Eddy's quick-reference psychology lists and charts: Part II

Eddy Elmer

Please note: This information is just for study purposes. The data and figures in here are not meant to be quoted. This is a continual work in progress, so many sections are only partially complete.

Difference between affect, mood, and emotion, happiness (and a working definition of "normality" and "self")

Affect

1. Quality and range of one's short-term fluctuating emotional changes. DSM-IV: "In contrast to mood, which refers to a more pervasive and sustained emotional ‘climate’, affect refers more to fluctuating changes in emotional ‘weather’." Affect is a general state and does not refer to specific emotions (defined below).
2. Is also often defined as the physical/facial expressive range and quality of one’s emotional expression. DSM-IV: "What is considered the normal range of expression of affect varies considerably, both within and among different cultures."
3. Disturbances in affect include:

1. Blunted: "Significant reduction in the intensity of emotional expression (or, as I suggest, in emotional ability)."
2. Flat: "Absence of near absence of any sign of affective expression."
3. Labile: "Abnormal variability in affect, with repeated, rapid, and abrupt shifts in affective expression."
4. Restricted or constricted: "Mild reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression."

Mood

• DSM-IV: "A pervasive and sustained emotion that colours the perception of the world…In contrast to affect, which refers to more fluctuating changes in emotional ‘weather’, mood refers to a more pervasive and sustained emotional ‘climate’." Mood is a general state and is not directed towards anything specific (unlike an emotion).
• See the differentiation between emotion and mood in this example: Sadness is an emotion (specific, directed to a specific person/place/thing/event, and is relatively short-lived). Depression is a mood (general, not directed towards anything in particular, and is more chronic).

Types of mood include:

1. Dysphoric: Any unpleasant mood, such as sadness, anxiety, or irritability
2. Elevated: "An exaggerated feeling of well-being, or euphoria or elation. A person with elevated mood may describe feeling ‘high’, ‘ecstatic’, ‘on top of the world’, or ‘up in the clouds.’"
3. Euthymic: "Mood in the ‘normal’ range, which implies the absence of depressed or elevated mood."
4. Expansive: "Lack of restraint in expressing one’s feelings, frequently with an overevaluation of one’s significance or importance."
5. Irritable: "Easily annoyed and provoked to anger."

An emotion (aka a "feeling")

A physiological, cognitive (ie, evaluative, attitudinal), and psychological (ie, subjective, personally-meaningful) state of mind, which is short-lived and directed towards a specific thing or person.

According to James-Lange theory, all emotions start off with a general physiological arousal. Our cognitive and psychological interpretation of the feeling then turns the arousal into a specific emotional/feeling state.

Happiness

A philosophical state of mind/being. I personally like Mark Kingwell’s anti-definition of happiness: "To feel that you are living a life worth living." This is a ready broad definition that allows for lots of individual interpretation. For Carl Rogers, I think happiness would mean a significant degree of self-actualisation—to feel that you are being authentic to who you really are on the inside; to feel that you are constantly in the process of becoming your true self; to feel that you are fulfilling your truest and highest potential; becoming all that you can be; to feel that you are constantly moving towards higher self-growth.

Normality

For Rogers, this would mean self-actualisation. Self-actualisation itself implies an absence of anything that is interfering with the process of you becoming all that you can be. What can intefere with self-actualisation (and, hence, normalcy?). Various psychological issues, which translate into non- or poorly adaptive defensive mechanisms, which in turn translate into serious mental disorders if the defenses become too severe or the issues giving rise to them are not resolved sometime soon.

For more on self actualisation, see:

• http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
• http://www.wynja.com/personality/needs.html
• http://www.performance-unlimited.com/samain.htm
• http://mind-brain.com/personality/sa.php
• http://www.personcentered.com/selfact.html

Self

One's essence. The inner, deep-down conviction of who one is as a unique individual—of who one feels one really is. This conviction includes—and is expressed through—the total gestalt of one’s cognitions (including attitudes), perceptions, consciousness, subjective interpretations, personality (including ego), self evaluation, and self esteem.

[My definition of self is more of an individualistic one; it refers to the inner self—the part that is relatively entouched by external forces (if, indeed, such a thing exists...and I think it does). There are certainly social influences which determine a person's sense of self, but for my purposes, I'm not too concerned with those.

Spectrum of psychological disturbance

The following terms are thrown around a lot in popular discourse. None of them really explain the "truth" in any kind of objective fashion. They are simply terms that we as a culture have coined to describe certain classes of psychological difficulties. This chart might be useful in organising these culture-bound terms.

* "Abnormality" would encompass anything that significantly interferes with self-actualisation (see http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm, http://www.wynja.com/personality/needs.html, http://www.performance-unlimited.com/samain.htm, http://mind-brain.com/personality/sa.php, and http://www.personcentered.com/selfact.html). We are all to some extent thwarted in our actualisation, not only because actualisation is an ongoing affair, but because society is always putting constraints on it. One's psychology might be considered  "abnormal" only when the degree to which actualisation is thwarted is significantly above average (when it is at the extreme end of a continuum of actualisation), and when that thwarting is due more to internal psychological issues than to broader social circumstances (eg, poverty). Official psychiatric disorders, criminal insanity, and insanity are all, by this definition, "abnormal".

** The DSM states that for something to be a disorder, it must cause clinically significant impairment in one's everyday functioning (eg, in school, work, or social situations).

*** "Time-limited" means that the difficulty may go away if resolved in some way (ie, if the person solves his problem, if treatment for the disorder is sought, etc.)

DSM axes

Axis I - Clinical syndromes, aka "state disorders"; most disorders listed on this axis
Axis II - Personality disorders, aka "trait disorders"; mental retardation
Axis III - Physical disorders and conditions
Axis IV - Psychosocial stressors
Axis V - Global Assessment of Functioning

Mood spectrum for bipolar disorder

TOO LOW
(clinically depressed): lethargic, unable to work, agitated, paranoid, delusional, suicidal

MILDLY LOW
(depressed): exhausted, quiet, reserved, unmotivated, sensitive, pessimistic, unassertive, timid, anxious, lowered self-esteem, sadness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, feeling low

MILDLY HIGH
(hypomanic): unusually productive, perceptive and daring; with an ability to get by on little sleep; clarity of vision, a talent for juggling multiple tasks at once, and elevated creativity, resourcefulness, confidence, decisiveness, enthusiasm, charisma and stamina

TOO HIGH
(manic): sense of being special or invincible, sexually passionate, difficulty sleeping, rapid speech, irritable, easily distracted, unable to concentrate, flailing arms, impaired judgement (often exhibited in sexual affairs, spending sprees, grandiose business decisions), inability to finish tasks, head-strong, rebellious

PSYCHOTIC
argumentative, paranoid, may require hospitalization

Taken from:
Withers, P. (1998, July). Madly successful: some symptoms of manic depression read like a headhunter's wish list of leadership characteristics. BC Business, 26 (7), p. 104.

Notes on Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

Trauma: cf Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, Oxford, 1995): "In psychiatry and psychoanalysis, any totally unexpected experience which the subject is unable to assimilate. The immediate response to a psychological trauma is shock; the later effects are either spontaneous recovery (which is analogous to spontaneous healing of physical traumata) or the development of a traumatic neurosis."

While a person in still in shock, talking probably isn't very helpful (and may even be disruptive). Talking and therapy are useful for (1) general support for when the person starts the process of assimilation; (2) helping a person assimilate if he hasn't started assimilating for a long time; (3) helping a person who starts developing a traumatic neurosis (which implies he can't assimilate; in the latter case, it is often past unresolved traumas which are being awakened and complicating the process of assimilating the current trauma; thus, therapy is needed for both the past trauma(s) and the current one(s).

Also, keep in mind that therapy isn't a cognitive process; overcoming emotional issues is not as easy as just saying to someone "Think differently and things will change"; therapy is about a process of emotional experience that actually physically rewires implicit biological patterns in the brain through a relational exchange and dialogue with another human being.. Psychological trauma causes physical brain wirings that must be changed and re-wired in order for someone to go on. Only a skilled therapist knows how to walk the person through this emotional process so as to cause an appropriate rewiring. Only after that process is someone finally able to do what everyone keeps imploring him to do: To make choices, to take responsibility for his life, to think differently about his life, to "get on with things", etc. Of course, even with successful therapy a person will never be able to have his brain rewired to a pre-trauma state; biological traces of the psychological trauma will always remain in the brain. Therapy can help the client deal with the remaining traces (eg, how to cope so that relapses don't occur, what to do when signs of the trauma return, and so on).

Notes on Borderline Personality Disorder

• definition, cf. Colman, Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, 2001: "A personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of impulsivity and unstable personal relationships, self-image, and affect, beginning in early childhood, and indicated by such signs and symptoms as frantic attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment; intense and unstable personal relationships; continuously fluctuating self-image; impulsivity (in spending, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating, and the like); recurrent suicidal or self-mutilating gestures or behaviour; emotional instability; chronic feelings of emptiness; intense and inappropriate anger (such as frequent outbursts of temper); and transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or dissociation. [So called because it cannot easily be assigned to any of the other personality disorders]"
• also called borderline because it is on borderline between psychosis and neurosis; and also because person often feels like she is on the edge of a cliff, constantly fearing she will fall to her death unless she latches on to someone else in order to feel that she has a self of her own (and is, hence, alive)
• good movie illustrating this: Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie
• it's theorised that one of the main causes is a lack of sense of self; this may be due to:

1. lack of differentiation from mother (or other close caregiver) during infancy; the mother or close caregiver may have been too troubled, clingy, and dependent to allow her child to become independent
2. abuse during infancy/childhood; person grows up thinking that she is a bad person (that her entire self is bad)
3. in both cases, the person seeks a sense of self through others, or feels that in order to survive he must be melded to another person (ie, he cannot survive on his own, because he has no sense of self)

• for more info, see: http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html

Theories of masochism

Excerpt from Arnold M. Cooper, Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Masochism, in W.H. Sledge and A. Tasman, Clinical Challenges in Psychiatry, 1993, American Psychiatric Press, p. 160-161:

1. "Attitudes of passivity, harmlessness, and nonaggression are unconsciously adopted as a defense against dangerous competitive impulses and fear or retaliation."
2. "Suffering, helplessness, and defeat represent a cry for love and are unconsciously intended to ensure loving care, which is otherwise perceived not to be available."
3. "Early, severe, inescapable painful traumas lead to defensive efforts to cope with the trauma by learning to enjoy it, adopting it as one's own."
4. "Early injuries to the infantile sense of omnipotent control are adapted to defensively by the fantasy of control over disappointing, powerful parents and by defensively claiming the disappointment as directed by oneself."
5. "Experiences of pain result in endorphin release in the attempt to ease the pain, and one becomes self-addicted to endorphin release, pursuing painful events for this end (van der Kolk 1987)."
6. "Children reared under abusive conditions nonetheless attach to their abusing caretakers. For these persons with damaged self-esteem and fears of abandonment, maintaining the safety of familiarity takes precedence over potential pleasure that entails the anxiety of the new."
7. "The Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, in which, among other things, children are born with what seems to be a defective capacity for experiencing protective pain responses and they engage in severe self-mutilating behaviors, has been suggested as a biologic model for psychological self-inflicted pain Dizmang and Cheatham 1970)."

"These explanations are not mutually exclusive, and it is likely that in every masochistic individual there is an amalgam of several of these attempts at adaptation, with one or another group of defense mechanisms predominating in a particular patient. However, except for the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, all of these explanations share the view that individuals who develop SDPD [self-defeating personality disorder] were, at least in their own perception, the victims of unempathic or abusive childhood settings, and clinical experience would seem to confirm that abused children are prone to developing sadistic and masochistic relationships in later life. Again, with the exception of the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, the explanations all posit early failure to support the child's budding self-esteem and to provide the atmosphere of safety required for adequate development of healthy narcissism and assertion" (p. 161).

In each of these cases, the person either deliberately seeks out painful experiences, or fails to escape from painful experiences. Both actions constitute "masochism".

Orlofsky's classification of intimacy styles

Excerpt from J.W. Santrock, Adolescent Development, 8th edition (2001), McGraw Hill, p. 316

1. Intimate style. "The individual forms and maintains one or more deep and long-lasting love relationships."
2. Pre-intimate style. "The individual shows mixed emotions about commitment, an ambivalence reflected in the strategy of offering love without obligations or long-lasting bonds."
3. Stereotyped style. "The individual has superficial relationships that tend to be dominated by friendship ties with same-sex rather than opposite-sex individuals."
4. Pseudo-intimate style. "The individual maintains a long-lasting sexual attachment with little or no depth or closeness."
5. Isolated style. "The individuals withdraws from social encounters and has little or not attachment to same- or opposite-sex individuals. Occasionally, the isolate shows signs of developing close interpersonal relationships, but usually the interactions are stressful."

White's three levels of relationship maturity

Excerpt from J.W. Santrock, Adolescent Development, 8th edition (2001), McGraw Hill, p. 316-317

"A desirable goal is to develop a mature identity and have positive, close relationships with others. Kathleen White and her colleagues (1987) developed a model of relationship maturity that includes this goal at its highest level. Individuals are described as moving through three levels of relationship maturity:"

1. Self-focussed level. "[O]ne's perspective of another or a relationship is concerned only with how it affects oneself. The individual's own wishes and plans overshadow those of others, and the individual shows little concern for others. Intimate communication skills are in the early developing, experimental stages. In terms of sexuality, there is little understanding of mutuality or consideration of another's sexual needs."
2. Role-focussed level. "[P]erceiving others as individuals in their own right begins to develop. However, at this level, the perspective is stereotypical and emphases social acceptability. Individuals at this level know that acknowledging and respecting another is part of being a good friend or a romantic partner. Yet commitment to an individual, rather than the romantic partner role itself, is not articulated. Generalizations about the importance of communication in relationships abound, but underlying this talk is a shallow understanding of commitment.
3. Individuated-connected level. "[T]here is evidence of self-understanding, as well as consideration of others' motivations and anticipation of their needs. Concern and caring involve emotional support and individualized expression of interest. Commitment is made to specific individuals with whom a relationship is shared. At this level, individuals understand the personal time and investment needed to make a relationship work. In White's view, the individuated-connected level is not likely to be reached until adulthood. She believes that most individuals making the transition from adolescence to adulthood are either self-focused or role-focused in their relationship maturity."

Psychodynamic theories of hypersexuality, promiscuity

Many stem from histories of sexual abuse during childhood

1. Replaying the trauma with a person who resembles the abuser. This is why we see many abused people who go on to have sex with many men. In each case, the man represents the abuser (usually the father). Replaying the trauma gives the victim an opportunity to:
2. Get in touch with the damned feelings, perhaps in an effort to fully experience them and achieve catharsis; or
3. Change the storyline of the abuse (ie, give it a new ending); or
4. Enact revenge on the abuser by way of abusing those who resemble the abuser (this is commonly done via jobs such as stripping, prostitution, in which the unconscious goal is to shame or punish those who resemble the abuser (or the entire gender that the abuser belongs to).
5. People prefer cognitive consistency. We prefer our beliefs to be consistent with our behaviours. Thus, if someone came to see oneself as "easy" as a result of being abused in childhood, s/he may start behaving in a promiscuous way in order to create cognitive consistency.
6. Some people who were abused as children come to see themselves as a "disease". Some find that a continuous series of sexual relationships gives them an opportunity to find people/relationships who can disprove this.
7. More generally, in order to find a good mother/father figure who can replace the negative mother/father images that resulted from the abuse.

Related to the section above on theories of masochism:

Excerpts from Arnold M. Cooper, Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Masochism, in W.H. Sledge and A. Tasman, Clinical Challenges in Psychiatry, 1993, American Psychiatric Press, p. 160-161:

1. "Early, severe, inescapable painful traumas lead to defensive efforts to cope with the trauma by learning to enjoy it, adopting it as one's own."
2. "Early injuries to the infantile sense of omnipotent control are adapted to defensively by the fantasy of control over disappointing, powerful parents and by defensively claiming the disappointment as directed by oneself." This may explain why some victims feel that they are "diseases". This feeling may be a way of claiming the disappointment as directed (caused) by oneself.
3. "Children reared under abusive conditions nonetheless attach to their abusing caretakers. For these persons with damaged self-esteem and fears of abandonment, maintaining the safety of familiarity takes precedence over potential pleasure that entails the anxiety of the new."

Popular vs. rejected children in the classroom

Popularity vs. friendship in the school setting

Bullies and bully victims (passive vs. aggressive victims)

Bullying in general

1. systematic aggression (physical or otherwise) towards another
2. instrumental
3. most likely to start between 6th and 8th grades

Bullies in general

1. typically bigger and stronger
2. usually male
3. non-compliant and aggressive in other parts of life
4. aggressive even when they are being playful (perhaps as a way to show their status)
5. unpopular (except among their aggressive peers)
6. insecure attachment histories
7. history of family discord
8. their parents have certain styles: neglectful, authoritarian
9. increased risk for depression and suicide

Male vs. female bullies

Passive vs. aggressive victims

See Eddy's Quick-Reference Psychology Lists and Charts: Part I, Part III