Myschizlife

Prometheus as Counterculture Archetype

Everyone knows Prometheus stole fire from the gods on behalf of mankind. That’s all some people, especially youths, today need know to inspire them to adapt Prometheus as their icon, and to adapt the Greek deity’s name for their online monikers.

The actual Greek myth is a bit more complex. In a reductionist nutshell: Prometheus is a Greek god of Olympus, ruled by Zeus. He initiates animal sacrifices. One day during a sacrifice he sasses Zeus. He cuts up a bull and divides it into two parts: one containing the flesh and intestines wrapped up in the skin; and the other consisting of only bones and fat. Prometheus asks Zeus to choose his share; the rest is to be given to man. Zeus picks the bones and fat, making him bitter against Prometheus and against humankind. Zeus punishes the mortals by withholding from them the gift of fire. Prometheus steals it back. Then Prometheus—who is known to have the gift of foresight—further sasses the great god Zeus by predicting that one of Zeus’ children would one day dethrone him, but refusing to say which one. The enraged Zeus punishes Prometheus by binding him in steel chains to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains. There, every day for eternity, an eagle is sent to tear and eat Prometheus’ liver. Every night, the god Prometheus’ immortal liver renews itself so that he can be tortured again in the next day’s light.

Sources: Counterculture Through the Ages by Ken Goffman & Dan Joy

Schizoaffective Disorder: What are Hallucinations?

Auditory Hallucinations, Mental Health, Psychosis, Schizoaffective Disorder

Hallucinations are a psychotic symptom of schizoaffective disorder. People experiencing hallucinations may hear, see, smell, taste or feel things that aren’t really there, and which other people can’t hear, see, smell, taste or feel.

Auditory hallucinations are the most common type of hallucination. They are mostly experienced as voices. To a person with schizoaffective disorder, these voices sound just like people speaking to them, and people with the illness cannot differentiate between what is real – for example a friend speaking to them – and what is a hallucination.

Voices might be heard in the second person – for example someone saying “you stink”, “you’re ugly”, “they hate you”. Sometimes voices might command a person to do something – by saying, for example, “jump off the bridge”, “take an overdose”. People with schizoaffective disorder may also have third person hallucinations, which commonly take the form of two or more voices talking among themselves or commenting on the person’s behaviour. Third person hallucinations are common in both schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia, but are seen less frequently in bipolar disorder.

In most cases the experience of auditory hallucinations in the form of voices is unpleasant. Voices are frequently accusatory, reminding the person of past misdeeds, some imaginary, and some real. However, in a minority of cases, voices can be pleasant or even helpful.

In addition to voices, auditory hallucinations can involve noises, such as buzzing, screeching and ringing. Additionally, people with schizoaffective disorder may think that their own thoughts are being broadcast, or can be heard by other people. They may also think that other people’s thoughts are being forced into their own minds, or that their thoughts have been stolen from their heads.

Hallucinations of all five senses may be experienced. In addition to auditory hallucinations, people may have tactile hallucinations – such as feeling as though you are being pushed, touched or held down – visual hallucinations – such as seeing things that aren’t there or feeling that colours are brighter than they should be – hallucinations of smell and hallucinations of taste.

Visual hallucinations occur much less frequently than auditory hallucinations, and are more common in conjunction with auditory hallucinations – for example seeing and hearing someone who no one else can see. Hallucinations of smell and taste are more unusual and tend to focus on things tasting or smelling different than usual. This can lead to people with schizoaffective disorder thinking that their family and friends are trying to poison them.

Sources: Schizoaffective Disorder Simplified

Francis Galton and the Nature vs. Nurture Debate

History of Psychology, Medical, Mental Health, Philosophy

Francis Galton counted many gifted individuals among his relatives, including the evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. So it’s not surprising that Galton was interested in the extent to which abilities are either inborn or learned. He was the first person to identify “nature” and “nurture” as two separate influences whose effects could be measured and compared, maintaining that these two elements alone were responsible for determining personality. In 1869 he used his own family tree, as well as those of “judges, statesmen, commanders, scientists, literary men… diviners, oarsmen, and wrestlers,” to research inherited traits for his book Hereditary Genius. As predicted, he found more highly talented individuals in certain families than among the general population. However, he could not safely attribute this to nature alone, as there were also conferred benefits from growing up in a privileged home environment. Galton himself grew up in a wealthy household with access to unusually good educational resources.

Galton proposed a number of other studies, including the first large survey by questionnaire, which was sent out to members of the Royal Society to inquire about their interests and affiliations. Publishing his results in English Men of Science, he claimed that where nature and nurture are forced to compete, nature triumphs. External influences can make an impression, he says, but nothing can “efface the deeper marks of individual character.” However, he insists that both nature and nurture are essential in forming personality, since even the highest natural endowments may be “starved by defective nurture.” Intelligence, he says, is inherited, but must be fostered through education.

In 1875, Galton undertook a study of 159 pairs of twins. He found that they did not follow the “normal” distribution of similarity between siblings, in which they are moderately alike, but were always extremely similar or extremely dissimilar. What really surprised him was that the degree of similarity never changed over time. He had anticipated that a shared upbringing would lessen dissimilarity between twins as they grew up, but found that this was not the case. Nurture seemed to play no role at all.

The “nature—nurture debate” continues to this day. Some people have favored Galton’s theories, including his notion—now known as eugenics—that people could be “bred” like horses to promote certain characteristics. Others have preferred to believe that every baby is a tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” and we are all born equal. Most psychologists today recognize that nature and nurture are both crucially important in human development, and interact in complex ways.

Sources: The Psychology Book (DK)

Identify Your “Triggers”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Coping Strategies, Mental Health, Therapies, Triggers

Each person has specific types of situations that set their automatic negative path in motion; these are their triggers. To address your problems, you need to know which situations are difficult and trigger your negative path.

While many people are aware of their triggers, some have trouble identifying their specific trigger situations. For example, a person may tell you that they are “always” sad, or “always” drink too much, and can’t identify specific problematic situations. Identifying your triggers helps you start to see patterns and then know what to focus on in therapy.

A helpful first step is to monitor your problematic feelings or behaviors and see if there are some situations where your feelings are stronger or your behavior is more extreme. For example, a person came to therapy because they were always angry. When asked for examples of specific situations, they responded that they were angry “all the time.” The first homework assignment was to monitor their angry feelings and see when they were strongest. They came back having discovered that they were the most angry when their teenage son didn’t do what they wanted him to do; for example, when he did his homework at 2 a.m., broke curfew, or did not do his chores. They discovered that their anger toward her son was spilling over into the rest of her life.

Frequently, people will describe their trigger situation in vague terms, and don’t really understand what happened. They need to become more specific and concrete. A specific and concrete description includes what happened, with whom, and the specific time and place it occurred. For example, a vague description of a situation would be “My partner doesn’t respect my work”; a more concrete and specific description would be “My partner told me that they thought their work was more important than mine.”

The more specific and concrete your description of the situation, the more you will be emotionally engaged with the situation, and the more you will have access to your feelings and thoughts. Think of someone you are a little annoyed with. Now, think of a specific situation when you were annoyed with this person. Try to remember the situation in detail. Chances are that as you thought about a specific situation, you became more annoyed and your feelings and thoughts became more immediate.

Sometimes your situation is a long, complicated story. In this case, consider the whole story and then ask what was the worst or most difficult part for you. It is helpful to identify a situation that lasts from a few seconds to three minutes, any longer and you will probably have a large variety of feelings and thoughts, and it will be hard to focus on the main ones.

Sources: CBT Made Simple

A Structured Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Session

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Coping Strategies, Mental Health, Therapies

A structured session means that there is an order and organization to the therapy session. Here is a brief overview of the five basic components.

Check in. This is a quick update on what has happened since the previous session and includes a bridge to that session.

Set the agenda. You and your therapist decide together which problems to focus on in the current session. Homework from the previous session can be reviewed during the check-in or as part of the agenda-setting process.

Work the agenda. This involves addressing the identified problems on the agenda.

Homework. You and your therapist collaborate to develop homework for the following session.

Review. At the end of the session you briefly review with your therapist what was covered in the current session and give feedback.

Sources: CBT Made Simple

Humorism and the Four Personality Types

History of Psychology, Mental Health, Therapies

The Roman philosopher and physician Claudius Galen formulated a concept of personality types based on the ancient Greek theory of humorism, which attempted to explain the workings of the human body.

The roots of humorism go back to Empedocles (c.495–435 BCE), a Greek philosopher who suggested that different qualities of the four basic elements—earth (cold and dry), air (warm and wet), fire (warm and dry), and water (cold and wet)—could explain the existence of all known substances. Hippocrates (460–370 BCE), the “Father of Medicine,” developed a medical model based on these elements, attributing their qualities to four fluids within the body. These fluids were called “humors” (from the Latin umor, meaning body fluid).

Two hundred years later, Galen expanded the theory of humorism into one of personality; he saw a direct connection between the levels of the humors in the body and emotional and behavioral inclinations—or “temperaments.”

Galen’s four temperaments—sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic—are based on the balance of humors in the body. If one of the humors develops excessively, the corresponding personality type begins to dominate. A sanguine person has too much blood (sanguis in Latin) and is warm-hearted, cheerful, optimistic, and confident, but can be selfish. A phlegmatic person, suffering from excess phlegm (phlegmatikós in Greek), is quiet, kind, cool, rational, and consistent, but can be slow and shy. The choleric (from the Greek kholé, meaning bile) personality is fiery, suffering from excess yellow bile. Lastly, the melancholic (from the Greek melas kholé), who suffers from an excess of black bile, is recognized by poetic and artistic leanings, which are often also accompanied by sadness and fear.

According to Galen, some people are born predisposed to certain temperaments. However, since temperamental problems are caused by imbalances of the humors, he claimed they can be cured by diet and exercise. In more extreme cases, cures may include purging and blood-letting. For example, a person acting selfishly is overly sanguine, and has too much blood; this is remedied by cutting down on meat, or by making small cuts into the veins to release blood.

Galen’s doctrines dominated medicine until the Renaissance, when they began to decline in the light of better research. In 1543, the physician Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), practicing in Italy, found more than 200 errors in Galen’s descriptions of anatomy, but although Galen’s medical ideas were discredited, he later influenced 20th-century psychologists. In 1947, Hans Eysenck concluded that temperament is biologically based, and noted that the two personality traits he identified—neuroticism and extraversion—echoed the ancient temperaments.

Sources: The Psychology Book (DK)

Communication Styles and Mental Health

Coping Strategies, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Mental Health

Passive Communication
Passive people often don’t communicate verbally. They tend to bottle up their emotions instead of expressing them, perhaps out of fear of hurting others or making them uncomfortable, or maybe because they don’t believe their feelings or opinions matter as much as those of others. People with a passive communication style usually fear confrontation and believe that voicing their opinions, beliefs, or emotions will cause conflict. Their goal is usually to keep the peace and not rock the boat, so they sit back and say little.

Aggressive Communication
Aggressive communicators attempt to control others. They’re concerned with getting their own way, regardless of the cost to others. Aggressive people are direct, but in a forceful, demanding, and perhaps even vicious way. They tend to leave others feeling resentful, hurt, and afraid. They might get what they want, but it’s usually at the expense of others, and sometimes at their own expense, as they may later feel guilty, regretful, or ashamed because of how they behaved.

Passive-Aggressive Communication
Like passive communicators, those who have a passive-aggressive style fear confrontation and don’t express themselves directly. However, because of their aggressive tendencies, their goal is to get their way, but they tend to use indirect techniques that more subtly express their emotions, such as sarcasm, the silent treatment, or saying they’ll do something for others but then “forgetting.”

Assertive Communication
Assertive people express their wishes, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in a direct and honest way that’s respectful both of themselves and of others. They attempt to get their own needs met but also try to meet the needs of others as much as possible. They listen and negotiate, so others often choose to cooperate with them because they’re also getting something out of the interaction. Others tend to respect and value assertive communicators because this communication style makes them feel respected and valued.

Sources: DBT Made Simple

Watch Your Emotions

Coping Strategies, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Distractions, Mental Health

People often try to avoid their emotions because they find them too painful. When you haven’t learned how to regulate your emotions you are in a lot of pain, and you don’t have the skills to manage and tolerate your emotions. You can use the acronym WATCH to help summarize the skills that will help them reduce their avoidance of emotions and improve their ability to manage emotions:

Watch: Watch your emotions. Mentally note your experience of an emotion, acknowledging how it feels physically, the thoughts, memories, or images that accompany it, and so on.

Avoid acting: Don’t act immediately. Remember that it’s just an emotion, not a fact, and that you don’t necessarily need to do anything about it.

Think: Think of your emotion as a wave. Remember that it will recede naturally if you don’t try to push it away.

Choose: Choose to let yourself experience the emotion. Remind yourself that not avoiding the emotion is in your best interests and will help you work toward your long-term goals.

Helpers: Remember that emotions are helpers. They all serve a purpose and arise to tell you something important. Let them do their job!

Sources: DBT Made Simple

Alone – by Maya Angelou

Literature, Most Admired Authors, Poetry

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

~ Maya Angelou, 1928-2014

Three Levels of Self-Validation

Coping Strategies, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Distractions, Mental Health, Mental Illness Treatments

Acknowledging: The most basic level of self-validation is simply acknowledging the presence of the emotion rather than judging it; for example, telling yourself, I feel unhappy. Just acknowledging or naming the emotion and putting a period on the end of the sentence rather than going down the road of judging it validates the emotion.

Allowing: The second level of self-validation is allowing, which is essentially giving yourself permission to feel the feeling; for example, telling yourself, It’s okay that I feel unhappy. This takes not judging the feeling one step further, affirming that it’s okay to feel this way. This doesn’t mean liking the feeling or wanting it to hang around; it just means acknowledging that you’re allowed to feel the emotion.

Understanding: The highest (and hardest) level of self-validation is understanding. This level, which goes beyond not judging the emotion and saying it’s okay to feel it, involves having an understanding of it; for example, It makes sense that I feel unhappy, given the difficulties I have managing my emotions and the chaos this causes in my relationships and my life.

Source: DBT Made Simple