The Mood-Congruent Model

“A depressed man lives with his mind turned back in his past, where he discovers causes that might “explain” his suffering or signs of predestination for his endless failure”. This is how Giovan Battista Cassano, director of the department of psychiatry in the University of Pisa, in Italy, defines the “negative thinking” of depressed people, one of the cognitive symptoms that characterizes the disorder. Unipolar depression, also known as major depressive disorder, is the most commonly diagnosed form of depression, whose diagnosis requires at least five symptoms of depression that must last at least 2 weeks, one of which must be abnormal loss of interest in activities or depressed mood. The symptoms, that must be severe enough to interfere with

After watch the video “The Fiction of Memory” by Elizabeth Loftus, I realize that false memory can be affect on everyone. In my personal experience; sometime I went to the place that I never been there before, but I will believe that is place I have been when I was child.

Bremner, J Douglas. Does Stress Damage the Brain? WW Norton & Company, 2002, books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kQE008A-KJwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP15&dq=Does stress damage the brain%3F: understanding trauma-related disorders from a mind-body perspective&ots=NjYA-3ei28&sig=Ar1ZaSwf69ahCWlnh3l_qRqd_T8#v=onepage&q&f=false.

What if the internet came with a warning label which read: ‘Caution: frequent use may cause cognitive decline, depression and addiction’, would you still use it? Consider that the internet has replaced caffeine as our most commonly used mood altering substance, and it’s an addictive one too. The idea that our brain can be reshaped by the internet was first thoroughly explored by Pulitzer prize finalist author, Nicholas Carr in his thought provoking book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Drawing on his theories, this essay expands on Carr’s hypothesis to explain that not only is the the internet effecting our cognition, but that it is also encouraging the development

When stress becomes so prevalent in the body, it exposes the body to dangers that could ultimately lead to serious health issues or even death. Stress is something everyone has experienced before, probably everyday of their lives. It can come from the smallest things or it can occur on a larger scale. The larger scale stress can cause multiple dangers to the body, like a stroke or heart attack. These issues could come out of nowhere or they could have been developing for a long time. Scientists do not know how stress, something that seems so miniscule, can put one in a life or death situation. Stress and tension can ultimately affect one’s physical and mental health over time based on examples from Jekyll and Hyde, multiple experiments, and

Andersons cases was not the only case were a person was convicted of a crime and was later exonerated, when the DNA evidence came to light. According to Clare, 2012, Cornelius Dupree was in prison for 30 years in Texas, for a rape he did not commit, but one witness identified him as the criminal. Derrick Williams spent 18 years of his life behind bars for a rape charge and was later exonerated due to DNA. Johnny Pinchback was released from a Texas prison after 27 years behind bars. He was proven not guilty by the DNA evidence that proved the witness had misidentified him as the perpetrator. Alvin Jardine also spent 20 years of his life in prison (Clare, 2012, para. 1). These are just a few cases that prove that eyewitness statement are not

Repressed Memories is a new concept that shocked me because I never know about this phenomenon. In USA, this memories long-time buried in unconsciousness made many people in prison related to childhood sexual abuse reported in the article written by Elizabeth F.Loftus (Loftus, 1993).

The thirty-five members comprising two groups of Veterans from the Iraq/Afghanistan wars who suffer from medium to severe PTSD between the ages of 18 and 45, are to be recruited randomly from those able to speak English as a first language, understand the purpose for the study, be able to understand informed consent, and have access to aftercare facilities. Both men and women would be included. The exclusions would be comprised of those who have current psychosis, mania, or dementia, as measured by the caregivers/therapists who already have knowledge of the subjects. The experimental and control groups, approximately 17 members each, would be made up of equal parts participants with medium and severe PTSD symptoms.

Monique Johnson is a 36 year-old, African American, who was raised in Ashland, Louisiana. Monique came from a low socio-economic background. Monique’s parents had four children; Monique, Leshawn, Joshua, and Jamar. As a child, Monique was shown that violence was the way to resolve conflicts. Monique’s father was psychologically, emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive towards Monique. Monique’s father would frequently tell Monique that he had wished she had been a boy. Monique never felt worthy of her father’s love. Monique disclosed that she tried gaining her father’s love by becoming perfect in every way. Monique disclosed that she became obsessed with being thin, and felt that she was “too fat” (M. Johnson, Personal

False memory syndrome (FMS) is hypothesized to be correlated with poor experiences regarding mental therapy or treatment and social pressures which can contaminate memories while in REM-sleep. Common social pressures include: body image, tradition, religion, and marriage; the Influences listed may be capable of distorting memories into any direction whether it be a memory of abuse or non-abuse. Knowing the malleability of memory is key to understanding how to shape FMS memories. The alteration of FMS memories can be a vital asset when aiding psychotherapy patients in recovery from traumatic events.

It is believed the most influential model in treatment methods of depression has been Aaron Beck’s cognitive theory of depression (Beck 1976). Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is the most widely practised branch of psychotherapy. It was developed in the seventies by Professor Aaron T Beck. He concluded that in his treatment of depression, a combination of cognitive and behaviour therapies were more effective than psychoanalysis. By using clinical observation of depressed patients Beck was able to come to the conclusion that patients had a negative cognitive triad where they had a negative view of themselves, the world and their future. He dubbed this negative thinking as “negative automatic thoughts” (Beck 1976), as the thoughts seemed more spontaneous rather than as the result of deliberate thought. Through this essay, I will be discussing how the importance of our thoughts and behaviours are vital in understanding depression (Beck et al. 1979), the key components of CBT, and how negative automatic thoughts may influence our everyday lives.

Amnesia is the total or partial loss of memory and can affect different types of memory (Madan, 2011). In order to be able to help those with amnesia using the best treatment, the different forms of amnesia need to be understood correctly. In knowing this, the treatment can be designed around the type of amnesia, with the cause, symptoms and ways to help becoming more specific and focused. By studying the diseases and improving our knowledge of the roles that memory plays we can increase our understanding of the brain structures and how the types of memory fit together. In this essay I am going to look at Psychogenic Amnesia (PA) and Organic Amnesia (OA),

Looking on the Internet I came upon article that put a whole new light regarding repressed memories. Scholars like Sigmund Freud believed that repress memories have a detrimental effect on individuals’ lives. Sigmund Freud assumption of repressed memories can have a negative influence on behavior and mental health, but this article, from Time Magazine, discusses the benefits of repressed memories (Sifferlin, A, 2014).

Stress is an essential mediator of human behaviour. Immediate physiological response to any type of stressor facilitates survival of the species at its maximum. Despite of normal homeostatic regulatory mechanism, the stress responses can become maladaptive. Chronic stress, for example immobilization, exposure to noise, irradiations, psychological stress can leads to a host of adverse health consequences, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegeneration, obesity, depression and early ageing (McEwen et al, 2004). Acute stress or single exposure to stressor of minutes to hours will be not produce any ill effect as body have protective and adaptive effects managed by hormones and other physiological agents. However re-exposure has proven to be more enigmatic or difficult to reverse. Conrad et al (1999) stated that severe or prolonged exposure to stressors is harmful, brief or moderate stressors actually enhance neural function. Various behavioral studies focusing on the memory functions of the hippocampus have demonstrated that moderate stress enhances memory performance but severe stress causes adaptive plasticity and impairs memory. Prolonged stress produces interaction between local neurotransmitters and hormones leading to structural and functional damage causing suppression of neurogenesis. The main mechanism is, as hippocampus is intensity sensitive to stress and the stress hormone glucocorticoids (GCs) (Bruce et al

Furthermore memories are the events we have experienced in life and due to these experiences they take a toll on a person’s behavior. We may perceive a person has negative or pessimistic but without knowing them we can not assume their personality.