Psych-Nah

What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.  ~Gertrude Jekyll

Ok! So this is my last blog, I thought I'd used this one to just reflect on the semester, maybe even the year since it was my first one in college and all. WOW, who ever said time flies was wrong....it literally disappears. So this year went pretty well all things considered. I learned a lot of things about life that I'm not sure I was supposed to learn this young. I think I passed all my classes, but one should never count their chickens before they hatch!  Moving out , somewhat on my own was definitely a good learning experience. I learned how to make coffee the night before so that when you wake the next morning all you have to do is hit a switch. I learned that just because you wear something once doesn't mean it's dirty! I learned to NEVER sleep with your windows open when there are train tracks a good 100 ft away. I also learned not to put things off, but I'm still working on applying that to life. On English specifically, I learned a lot of things that I think will help my writing in the future. Although I prefer literature classes any day, I didn't think this class too bad. If i could change anything about it though, I'd definitely change the time. 8 am is just a little early for me these days! Final Draft of my paper is done and I can't explain how much  of a relief that is! On this blog, I hope someone read it. It didn't all apply perfectly to the theme but then again I do have ADD which means I tend to go off track a lot. I'm glad that I went to UD , but I do wish to look into other options over the summer. I'm from Delaware so it was the best choice at the time, but now that I know a little more about myself, I am kinda curious as to what is out there!! Well, this concludes my reflection. happy travels 

This piece of literary merit has fascinated me since I read it in 9th grade. I've always been a bit on the anarchist side, so reading this book really had me floored. The book is written in this futuristic, cockney english type dialect, making it a little challenging to read at first. It just took me a little practice and I read right through it. It's mainly about this kid, and his 4 friends who live around the year, 2024 although the book was actually written in the 1960's by Anthony Burgess. Anywho, these kids go around terrorizing the town at night. Raping women, breaking into homes, and stealing cars. They meet other gangs who do the same, and fight them as well. Sometimes to the death. Then, on one occasion, the leader, (also the main character) gets set up by his friends, and when they break into a house, the cops find him and arrest him. They take him in, but they decide to discipline him differently. They brain wash him using a new method that the law enforcement wishes to be more effective than jail time. Instead of wasting away behind bars, our main character, Alex, is injected with a drug that makes him sick to his stomach as if on the verge of throwing up. They then strap him into a chair, and hold his eyes open. They force him to see images of crimes being committed. When he is released, he attempts to go back to his old habits but finds out shortly that he cannot. What the scientists had done to him made him violently ill at even the thought of committing a crime. The book goes on and some even have this debated "23rd chapter'' that explains things even more. This story fascinated me because of its' controversial topic. Yes, what they did got him to stop committing crimes and hurting people, but is it ethical? It reminded me of when I went to the holocaust museum in Washington D.C. and read about the experiments that Nazi's did on the gypsies and jews which were unforgivable and unethical in every way imaginable. So after I made the connection in my head, I thought long and hard about this book. I did some reading and sure enough, there's been endless debates and conversations on the topic of this book. If you haven't read it, and enjoy reading unconventional things, I totally recommend it. 

I was reading through articles and came across this one (http://www.psyarticles.com/inter-personal/appearance-disadvantage.htm) and immediately thought that I should use this one to refute. The article states that in more traditionally "masculine" jobs, attractive women are turned down frequently. It then goes on to describe how important it is to be attractive and good looking in order to get a job. The article stated some statistics from surveys that were conducted and results favored the side of the attractive woman gets the job. Personally, this bothers me greatly. I feel as though women have worked hard enough in the last 200 years to earn more for themselves. We've battled and won so many rights to so many things , why are we still debating and worrying about how pretty us girls look at work? I think if this country wanted to get things done, it should hire people based on work ethic and not make-up, hair, and nails. Yes, the article is called attractive women at a disadvantage. Statistics show that it is harder for women to get jobs that are traditionally masculine but at the same time, the part I disagree with, is the part where looks matter at all! It baffles me that in this economy we have people that still hire for looks when so many people out there are struggling greatly just to get employed. I understand that its within human nature to make judgements on others based on appearance, but should we let this determine who gets a job and who doesn't? So what if Malibu Barbie wants a job, shouldn't the man or woman whose highly qualified for the job be the one to get it hands down? And what if the attractive woman that needs the "traditionally masculine" job can do the job the best? Do you really not hire her because she's pretty? Food for thought. 

Ema, seems to think that as a result of these traumatic events, an out brake of this disease is in the works. The disorder is brought about by events like the death of a loved one. I think that he may be on to something with this. The natural disasters that hit this land have wiped out entire communities. I think that there is a very great possibility of this epidemic growing because the event were so traumatic and the age group is already prone to the disorder. 

I am takin a break at the moment from writing my final draft of my research paper. Geez, it's going to be a long paper. I chose a pretty difficult topic to evaluate and it's taken so much research just to get a few body paragraphs. But when all's said and done I can say that I've learned a great deal about our court systems. My paper is the ineffectiveness of the juvenile and adult court systems and how a more individualistic approach to minor offenders will lead to proper rehabilitation and reduce recidivism. Recidivism, in the dictionary means "Psychiatry . the chronic tendency toward repetition ofcriminal or antisocial behavior patterns." In layman's term, once a person goes to prison they increase their likelihood of recidivism. This is the likelihood that they will end up back in prison for committing other crimes. I think that the way our court systems approach juveniles is ineffective because they attack the issue as a group when each offender has a different ethnicity, background, family history, and mind set. Some people are truly caught up in the wrong group and are in reality, good people. Because of laws past in the mid- 1990s, it is so easy for a juvenile to be waived into adult criminal court. When a teenager is sent to adult prison, you can imagine how ridiculously worse things will get. In the juvenile court system they will be sentenced to time and a curriculum that is supposed to help them learn and grow but in reality is treated as a joke among the teens. I think that for the amount of money we, as tax payers, pay, our government should find a better and more effective to get through to the teenagers that commit minor offenses. Yes, there are a group of minors that are born- criminals and do not want help. There is nothing we can do for them. But there are many who do not wish to spend their lives in and out of the court system. If we provided a more individualistic approach to their therapy, perhaps they will get more out of rehabilitating and eventually go further then they would have in a group therapy atmosphere. idk, just a thought. 

Indigo shades were thought to alleviate skin problems.

It came as no surprise to me while I was reading this article,  that exercising was good for our brains. But in fact, a very recent breakthrough has been made by neuroscientists and psychologists. Through analyzing the mechanics of individual neurons they have discovered that the brain of someone who exercises regularly resists physical shrinkage and has enhanced cognitive flexibility. At Beckman Institute, a group of researchers led by Justin S. Rhodes, did a really interesting experiment. When I read about it, it really blew my mind! It was also a little funny. Anyway, what they was they took 4 group of mice. One group had a sweet cage, with a bunch of toys and the best food available for a mouse including flavored waters! The second group had the same embellishments but also had one of those running wheels in its' cage. The third had nothing except bedding and "dull kibble" leaving the fourth with nothing but a running wheel. After months of observations, the team broke it down to one thing. “Only one thing had mattered,” Rhodes says, “and that’s whether they had a running wheel.” It was found that no matter what, if the animal did not have time to run, it's brain power was not improved. I think that's fascinating. I've always been someone that enjoys a good work out and physical activity so to me this article was pretty awesome. I am a neuroscience major, so that being said, I found this article especially important. It made me think of somethings that I would want to test in a lab. Apparently exercise seems to delay the brain's decaying process which starts at the age of 20. So looks like I better hit the gym! 

Instead of doing an interview I found from an article, I thought that I'd blog about the book of interviews that I am using as a source. The book is titled Locked Up, Locked Out and is written by Anne M. Nurse. Nurse is doing case studies on juvenile offenders in the juvenile court system. The book follows about 40 individual cases. Nurse does a fantastic job bringing to light the topic. The way the book is formatted is very helpful as well. I believe in order to have a proper argument the organization is very important. The book touches base on many aspects of the court system. It deals with curriculum that the minors must complete. This curriculum includes classes like "victim awareness" and " anger management". The thing that I like best about the way the book organized the interviews was that in each section, the author provided the reader with very insightful and a tad bit nasty interview quotes. For the most part, they really kept what these kids had to say as is and I really enjoyed it. One young man, Colby , talks about his experience with anger management. He says that yes, it does touch you things like how to avoid fights but believes that these are things that people should just know. To sum it up, he basically is saying that anger management is a waste of time. Many minor offenders said things like this throughout the book. The book did not make an argument or aim to persuade it was merely just a study. A study on juveniles in the court system and even delved into life after incarceration. I think the most interesting part of the book is the very end, where Nurse is tying up her loose strings into a great conclusion. She speaks about relationships that these kids have with girls and friends and how they usually never work out. I know that begin a teenager things like that are important to me, and I couldn't imagine having to deal with someone I loved in prison or being in prison myself. The moral of the story here I suppose, is to not mess up and do things right because you only get one chance!!! 

So for my article I thought I would just blog about the one I am using as a source for my paper. The article is from The Houston Chronicle. I found it on Academic One File through the UDLIB databases. It is a really helpful article in that it addresses the exact topic that I am doing my paper on...putting kids (teenagers) into the adult court system. Firstly, I'd like to address that my paper was going to focus on teen crime rate such as violence and robbery but the most frequently committed crime by minors that I can see in this article is sex abuse. Which did and did not surprise me. The article reflects on the underage teens in adult prisons out of Harris County, Texas. Apparently, " Harris County accounts for half of all underage tens int he state's adult prisons". This came as a huge shock to me, because well there shouldn't be many teens in adult prisons in the first place. In a perfect world, I believe that teens should be taught lessons and not sent to jail. But alas, the world contains many different situations with it's own complex circumstances. In my paper I would like to address teens and their lives after jail. I don't think  that this article will help me with that but I do believe that it has some good statistical criteria. Althoguh this article solely addresses one specific county, it's a county in a very large state and it's statistics that it gives show higher rates than several of it's surrounding counties combined. For instance the article reads " Harris County has prosecuted more juveniles as adult than Bexar, Dallas, Tarrant, and Travis counties combined". This surprised me quite a bit. It also made me want to ask why!? What makes this true? Is the county too strict or are it's youth out of control? Other questions that come to mind are... if the crime is vicious enough is it right to try the teen as an adult to perhaps face the death penalty? In my research, many questions of ethics have been popping into my head. More to come. 

So for my book, I went into the library database and looked through a lot of different things. The most difficult part for me was figuring out what words to use in my search. We learned in the library reference class that there is a specific way to preform research in order to bring about the right sources. I must admit, it was a tad bit frustrating. I really don't know how many different ways I can re iterate "juvenile justice". I've yet to find a decent article but I did find a book that may be of help. It's called The Cycle Of Juvenile Justice by Thomas J. Bernard and Megan Clouser Kurlychek. The book "takes a historical look at juvenile justice policies in the United States". The book includes a lot of topics including those that will be "controversial, challenging, and enlightening". As far as research is concerned, I think that those aspects are pretty important. Personally, I believe that a lot of research is finding, interpreting, and arguing certain facts. From what I've read about this book thus far, I think that it could definitely help me with my research. My research topic is juvenile justice but the thing I wish to prove most is how detrimental it is to put a teenager in the adult court system. I feel that it is a vicious that consumes those that are thrown into it. Perhaps this is why the title of the book caught my eye. Maybe that's how it is for a lot of other people who are researching? Like, once you see a title that seems to really match up with your topic you sort of just go for it. I feel like finding a great deal of sources is going to be tough because my topic is somewhat original and unique to the points I wish to address. 

We've all had moments where we could swear that what we're living in is something we've already been through. This phenomena is called Deja Vu. In the article that I picked out for this blog, I learned a lot about the recent break throughs in understanding Deja Vu. Being a neuroscience major, I'm naturally fascinated by these types of articles and findings. I read the article and felt like I walked away with a better understanding of where Deja Vu may originate from. Deja Vu is believed to be a form of familiarity based- recognition. Our brains are telling us that we recognize the situation but alas, we can not recall why or where from. This article mainly interested me because of the amount of times I myself actually experience deja vu. It happens so often and every time it's like I could have sworn that I've done what I was doing at that moment with those people already. It's such a confusing thing but the article seems so sum it up pretty well. The psychologist involved, Cleary, through research of the topic discovers that "people feel familiarity when shown a visual fragment containing isolated geometric shapes from an earlier experience. This suggests that familiar geometric shapes may create the sense that an entire new scene has been viewed before." This, to me, was a good way to kind of get the hang of what deja vu could be. Cleary states " Many parallels between explanations of déjà vu and theories of human recognition memory exist". The brain is a fascinating thing to me! 

I just stumbled upon this, literally. I was on stumble upon and this just happen to come up. I think it would be really interesting to like, test this out. I want to ask... why is that the way it is? Obviously food, breathing, and sleeping is our top priority. Without these things we would not be alive. But what about intimate relationships being more important that feeling accomplished? I've met plenty of people in this world who put themselves nd their accomplishments high above all else. I'm not really sure what caught my attention with this photo but I do think that it is very important that I saw it. It kind of help me put my own priorities into order. 

..."and that 79 percent of U.S. children with mental health problems severe enough to indicate a clinical need for evaluation do not receive either evaluation or treatment" (Bornemann). In the op. ed. "Mental Health System Needs a Lifeline" the author makes his argument clear from the beginning. He feels as though the "defense budget is greater by far than that of any other nation, it's sad to note that there is one major area in which we continue to lag behind other industrialized nations: the provision of health care...for people with mental illnesses.". It's true and the burden that a mental illness can put on an individual, a company, and a society is unmeasurable...almost. It's been recorded that due to lack of productivity resulting from depression, $31 billion dollars is lost a year from firms. In my title, I made a point in stressing the fact that 70% of people who have a mental illness are not getting treatment. This is almost pathetic to think about . Today, most of our mental health treatment facilities can be found in prisons and detention centers, points out Bornemann. Sadly enough, this is the most expensive way to fund it! Today, we have the technology and advancements to help about 80% of depression patients recover fully and to prevent 74% of schizophrenics from relapsing when evaluated early on. I think that because we can do this, it's upsetting that more things aren't being done to help. 

I was looking for a story to blog about and I stumbled upon this website. The site is basically about serious mental illness stories, and reluctantly the sufferers' recovery. One specific example that blew me away was this guy named George. George suffered from schizoaffective disorder. He had his own reality that he lived in, didn't bathe or shave, lived in a "dilapidated trailer" and was known by most to be the "scary looking crazy man". But then George got the chance to take part in research done by the Centerstone Research Institute in Nashville, TN. Here he was taken care of, and given the proper medicine to help him eliminate the voices and delusions that he was suffering from. Now, George is getting his life together and is back on track. This does not happen often in the world of mental disorders. Many who suffer from them, believe that people are out to get them and suffer from extreme paranoia. This prevents many people from getting the proper treatment they need. A lot of the time the people end up homeless or on the run. For a long time, our country and society tried to hide these people away in mental wards and institutions. Often times, they'd preform horrible and unethical experiments on these people. Long story short, I'm glad that I came across some good- outcome type stuff about someone suffering from severe mental illness. It puts a light in my heart, and someday I hope that I can help come up with a solution to stop these issues all together...maybe. 

In the article "Vitamin D Deficiencies Cause Mental Disorders In Children" (2011), J.D. Heyes claims that a high majority of children suffering from mental illnesses have twice the amount of vitamin D deficiency those mentally healthy children. Heyes supports his claims by providing statistics gathered from a study done by researches at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The author's purpose to inform others about the supplement vitamin D and how imperative it is to maintain a healthy level for optimum mental and physical health. The author seems to be reaching out to those mostly concerned with mental disorders and it's relationship to vitamin D levels in children. 

I was looking on the New York Time website and came across a video that had to do with a 10 yr girl, Haley Abaspour, who suffers greatly from multiple mental disorders. According to the video, approximately 6 million American children struggle daily with some type of mental disorder. Having taken some time to go over various symptoms of those described in the video, I thought I'd blog about my personal reaction to the situation. As an adult, a mental disorder can be crippling. It can cause anyone who suffers, extreme mental and physical pain. Not only do the symptoms and conditions effect the individual, but often times the families are left to deal with the mental and emotion toll. So, knowing how hard it may be for an adult to overcome and adapt to a mental disorder, it hit home when I thought about a ten year girl having to deal with auditory hallucinations and severe fear, mood, and anxiety issues. It made me think back to when I was about 10. I had school, I had my family, and I had my friend. Each day was about the same, school during the day and a relaxed family dinner by night. But, for Haley and her family, every hour of everyday is a struggle. The mother mentions that once Haley is out of the house for school it already feels like a whole day has passed. Often times, Haley must leave class and seek refuge with a counselor due to her sever anxiety. Being 18 and new to college, I've had my share of anxiety, depression, and mood changes because things are hard and it's a new time in my life. I could never imagine having to live everyday in emotional torment for almost no reason. Not only are things extremely difficult on Haley, but things are also hard on her family. They must deal with making each situation and moment as comfortable as possible for Haley. Every moment of everyday is a struggle for this family and I though that I would blog about it this week to get it out there. This is tough stuff.