Psychology Work
Bio medical Therapies
While formal psychology is only around 200 years old, the practice of using bio medical therapies to treat psychological disorders has been used for thousands of years. In the early days of psychology, when patients overflowed mental institutions, their bio medical methods could be seen as cruel and inhuman. These methods were always physical, as in your body was being operated on, or in useless psychological apparatuses. Fortunately, bio medical therapy began to shift away from the former practices and began to adopt medications as a way to treat psychological disorders. Scientists started becoming aware of the fact that psychological disorders have to do chemical imbalances in the brain; something medication could fix.
The first kinds of medications were anti-psychotic medication. These first medications were derived from the ancient plant snake-root, which was already being used in established cultures such as India and Japan for having healing properties. These first medications had a profound effect on psychological patients and the psychology field all together. The snake-root medication was able to suppress the positive symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. However, it didn't suppress the negative symptoms and had many side effects. Theses downsides often led to the “revolving door effect” which meant that the undesirable medicine caused people to become hospitalized again because they don’t want to take them. Because of this, the atypical anti-psychotics were invented. Not only did they relieve both negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia, while atypical anti-psychotics didn't have motor skill side effects, they were still concerning due to their cardiac side effects and diabetes inducing abilities
Another area biomedical medication helps the brain is through antianxiety medication. Since Anxiety is an inhibiting disorder, the medical breakthroughs of antianxiety medication had benefited a great many. Most early anti-anxiety medications are from the Benzodiazepines family, and the most common ones were Valium and Xanax. These medications calm the effects of anxiety such as tense muscles, jittery feelings and promote sleep. These medications work by increasing levels of GABA. GABA is a neurotransmitter that blocks the transmission of nerve pulses in the brain which slows brain activity. While these medications have helped many people, unfortunately there were severe side effects. Like any “downer drug” they reduce coordination, alertness, and reaction time. Also, there affects are intensified when combined with alcohol or over the counter drugs. This can cause drug intoxication and even death in severe cases. Another down side to benzodiazepines are their addictive nature, when taken over a long time, patients can develop a physical dependence to the drug. And if a patient tries to get off the drug they much do so gradually because a sudden withdrawal can produce life threatening symptoms. Now there is an anti-anxiety medication called Buspar which has a lot fewer side effects since it is not a benzodiazepine and does not affect the GABA neurotransmitter. The drug relieves anxiety but still maintains the patient’s alertness. Exactly how Buspar works is unclear but scientists believe that it affects the dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain.
Another disorder that uses medication for treatment is bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder was once previously known as manic depression since patients experienced opposite spectrums of emotions such as bouts of mania and depression. In the 1960’s it was established that Lithium can treat bipolar disorder. Scientists discovered that lithium can prevent acute manic episodes within a week or two and can control bipolar disorder over duration of time. Most patients do well under Lithium therapy but it’s definitely not for everyone. Lithium Therapy does have some dangers though. If the patient is not given a high enough dosage it won’t cure their manic depression and if given to much, the patient could develop lithium poisoning which induced vomiting, muscle weakness, and affects coordination. Scientists were initially puzzled on how Lithium worked since it monitored both ends of the emotional spectrum: mania and depression. The way it works is Lithium affects the neurotransmitter Glutamate which effects levels of excitement and is found throughout the brain. Lithium stabilizes this transmitter so Glutamate doesn’t reach abnormal highs or lows. Another Bipolar medication is Depakote. It was originally used to treat Epilepsy, but had a profound effect on those with bipolar disorder. This medication is often used if the patient doesn’t respond well to Lithium Therapy.
Probably the most widely used of all the medications are anti-depressants. These have been proven very effective when alleviating symptoms of depression. The first generations of antidepressants were the Tricyclics and MAO inhibiters. These medications affected many pathways in the brain especially the norepinephrine and serotonin. However, these drugs had numerous side effects. The tricyclics caused weight gain, dizziness, dry mouth and eyes, and sedation, but there worst side effect was on the cardio vascular system. An overdose on this medication could be fatal. The MAO inhibiters had their fair share of side effects too. They reacted with certain chemicals found in cheese and smoked meats that could cause dangerously high blood pressure which could lead to stroke or even death. The second generations of antidepressants were trazodone and bupropion. While these were different chemically, side produced many of the same side effects as the first generation. But, in 1987, the third generations of antidepressants were introduced, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). The SSRIs only affected the serotonin transmitter which allowed the medication to be more selective in what part of the brain it targeted. The first SSRI was Prozac which was later followed by Zoloft and Paxil. These medications became the most widely prescribed because of their subtle side effects.
Bibliography
Hockenbury, Don H., and Sandra E. Hockenbury. "Chapter 14 Therapies."Discovering Psychology. Sixth ed. New York: Worth, 2001. N. pag. Print.
Psychology Current Event
In the year 1963, World War II was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Many of the battle wounds have not healed. A lot of people were astonished that such horrible atrocities could happen in such an industrialized nation. A psychology teacher at Yale University named Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment, to see why so many ordinary people could support the evil Nazi regime. In his experiment he took men from the New Haven, Connecticut area, and he informed them how they were to use punishment as a means for teaching and learning. So as the teacher, these men would administer an electric shock every time the student would answer a question wrong, and then up the voltage for the next shock. The student in the experiment was actually an actor, and wasn’t receiving shocks. The test was set up so that the student actors would purposely answer their test questions wrong, to test how far the teacher would go to obey orders. The student in the experiment would mention his heart problem acting up to try and trigger empathy out of the teacher and to signal his eminent demise. Astonishingly 65% of the teachers followed orders and went up to the 450 volts labeled XXX. At this point the student would’ve complained about his heart condition and pretend to slip into unconsciousness. These disturbing results show that an” overwhelming majority of people would follow the orders to administer the maximum shock, even if they felt uncomfortable about hurting another person” (Gregorian Science 2015). Milgram concluded that it is in our nature to blindly obey orders, even when that means perpetrating acts of evil.
However, in 2009, a study at Scotland University reenacted the experiment but they cam to a different conclusion. They constructed the Milgram experiment, but tweaked it so it fell within ethical boundaries. The experiment yielded similar results in number data, but their observations came to a new conclusion. They noticed that when the person running the experiment tried to force them to administer the shocks most of the teachers refused (teachers are volunteers who were aware that the student was an actor and that they were involved in a psychology experiment). This suggests that there was choice involved because of their reluctance. However when the volunteer said they identified more with the experiment runner and their beliefs, they felt more willing to administer shocks. Also if the actor identified more with the learner they were less willing to administer shocks. The psychologist running the experiment concluded that “the real problem is not that people are unaware that they are doing evil. Rather they think they are doing good.”
Bio medical Therapies
While formal psychology is only around 200 years old, the practice of using bio medical therapies to treat psychological disorders has been used for thousands of years. In the early days of psychology, when patients overflowed mental institutions, their bio medical methods could be seen as cruel and inhuman. These methods were always physical, as in your body was being operated on, or in useless psychological apparatuses. Fortunately, bio medical therapy began to shift away from the former practices and began to adopt medications as a way to treat psychological disorders. Scientists started becoming aware of the fact that psychological disorders have to do chemical imbalances in the brain; something medication could fix.
The first kinds of medications were anti-psychotic medication. These first medications were derived from the ancient plant snake-root, which was already being used in established cultures such as India and Japan for having healing properties. These first medications had a profound effect on psychological patients and the psychology field all together. The snake-root medication was able to suppress the positive symptoms of schizophrenia such as hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. However, it didn't suppress the negative symptoms and had many side effects. Theses downsides often led to the “revolving door effect” which meant that the undesirable medicine caused people to become hospitalized again because they don’t want to take them. Because of this, the atypical anti-psychotics were invented. Not only did they relieve both negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia, while atypical anti-psychotics didn't have motor skill side effects, they were still concerning due to their cardiac side effects and diabetes inducing abilities
Another area biomedical medication helps the brain is through antianxiety medication. Since Anxiety is an inhibiting disorder, the medical breakthroughs of antianxiety medication had benefited a great many. Most early anti-anxiety medications are from the Benzodiazepines family, and the most common ones were Valium and Xanax. These medications calm the effects of anxiety such as tense muscles, jittery feelings and promote sleep. These medications work by increasing levels of GABA. GABA is a neurotransmitter that blocks the transmission of nerve pulses in the brain which slows brain activity. While these medications have helped many people, unfortunately there were severe side effects. Like any “downer drug” they reduce coordination, alertness, and reaction time. Also, there affects are intensified when combined with alcohol or over the counter drugs. This can cause drug intoxication and even death in severe cases. Another down side to benzodiazepines are their addictive nature, when taken over a long time, patients can develop a physical dependence to the drug. And if a patient tries to get off the drug they much do so gradually because a sudden withdrawal can produce life threatening symptoms. Now there is an anti-anxiety medication called Buspar which has a lot fewer side effects since it is not a benzodiazepine and does not affect the GABA neurotransmitter. The drug relieves anxiety but still maintains the patient’s alertness. Exactly how Buspar works is unclear but scientists believe that it affects the dopamine and serotonin levels in the brain.
Another disorder that uses medication for treatment is bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder was once previously known as manic depression since patients experienced opposite spectrums of emotions such as bouts of mania and depression. In the 1960’s it was established that Lithium can treat bipolar disorder. Scientists discovered that lithium can prevent acute manic episodes within a week or two and can control bipolar disorder over duration of time. Most patients do well under Lithium therapy but it’s definitely not for everyone. Lithium Therapy does have some dangers though. If the patient is not given a high enough dosage it won’t cure their manic depression and if given to much, the patient could develop lithium poisoning which induced vomiting, muscle weakness, and affects coordination. Scientists were initially puzzled on how Lithium worked since it monitored both ends of the emotional spectrum: mania and depression. The way it works is Lithium affects the neurotransmitter Glutamate which effects levels of excitement and is found throughout the brain. Lithium stabilizes this transmitter so Glutamate doesn’t reach abnormal highs or lows. Another Bipolar medication is Depakote. It was originally used to treat Epilepsy, but had a profound effect on those with bipolar disorder. This medication is often used if the patient doesn’t respond well to Lithium Therapy.
Probably the most widely used of all the medications are anti-depressants. These have been proven very effective when alleviating symptoms of depression. The first generations of antidepressants were the Tricyclics and MAO inhibiters. These medications affected many pathways in the brain especially the norepinephrine and serotonin. However, these drugs had numerous side effects. The tricyclics caused weight gain, dizziness, dry mouth and eyes, and sedation, but there worst side effect was on the cardio vascular system. An overdose on this medication could be fatal. The MAO inhibiters had their fair share of side effects too. They reacted with certain chemicals found in cheese and smoked meats that could cause dangerously high blood pressure which could lead to stroke or even death. The second generations of antidepressants were trazodone and bupropion. While these were different chemically, side produced many of the same side effects as the first generation. But, in 1987, the third generations of antidepressants were introduced, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). The SSRIs only affected the serotonin transmitter which allowed the medication to be more selective in what part of the brain it targeted. The first SSRI was Prozac which was later followed by Zoloft and Paxil. These medications became the most widely prescribed because of their subtle side effects.
Bibliography
Hockenbury, Don H., and Sandra E. Hockenbury. "Chapter 14 Therapies."Discovering Psychology. Sixth ed. New York: Worth, 2001. N. pag. Print.
Psychology Current Event
In the year 1963, World War II was still fresh in everyone’s mind. Many of the battle wounds have not healed. A lot of people were astonished that such horrible atrocities could happen in such an industrialized nation. A psychology teacher at Yale University named Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment, to see why so many ordinary people could support the evil Nazi regime. In his experiment he took men from the New Haven, Connecticut area, and he informed them how they were to use punishment as a means for teaching and learning. So as the teacher, these men would administer an electric shock every time the student would answer a question wrong, and then up the voltage for the next shock. The student in the experiment was actually an actor, and wasn’t receiving shocks. The test was set up so that the student actors would purposely answer their test questions wrong, to test how far the teacher would go to obey orders. The student in the experiment would mention his heart problem acting up to try and trigger empathy out of the teacher and to signal his eminent demise. Astonishingly 65% of the teachers followed orders and went up to the 450 volts labeled XXX. At this point the student would’ve complained about his heart condition and pretend to slip into unconsciousness. These disturbing results show that an” overwhelming majority of people would follow the orders to administer the maximum shock, even if they felt uncomfortable about hurting another person” (Gregorian Science 2015). Milgram concluded that it is in our nature to blindly obey orders, even when that means perpetrating acts of evil.
However, in 2009, a study at Scotland University reenacted the experiment but they cam to a different conclusion. They constructed the Milgram experiment, but tweaked it so it fell within ethical boundaries. The experiment yielded similar results in number data, but their observations came to a new conclusion. They noticed that when the person running the experiment tried to force them to administer the shocks most of the teachers refused (teachers are volunteers who were aware that the student was an actor and that they were involved in a psychology experiment). This suggests that there was choice involved because of their reluctance. However when the volunteer said they identified more with the experiment runner and their beliefs, they felt more willing to administer shocks. Also if the actor identified more with the learner they were less willing to administer shocks. The psychologist running the experiment concluded that “the real problem is not that people are unaware that they are doing evil. Rather they think they are doing good.”