Psychology

Thoughts are like Paths.

As you walk along and a path forms you end up continuing to think in that direction. 

Later on even a small trigger can lead a person to suicidal thoughts which stir the impulse to commit suicide.

*Trigger- That which initiates a process or reaction.

*Suicidal thoughts- A compulsive way of thinking were a person only thinks of suicide.

Just as we refer to inspecting the body of a deceased person for medical and legal reasons as an autopsy, when a suicide occurs, we call it a psychological autopsy when we investigate the cause of the suicide by conducting in-depth meetings with the friends and family of the deceased person as well as gathering personal records, such as journals, and hospital records.

There are a total of 14 basic items required for a psychological autopsy.

Some examples of these are:

A common characteristic among people who commit suicide is a distorted way of thinking in which they believe that suicide is the only solution to their problems.

This is known as tunnel vision because of the similarity to a person in a tunnel who sees the light at the end of the tunnel as the only exit.

If a person suffering from intense stress or a severe sense of frustration fails to see anything else and ends up with tunnel vision thereby obsessing over the thought of suicide.

It does not take much for an impulsive suicide to take place even within a short period of time.

Education, upbringing, employment, human relationships. There is an endless number of situations which make people feel helpless. People living in despair are like someone in a long tunnel.

Just as they see the exit at the end as the only escape route, when a person believes that suicide is the only solution they attempt self-inflicted harm and suicide in order to recover their lost control.

People who have extreme experiences seek a place to lean on psychologically.

Like in group therapy, people share their experiences with one another and try to withstand their traumas with mutual dependence. 

The German novelist Goethe published his novel  ‘The Sorrows of young Werther’ in 1774. 

Werther, the protagonist of the work, inspired sympathy in many young people at the time and was very popular.

However, reading that Werther, suffering from his failed love and frustration, shoots himself, countless young people were inspired to die by suicide as well, and in some regions, the book was even banned from being sold.

Since then, whenever a celebrity or someone whom a person respects dies by suicide. The phenomenon whereby they identify themselves with the person so strongly that they take their life in imitation of them has been know as the [Werther Effect] or Copycat suicide.

A forensic science agent who gathers and analyzes traces left at crime scenes to deduce information such as the criminal’s personality, age and gender.

It’s a job often in movies or TV shows, but in many cases, it’s a bit different from what you see on screen. 

They’re trying to help people. A lot of patients think of them as their last option. 

Sometimes if necessary, they need to make the patients face their problems themselves and in doing so, a side of them emerges that they didn’t even know about before which causes them to have new conflicts and worries. So there are many times when patients feel that they got worse because of counselors.

All counselors have their first counseling patient. Even if they deal with other people’s minds, they themselves are people and gradually become counselors by building up experience and training. 

The problem is the patients whom they encounter while being trained in the process, are those who meet still inexperienced counselors. Simply unlucky?

This is why counselors can’t make mistakes, but there is no such thing as a counselor who doesn’t make mistakes. Hence, their experience is a heavy and precious tower built upon the wounded minds of others.

Counselors have a lot of wounds that they’re unaware of. The most common case is patients from their early years resenting them or committing suicide. 

They say that every counselor or psychologist has experienced at least one previous patient coming to visit and to criticize them.

The belief that you are being threatened.

Flushed face, exaggerated movements and shouting are a kind of demonstration. 

It’s a way of telling the other person [I’m angry]

Why tell each other that? Because that way they can avoid fighting. 

It’s a type of warning signal, it’s a very visual signal right? [I’m angry so back down]

They’re also giving the people nearby a signal saying stop us right now.

Usually in cases like that, no punches are thrown.

However, if someone’s face gets pale and they start to shrink back. That’s when you have to stop them. 

Because that means that they’re sending the blood in their body into their muscles.

Of course, they could use those muscles to run away, but it could also be preparing to attack.

A situation like that would at least be more dangerous.

Born in 1928 in England, Desmond Morris received his doctorate in zoology at Oxford University.

His books in which he observes humans from the perspectives of both zoology and evolutionary psychology have made a significant contribution to the study of human gestures and evolution. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about memory loss.

The type of total amnesia or complete loss of memories that we often see in movies are actually impossible.

Since memories are stored across the brain, there have been no reported cases of complete memory loss. But in cases of HM patients whose hippocampus, which controls the patients’ memories has been severed, there exists cases (Anterograde amnesia) in which the person cannot store memories of new experiences and most memory loss is anterograde amnesia, in which the brain partially restricts memories for psychological survival, if a person cannot bear such shocking experience or trauma.