitation was that the data was collected through a questionnaire so it was impossible to be accurate.

http://pages.slc.edu/~ebj/iminds09/L10-constructive-memory/neisser-harsch.html

Seneca On Anger

The Lazarus Theory proposes that when an event occurs, a cognitive appraisal is made and based on the result of that appraisal, an emotion and physiological response follow. Seneca believes that strong emotion , anger in specific , is triggered by surprise. When a person has set high expectations and it doesn't go well, then because they are surprised or disappointed they lash out.

Seneca suggests that a person uses pessimism to prepare themselves for the worst so if everything goes wrong, anger or disappointment doesn't control them. Personally , I don't believe Seneca's solution to the anger problem. I agree that anger comes from disappointment and high expectation but I don't think that being pessimistic will prevent anger. I believe that it's in the Human's nature to expect good things,whether they are optimistic,pessimistic or a realist. I think that both the Lazarus and Seneca theories are completely different.

Culture and Gender - How Do They Affect Emotion?

For a very long time, Psychologists have tried to determine the emotion differences between Genders and cultures. A person can recognize an emotion from facial expression. The argument is that whether a person knows what emotions are as a baby or by observing it as they grow up. I believe that a person is born with these emotions for example when a baby is upset he cries because he knows that's the way to express his feelings or laugh to show that he is happy.

Women are stereotypically more emotional and men are stereotypically angrier. In two studies by Kring, women were found to be more facially expressive than men when it came to both positive and negative emotions. These researchers concluded that men and women experience the same amount of emotion, but that women are more likely to express their emotions. An American Psychological Association article says that, “boys are generally expected to suppress emotions and to express anger through violence, rather than constructively.A child development researcher at Harvard University argues that boys are taught to shut down their feelings, such as empathy, sympathy.

Another difference between gender is facial expression. Woman generally smile more when happy,or cry when sad. Whatever they feel is expressed in their face unlike men. Society somewhat restricts men from expressing their emotion so much so that they automatically shut off any expression of feelings.

Emotions are a universal thing. It is recognized in every culture but is not necessarily the same. The way a person expresses their feelings or emotions is due to how they were raised and taught to deal with them. In some countries it is ok for some men to cry or express their emotions freely while in other countries it is 'frowned upon'. For example, In Europe men greet each other by hugs and hugs whereas men in America would be offended by that or would feel awkward.

Alzheimer's Disease: What Can We Learn About Memory?

 About 100 years ago, The Alzheimer's disease was discovered. It was ,however , unfamiliar to people. Now a days , A lot of people have lost themselves our a family member or loved one because of this disease. Alzheimer's is the most common type of Dementia, it starts in the hippo campus affecting the memory first then spreads to the rest of the brain. It kills cells and eventually they die and the brain becomes much smaller in size.

From the video I watched in class, I learned that the most people that get affected are the people who take care of the patient. The person with Alzheimer's gets so ill that he can't recognize the people around him that were his/her entire life before. They  become moody and not everyone can tolerate that. I felt terrible for the families in the video for having to go through that because it's such a hard thing to do,just to watch the person you once knew and loved fade away.

 

The Gift of Fear

The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century. The theory of evolution and natural selection has been applied to the study of human communication, mainly by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. He thought that just like every human and animal trait, emotions also adapted over time.

Duing the old times, Humans survived by the most basic emotions Fear,pride and suffering. They had to go by their survival skills and instincts, naturally many of them died because of various reasons. In modern day , because of all the technology advances that made human life so much easier, humans now have access to more emotions and feelings. Love and joy ,for example, are emotions I feel are now more commonly used because of the safe enviroment humans live in. They are always assured to have access to food and shelter without having to hunt which would basically consume their entire day.

So it is quite obvious that as humans evolve,they need their emotions to evolve with them to accomodate them later in life so they could deal with the things that they have to face in life.

Studies on the Limitations of Memory

There were many experiments preformed by several psychologists revolving The Scheme Theory. The Schema Theory is the influence of stored knowledge on current information-processing and behavior. Schema are cognitive structures that provide a framework for organizing information about the word. Empirical study is the effects of schemas on memory,that is was Bartlett studied in 1932.

Bartlett.

According to Bartlett , People will retell their memory the way the can relate it to their cultures or memories. He concluded that schemas can be activated to increase info-processing efficiency. They enable generation of expectations about everything. They can also lead to distortions and mistakes when settings are unfamiliar.The way the participants recalled the story came under the influence of relevant schematic knowledge in their memory. 

French and Richards 1993: studied the influence of schemata and memory retrieval. In their study,there were 3 conditions :
1. Particpants were shown a clock with roman numerals and asked to draw the clock from memory.
2.The same procedure,except that they would be required to draw the clock from memory.
3. The clock was left in full view of the participants and they just had to draw the clock.

The clock had the wrong numeral. In the first 2 conditions, most of the participants drew the right one but the rest drew the wrong number.  French and Richards concluded that the participant's knowledge of the Roman numerals is what caused him to draw it correctly.

Brain Structures and Memory Loss: The Case Study of H.M.

In 1953, Henry Gustav Molasion , More commonly know as H.M underwent a experimental surgery to cease his epilepsy. The doctors performed brain surgery and removed a portion of his temporal lobes - the hippocampus. Little did they know that that was going to damage his memory. they noticed that after the surgery he had profound Amnesia. He could remember his past,but anything new, he couldn't transfer it to his long-term memory.


H.M is still considered one of the most interesting and helpful case studies for psychology until today. He died about 3 years ago, He was 82. Tests and experiments were run on H.M . They tried to figure out how a human learns and deals with new experiences. Scientists saw that there were at least two systems in the brain for creating new memories. One, known as declarative memory, records names, faces and new experiences and stores them until they are consciously retrieved. Another system, commonly known as motor learning, is subconscious and depends on other brain systems. Another system, commonly known as motor learning, is subconscious and depends on other brain systems.

I think that Brain surgery is a very risky thing and that no doctor should have operated until he was fully informed about the case of how the brain works. However, I can not  deny that This surgery and what happened to H.M was of vital importance to psychology and the technology and advances we have made today.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html?pagewanted=all

False Memory

Eye witness testimony was more commonly used before technology and investigations collaborated. However, This was not the most accurate solution to identifying the criminal or what really happened. Memory is subjected to change and whenever a memory is forced out of the brain, it is bound to be changed.  On August 1, 1984, Ronald Cotton was arrested for the rapes. In January 1985, Cotton was convicted by a jury of one count of rape and one count of burglary. In a second trial, in November 1987,Cotton was convicted of both rapes and two counts of burglary. An Alamance County Superior Court sentenced Cotton to life plus 54 years. 

The victim claimed she had memorized her attackers face, But when she was shown many pictures and asked to identify the person who did it. She picked the wrong one,she was convinced that it was him. When Ronald Cotton demanded that they run tests,the tests revealed that it wasn't him and it was another prisoner. When the confronted the victim,she was convinced it was Ronald not the other man,even though he was right in front of her.  Her  memory had altered itself to place Ronald Cotton in the place of the crime. I think that Eye witness testimony shouldn't be used in courts because it isn't accurate.