Book Review- Shutter Island

Rating: 4/5

Goodreads Synopsis: The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new -partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades–with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems.

 

The golden rule is to read the book before even bothering to watch the movie, although I’ve been known to occasionally break that rule. Admittedly, this is one of those rare times and as I’ve learned in the past, there is a certain proactive interference in how you interpret and imagine the story. Thankfully, when it comes to Shutter Island, the book and film are almost synonymous.

The suspense was loaded with questions surrounding the whereabouts of Rachel Solando, the missing patient, Teddy’s past, Dr. Cawley’s masked intentions and what exactly is going on at Ashecliffe Hospital. The mystery builds as Teddy and Chuck investigate, starting with a missing patient to wondering if they will ever be able to get themselves off the island. Sometimes, it’s as if Teddy doesn’t care, his personal connection to the case making it difficult to leave the past behind.

Character-wise, there was little diversity to look forward to. Dr. Cawley was a one-dimensional character as was Chuck, whose only redeeming quality is the levity he balances out Teddy’s intensity with. What propelled the suspenseful plot of Shutter Island, clearly, was Teddy’s candour in his unintentional exploration of the depths of his mind and even his demons. Peppered throughout his quest to solve the mystery surrounding the island, are thoughts concerning his insecurity on being partnered with Chuck who was good with people, his latent suicidal ideation coming to the forefront, and his inability to let go of the horrors of the war and his late wife Dolores.

This twisted romance acting as a shadowing prologue is both painful and wonderful. Teddy’s longing for his wife Dolores is ensconced in ache and ghostly reminiscence, constantly showcasing the wrecked remnants of a man that Teddy really is. I was pulled in by Lehane’s writing style with descriptions like “Those eyes, Teddy thought. Even frozen in time, they howled.” and “…he held her and held her and wept his terrible love into her faded dress.” making me turn page after page, despite knowing the ending.

Not only did Shutter Island deliver in terms of writing style and suspense, it was intriguing because of the themes it tackled, including human experimentation and mental illness.

If you’re fascinated with psychology, I’d say that this book does well to represent the time it was set in, when pharmacology was on the rise and lobotomies were on the fast track to extinction or at least used only as a last resort. At times, the spew of information on topics such as  narcotic neuroleptics and the war between the different schools of thought on psychological disorders can sound dry as if it were being taught to you, an amateur effort on the part of the author in convincing the readers, “Yes, I’ve done my research and here’s everything I know.”

Also,having an avid interest in Holocaust literature, I was intrigued by the parallels between Shutter Island’s human experimentation with its patients and that of the Nazis with the Jews.  In light of this underpinning, the Nuremberg Code is mentioned a significant number of times, which is fascinating to read up on considering how it has shaped our modern approach to ethical conduction of research. 

Overall, I’d recommend reading this book, particularly for its ending which may seem obvious but is fascinating in how the events unfold. Without divulging too much, I find that its ambiguity is perhaps the best part, leaving you to ponder over what it means. For some people, it is quite clear yet there other ways of interpreting the ending which establishes the fact that even after the last page Shutter Island isn’t done with you yet.

Please fill these Research Study Surveys!

Hello, so my friend and I are collecting data for our psychology research dissertations and would really (and I mean REALLY) appreciate it if you could take some time to fill out our surveys!

My study is on the preferences and personality traits of those who watch Game of Thrones (those who have watched all 5 seasons without skipping any episodes) and the link to my survey is below. Anyone across the world can fill it!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1E9-v5bIHrD-0RylM5fkiMVZh4juxHcXET859psm7444/viewform?usp=send_form

My friend is studying viewers of Indian youth shows like the ones on Channel V and the link to her survey is given below:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bwwAG-3VdPjM01G0x5_NURj3bYttf__FKW9Xe2o2k48/viewform

Thanks for your time!

p.s Please forward our links to other people who might be interested! Thanks.

What your personality has to do with blogging

Ever wonder why some people are so drawn to cyberspace by maintaining a blog while others don’t understand the appeal of it? While social media is considered the one-size-fits-all corner of the internet, blogging, on the other hand, has become a dedicated art and crafted by very interesting individuals. Blogs have even been utilised in the education system, engaging students with various assignments. As you can imagine, there are a great host of reasons as to why people blog. Whether you started a blog for cathartic, self reflections or to demonstrate to the world that you have something to show them, research has found that your personality has a say in your blogging habits.

The NEO Personality Inventory developed by Costa and McCrae measures five basic personality traits known as the ‘The Big Five personality factors’ i.e. neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness and studies have linked these five personality factors with blogging.

According to a study conducted by Guadagno, Okdie and Eno (2013), those who are high in openness to new experience as well as in neuroticism are more likely to become bloggers. This makes sense as those who are high in openness are characterised as imaginative, artistically talented and possess a wide range of interests. Blogs can be a convenient and simple outlet for their self expression. Those who rank high in neuroticism may, however, blog for different reasons. Characterised by feelings of anxiety, tension and nervousness, they could be blogging to branch out and form social connections with fellow bloggers in order to combat feelings of loneliness.

Also, in the case of the relationship between neuroticism and blogging it was found that gender is a moderating factor for women, with those higher in neuroticism more likely to blog than women lower in this personality factor yet for men there was no difference in this regard. This highlights the gender differences in personality and its impact on this form of online behaviour.

Gill, Nowson and Oberlander (2009) found that bloggers who are highly extraverted tend to use their blogs to engage directly with readers, just as they would with people in real life, as well as document their lives. They vent both negative and positive emotions. However, highly agreeable individuals focus on expressing positive emotions while highly neurotic bloggers mostly dwell on negative ones. Highly open bloggers blog about leisure activities while highly conscientious bloggers tend to report more on their daily life and work.

Not only do your personality factors predict the maintenance and content of your blog, they also play a role in how much you enjoy blogging. Agreeableness and extraversion have been positively associated with levels of perceived enjoyment in blogging while conscientiousness has a negative impact on the very same. Factors like neuroticism and openness to experience proved to be insignificant (Wang, Lin & Lian, 2010).

So, it looks like your personality manifests and transforms your blogging space to tailor its needs and mirror itself instead of morphing into an unknown person to display an online facade. Fascinating, isn’t it?

If you’re interested in reading the full studies, check them out here:

Investigating the Individual Difference Antecedents of Perceived Enjoyment in the Acceptance of Blogging

What are they blogging about?Personality, Topic and Motivation in Blogs

Who Blogs? Personality Predictors of Blogging

Taijin Kyofusho and The Role of Japanese Culture

Ever heard of a culture-bound syndrome? Apart from known psychiatric and psychological disorders, there are certain disorders which are closely associated with a certain population and require cultural context to understand its diagnostic dimensions and treatment methods. The occurrence of these disorders really draw attention to the role of cultural factors in the onset and prevalence of various disorders.

One particular culture-bound disorder I found out about is called taijin kyofusho (TKS) which is a social anxiety or phobia manifested in the Japanese cultural context.   TKS patients suffer from an intense fear that his or her body or its parts will offend, humiliate or displease other people. This form of anxiety is characterised by a fear of social contact, extreme self-consciousness in terms o body odour, blushing and physical appearance and the contraction of disease.

Feelings of emotional distress in the form of shame, embarrassment, fear and tense feelings when in social conditions are characteristic symptoms of TKS. Those who worry about the maintenance of healthy interpersonal relationships can also be diagnosed with the disorder. Its somatic symptoms include insomnia, fatigue, head, body and stomach aches. Physical symptoms include blushing, inappropriate eye contact & facial expressions, shaking of the hands, gastrointestinal distress, profuse sweating, body odour and dishevelled appearance.

Cultural influences play an integral role in the development of taijin kyofusho which explains why this disorder occurs in Japanese populations.  As an Eastern collectivistic society, people in Japan are concerned with adherence to group norms, family loyalty and harmonious social relations. Emphasis lies in the promotion of selflessness and putting others needs, such as family or community, ahead of one’s own needs. It is encouraged to behave in a way that betters society. Individualistic societies typically seen in the West, are by contrast, concerned with personal identity with the individuals needs put before the one’s of others.

The fundamental differences among these cultures explains the distinction that can be made between social phobia disorder (SAD) and taijin kyofusho (TKS).

At first glance it may seem that social phobia and TKS are similar but there exists an essential difference between the two. Not to be mistaken or grouped under social anxiety which is the fear of embarrassment in the presence of others, those suffering from taijin kyofusho fear that others will be embarrassed in his or her presence. Primarily, social phobia disorder (SAD) is based on an individual’s reactions while taijin kyofusho is based on the perceived reactions of a group of others. This explains why the former commonly occurs in Western individualistic cultures and the latter commonly occurs in the Japanese collectivistic culture.

Furthermore, self reliance in the case of collectivistic cultures is viewed as not being a burden to others. This explains why the Japanese do not wish to humiliate others with their presence and the induced fear that this can bring shame to their loved ones i.e family and friends.

Socialisation of children is also another perspective from which this syndrome can be viewed. Children learn about the norms, values, beliefs and attitudes of their culture through this process yet it can have adverse negative effects in extremes. According to the ICD-10, Japanese cultural values encourage “over-socialisation” of some children which could lead to the development of feelings of inferiority and anxiety when in social situations.

Also, one of the phobias comprised of TKS called Jikoshisen-kyofu can be explained in a cultural context in the sense that Japanese children are taught that making direct eye contact with another person is considered rude whereas by contrast, in the West it is not. The fear of direct eye contact offending others may stem from such an embedded expectation within Japanese culture. Shame is culturally pervasive and has well defined norms for which the violations are instantly recognised and together with embarrassment is  conceptualised as haji. For the Japanase, gaze is seen as a stressor that can result in physiological reactions. Japanese feel stress when subjected to gaze and this in turn is processed into haji. Even imaginary gaze is sufficient to generate the same response. The tendency for this to occur lies in the fact that the Japanese have allocentric empathy which allows them to take on the role of the audience and view their actions as a spectator. This explains why TKS patients feel so concerned about the embarrassment of others rather than of their own selves and why they may have a phobia of eye-to-eye contact.

Also, perfectionism is a common trait of TKS patients and that is because of the high standards of self presentation that exist within Japanese culture. What is known as exposure sensitivity makes Japanese individuals feel as if they are actors on a stage and hence feel the need to display perfection which involves impeccable self presentation. Codes of formal communication both verbal and nonverbal are meant to facilitate this self presentation such as extremely conventional forms of greetings and facial expressions, gestures, postures that are occasion appropriate, coordinated group activities like sports and singing. Japanese readily conform to these rigid codes. The Japanese tea ceremony is an example of a formal art that reflects the cultures embedded perfectionism. The participant of this ceremony must follow elaborate rules in preparing the tea, utilising utensils and dressing accordingly etc.

Hence, perfectionism on display and exposure sensitivity can cause a morbid fear of self-exposure wherein the self is considered to be localised in different body parts like the face, eyes and mouth. This self-exposure fear can manifest as what is called hitomishiri which is the Japanese conception of stranger anxiety. Hitomishiri has been attributed to the Japanese characteristic of shyness. This abounds from the clear line that is drawn between two domains i.e the socially internal domain referred to as uchi and the external domain called soto. In other words, there is a dilemma in which the individual fears self exposure to the audience and thus tends to become socially withdrawn but is aware of the fact that this behaviour is odd. Knowing this, he or she feels driven to overcome this tendency and present him or herself in a perfectionist way. Hence TKS can be viewed as a part of the shame complex or conflict.

Together, all of these factors can explain why a culture bound social anxiety such as TKS has developed among the Japanese population. However, a case of Jikoshisen-kyofu has been reported in Korea which a study suggests as meaning that TKS is not only specific to the Japanese culture but also to those countries with similar cultures. It has been found that China, Korea and Japan in East Asia give a great deal of importance to social etiquette and appropriate interpersonal relations so it is possible that Jikoshisen-kyofu may not necessarily be ‘bound’ to Japan but can be viewed as an East Asian specific syndrome. Further research exploring TKS in the broader East Asian cultural context can shed light on this matter as there is still so much left to investigate. (Iwata et. al).

References

Cherry, K. (n.d.). What Are Collectivistic Cultures? Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://psychology.about.com/od/cindex/fl/What-Are-Collectivistic-Cultures.htm

Fritscher, L. (2013). Taijin Kyofusho – Japanese Social Phobia. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://phobias.about.com/od/phobiaslist/a/Taijin-Kyofusho.htm

Iwata, Y., Suzuki, K., Takei, N., Toulopoulou, T., Tsuchiya, K., Matsumoto, K., . . . Mori, N. (2011). Jiko-shisen-kyofu (fear of one’s own glance), but not taijin-kyofusho (fear of interpersonal relations), is an east Asian culture-related specific syndrome. Aust NZ J Psychiatry Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 148-152.

Lebra, T. (1983). Shame and Guilt: A Psychocultural View of the Japanese Self. Ethos, 192-209.

Nagata, T., Wada, A., Yamada, H., Iketani, T., & Kiriike, O. (2005). Effect of milnacipran on insight and stress coping strategy in patients with Taijin Kyofusho. Int J Psych Clin Pract International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 193-198. Retrieved July 7, 2015.

The ICD-10 classification of mental and behavioural disorders: Clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines. (1992). Geneva: World Health Organization.

Saunders, D. (n.d.). Taijin Kyofusho. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.brainphysics.com/taijin-kyofusho.php

Stites, L. (2014, April 24). Taijin Kyofusho – A Particularly “Japanese” Social Anxiety – Tofugu. Retrieved July 7, 2015, from http://www.tofugu.com/2014/04/24/taijin-kyofusho-a-particularly-japanese-social-anxiety/

Odds

My mind and my brain are forever at odds
Like finicky children sitting in the corner
Of a hideous room painted canary yellow.
While circadian rhythm dictates sleep
My thoughts are on the figures of a TV screen
Activating suprachiasmatic nuclei
the way a shot of vodka does my nerves.

Twenty five hours reduced to twenty four
but I could have used those extra sixty
minutes thinking about absolutely
nothing.
And it would make a whole
lot of difference when the first hour
comes rolling around at the sound
of a muffled alarm
Rousing sleepy eyes…
But bright eyes.
Chances are the monotony
Will be infinitesiminally bearable.

I’ll take those odds any day.

The Mental Health Diaries- Challenging Negative Thinking

Negative thinking is common to all of us be it at a certain point in our lives or characteristic of a particular mental illness such as an anxiety disorder and depression. It’s important to identify your negative thoughts and challenge them before they impact your life. While at my internship, I was reading about different questions we can use to counteract these negative thoughts and here they are some:

Credits:

Backgrounds: Tumblr and Google Images 

Questions: Edited by me 🙂

Getting Lost in Reading and Writing

We’ve all read at least one book that makes us marvel at how writing can be so influential. I’ve often wondered how we can be so emotionally invested in nothing but words printed on crisp paper and then came across an interesting explanation of why we get lost in a book. At Free University of Berlin, a study of brain reactions to certain passages in the Harry Potter books was conducted to see if certain types of excerpts facilitated the immersive experience more than others . Out of this study, the fiction feeling hypothesis was born.

According to the fiction feeling hypothesis, narratives with emotional contents invite readers more to be empathic with the protagonists and thus engage the affective empathy network of the brain, the anterior insula and mid-cingulate cortex, than do stories with neutral contents.

Emotionally charged passages in books makes us readers empathetic with the characters and this brain engagement leads to the feeling of getting lost in a book. So if the passage is fear-inducing, we feel dread. It’s all about which neural pathways are activated while reading. This paints an interesting image in my mind, just thinking of brain scans lighting up in certain regions when reading different passages of books like a colourful kaleidoscope. It’s fascinating.

But then what about getting lost in the writing part of it?

I’d read something last semester that took a look at this. Freud attempts to answer this question in his essay, ‘Creative Writing and Day-dreaming”. He sought to understand where creative writers draw from while writing and how they are able to invoke in readers emotions they never thought they could have. In his quest for an answer, he likens the creative writing process to day-dreaming and child’s play. A child takes elements from the real world and builds his or her own, rearranging until he or she’s pleased and does so with a great deal of seriousness and emotional expenditure, all the while able to distinguish it from reality. Similarly, as we grow older, this pleasure derived from child’s play is found in its more mature substitute: day dreaming which can be immersive in its own right.

According to Freud, the hero of the story is a written manifestation of our ego or basically that the writer is in fact the hero, making most works autobiographical. Although I’m sceptical that this can be applied to every author, The Bell Jar is certainly a good example of this, with Syvia Plath and her protagonist Esther mirroring one another. Her semi-autobiographical book could have been a form of confessional, therapeutic writing, narrating her own descent into depression through a fictional counterpart. Not only does Freud say that the writer identifies with the hero, but readers do as well. I suppose that’s why reading this book can be quite intense.

So literature can be therapeutic for both writers and readers. It’s a space where we can fulfill wishes, live through danger vicariously and live out our potential problems. It’s a fantastic channel to release pent-up tension without negative repercussions and that’s what makes it so appealing to everyone. Expressive writing is an effective therapy technique for this very reason.

Another point Freud goes on to make is that in the case of the modern writer, the hero/ego is often fragmented into many parts, split off into several characters. It’s as if writers can pocket parts of themselves, positive and negative traits, in a wide range of characters. I think we can see this in the case of Game of Thrones (I’ve always thought GoT is Freudian what with all the emphasis on sex and violence in the series). George R.R Martin himself said that he identifies with all his characters, even the nasty ones we can’t fathom loving or even liking.

“When I get inside their skin and look out through their eyes, I have to feel a certain – if not sympathy, certainly empathy for them. I have to try to perceive the world as they do, and that creates a certain amount of affection. That being said, my favourite character is definitely Tyrion. He’s the one who I most enjoy writing. But I identify with all of them.” – George R. R Martin

While Freud may be far-fetched in some of his theories, I think these points have a certain truth to them. The essay is also worth a read, if you’re a little curious of what the father of psychology thought about creative writing.

Autism in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

According to Sir Philip Sydney, art serves the dual purpose of instruction and pleasure so learning from films and books can be just as useful, even if they are fictional work. So instead of just studying a textbook to learn about autism, you could watch Rain Man.

As for books I’d recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Mark Haddon wrote this book from the perspective of a fifteen year old autistic child named Christopher Boone yet never makes any direct references to autism itself. Instead, chapter by chapter, he incorporates various symptoms and indications of autism to give the readers a more investing  first person narrative. It’s a very interesting book for this very reason.

Here are some of  Christopher’s symptoms in the book:

Unable to pick up social cues or understand nonverbal communication:

I find people confusing. This is for two main reasons. The first reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean ‘I want to do sex with you’ and it can also mean ‘I think that what you just said was very stupid.’

Difficulty understanding other’s emotions: Christopher can’t interpret others emotions nor label various pictures like these:

I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them what exactly they meant. I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn’t understand what someone was saying. But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly.

Unable to understand jokes or metaphors: Christopher interprets what someone says word for word and fails to understand the implied meaning. This is why he has difficulty in comprehending the ‘play’ of language.

…she said lots of things I didn’t understand e.g ‘I’m going to hit the hay’ and ‘It’s brass monkeys out there’ and ‘Let’s rustle up some tucker’. And I didn’t like it when she said things like that because I didn’t know what she meant.

Unable to comprehend abstract concepts: Christopher has a hard time understanding things like God and heaven.

A need for schedules and sameness: Christopher follows a certain schedule or routine for different days and does not like to remove things from the timetable once it has been added. So when he is stymied in completing something according to his timetable, he gets anxious.

You can also read about the different techniques Christopher uses through out the book when he becomes anxious or uncomfortable.

Repetition works as a calming mechanism for him.  For example, when he gets lost in the train station all alone, he imagines a long line on the floor and walks along it while saying ‘left, right,left, right’. This repetitive pattern and rhythm assuages his anxiety of being in an unfamiliar place.

Also, research has found that autistic children having a pet at home have more advance social skills, are more assertive ( like asking questions) and more communicative than autistic children who do not have an animal companion. So Christopher’s pet rat Toby definitely helps him in this way. The dog he gets later on helps him since dogs are better at providing emotional support.

This book is particularly interesting for psychology students, even though it is a work of fiction so please give it a read!

Images: Google, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time text

How Mrs. Gruwell Eradicated Prejudice and Discrimination in the film Freedom Writers

In the film Freedom Writers (based on true events), students at Woodrow Wilson High School resort to physical violence and shoot at other gangs. A young and enthusiastic teacher, Erin Gruwell, wishes to make her class of at-risk teenagers read Romeo and Juliet but her colleague, Mrs. Campbell, tells her that the condensed version of the play was more than they could handle. Another colleague, Mr. Gelford blames these very at-risk students for the school’s academic deterioration.

Mrs. Campbell’s belief that at-risk students are incapable of learning is an example of a stereotype (generalized beliefs and expectations about social groups and their members). The negative attitude towards these coloured students harboured by Mr.Gelford is a case of prejudice (negative evaluations of groups and their members based solely on their membership in that group) while the gang violence rife in the school is a solid example of discrimination (negative behaviour toward members of a particular group).

What is fascinating to see in the film is how real-life teacher Erin Gruwell employed various effective techniques to unite her class across all races and backgrounds and how, with time, her efforts paid off in full, impacting the lives of her students. She first mitigated the negative effects of stereotypes before attempting to eradicate prejudice and discrimination seeing as stereotypes are the grassroots level of the problem.

Here are some of the ways in which she achieved this:

Employing the Jigsaw Process

Woodrow Wilson High School implemented a voluntary integration program where students of all races could gain admission as a form of desegregation. However, it’s not enough to just thrust these students into the same class and expect social harmony. Since classrooms can be competitive environments, self-fulfilling prophecies are created for both minority (eg. blacks and latinos) and majority (whites) group members. Stephen found that minority students suffer from decreased self esteem after desegregation which is seen in the case of Mrs. Gruwell’s class.

For this purpose, Aronson et al. devised something called the jigsaw classroom to improve the classroom atmosphere by serving a dual purpose of reducing prejudice and raising self-esteem. This is done by placing students in small desegregated groups where they have to depend on members of their groups to finish their work. Jigsaw works because it breaks down in-group and out-group categorization, making students think of their class as a single group instead. Another reason jigsaw is effective is because it places students in a favour-doing situation, causing them to like those who do them favours. Studies have shown that integration is more successful in jigsaw classrooms and this can clearly be seen in Mrs. Gruwell’s class once she changes the seating arrangement.

A jigsaw classroom

Providing information about the objects of stereotyping

When Mrs. Gruwell made her class do a “Toast for Change”, it allowed everyone to open up about their struggles and how they would attempt to change them. This exercise provided crucial information that made her students see that each and every one of them had their own struggles and this made them more empathetic with one another.

Reducing Stereotype Vulnerability

According to Claude Steele, many African Americans suffer from obstacles to performance that stem from awareness of society’s stereotypes about them which is called stereotype vulnerability. African American students and other minority students who receive education from teachers who doubt their potential and set up special remedial classes for them come to accept stereotypes that claim they are prone to failure. Mrs. Gruwell points this out to Mrs. Campbell when her request for more challenging reading material to give her class is denied because, according to Campbell, even simple abridged versions of literary texts are difficult enough for them. Disregarding this view, Gruwell succeeds in giving her class more difficult coursework and has faith in her students performance which pays off as they rise to the challenge and actually become eager to learn.

Increasing contact between the target of stereotyping and the holder of the stereotype

This may be one of the most effective ways to erode prejudice. According to Allport’s contact hypothesis, bringing members of different groups into informal, interpersonal contact with one another will reduce prejudice. This is why the field trip to the museum and the lunch with different Holocaust survivors played a crucial role in breaking down existing prejudicial barriers between the students.

Also having a common goal to work towards that promotes mutual interdependence helps. You can see this in effect when all the students work together on fundraisers.

Ultimately, Erin Gruwell’s success story is one from which many teachers who face similar issues concerning classroom harmony can learn from and is quite inspirational. It reaffirms that prejudice can be eradicated and we just need to make that effort to break down those barriers we’ve constructed for ourselves and others.

References:

• Prejudice: Causes and Cures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_aronson_socpsych_6/64/16429/4205981.cw/-/4206029/index.html
• Feldman R.S, Understanding Psychology, 10^th Edition, (2011), Tata McGraw Hill, India

The Reality of Depression

“Get over it.”…”Just be more positive.”…”How can you not want to get out of bed?”

People’s reactions to news about someone they know suffering from depression is shockingly insensitive. However, their insensitivity often arises out of ignorance about depression as a mental illness and misunderstanding the symptoms.

According to the American Psychology Association, ‘depression is more than just sadness. People with depression may experience a lack of interest and pleasure in daily activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or excessive sleeping, lack of energy, inability to concentrate, feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.’

As you can see, depression is more complicated than it seems and this explains why people at large are misinformed about this mental illness, especially with media portrayals straying from reality.

I found some minimalist illustrations by Nick Barclay, perfect and simple representations of depressive symptoms which hopefully can elucidate how each one makes the depressed individual feel. I just felt like I had to share them for this very reason and expand on the image to explain that depression is not just something you can ‘get over’.

Here are some symptoms of depression:

1. Isolation and Withdrawal

Isolation and social withdrawal are  the most common telltale signs of depression.

According to Stephen Ilardi, Ph.D, associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, “When we’re clinically depressed, there’s a very strong urge to pull away from others and to shut down.”

This is the exact opposite of what we need while depressed because social isolation tends to worsen the illness and significantly affects how we feel.

Social contact helps counteract withdrawal and isolation so it is important to reach out to the right people and not just anybody when one is depressed. Social activities with friends and family can be helpful in this regard although it is imperative to keep in mind that they are not instant cures but steps to recovery.

2. Feelings of dread

People who suffer from depression find themselves feeling a sense of dread when waking up in the morning which could account for how they do not wish to get out of bed. Patients have described this sense of dread in more colourful terms than psychiatrists and psychologists do (blue, sad, unhappy, worried).

Terrie Williams said, “I would wake up with an overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety. I would lay there for hours, sometimes in a fetal position, crying. I would pull a sheet over my head.”

Others describe a feeling of heaviness that accompanies dread as well.

 

3. Hopelessness

With depression comes hopelessness, pessisism and a bleak outlook for the future. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, found that depressed people held the opinion that their lives were not going to improve. In fact, they were certain of it.  This hopelessness can lead to thoughts of suicide and death since depressed individuals see nothing left to live for. More often than not, those who have recovered from chronic depression reported that they were very happy that they did not choose to end their own lives. So long as they pushed through, they did find a light at the end of the dark tunnel that is depression.

4. Confusion and lack of clarity

Depression leaves people with a confused state of mind in which thoughts become unclear. There is difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions while depressed. This can have adverse affects on a student’s academics or an employee’s work performance, just to name a few. It is difficult to stay motivated during this state of confusion.

Other characteristic symptoms are:

• Loss of interest in activities that were once interesting and pleasurable prior to the onset of depression (eg. hobbies)
• Excessive sleeping or insomnia
• Overeating or eating less compared to usual

It’s been found that Type A personalities and Type B personalities differ in their depressive symptoms. Type A’s tend to sleep excessively and eat less while Type B’s suffer from insomnia and overeat.

If you’re interested in knowing the biological science behind depression, I’d recommend watching this video:

Hopefully we can spread awareness about depression and stifle insensitivity towards those who suffer from it.

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Source of images: http://news.distractify.com/pinar/nick-barclay-depression/

Sources of information: 

• http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/index.shtml
• http://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2010/01/05/losing-hope/
• http://www.health.com/health/condition-article/0,,20188730,00.html
• http://www.webmd.com/depression/features/depression-traps-and-pitfalls