6 Weird Fetishes (Part III)

This is part III of Weird Fetishes series and probably the last part, so if you haven't read Part I and Part II you should go check out some weirdness there.  Unless some people decide they get aroused by rubbing rocks on their eyeballs in the near future or others decide they want to invent some other new ways to get aroused I don't think I'm going to be writing about this subect soon.Along with Part I and II, I present you the next weird fetishes:

1. Furries - Yes, people who like to dress as animals and live that way. Yes, they exist and apparently  

they find humping to be sexually gratifying. Although some furries are interested in zoophilia, most of them are interested in other people being dressed as animals. The weird thing about them is the fact that they usually take on the persona of the animal they are portraying. While some people have the personality of a sheep, furries are definitely a lot more than that. Their "alternative" personality can be much more complex than must of us would think. There is also ursusagalmatophilia (more like sex with teddy bears) related to that, so go check it out on this cool website.

2. Symphorophilia –according to Wikipedia, in this paraphilia the sexual arousal hinges on staging

and watching a disaster, such as fire or traffic accident. The term was coined by J.Money who stated that this is a type of sacrificial paraphilia that culminates with a disaster. A lot of people who have this fetish are aroused by automobile crash. “For those members of the general public who have a touch of sadomasochism in them, disaster as an unrehearsed event is often a large part of the appeal of entertainment stunts and sports, from the circus to stock-car racing.”

3. Menophilia – menophilia is another weird fetish that involves women’s menstrual blood.  If your girlfriend’s name is Mary, I’ve got a name for your sexual encounters. It’s Bloody Mary, get it? Yes, I just made that high school joke, I don’t care.

Anyway, this fetish goes beyond your wildest imagination; it’s not like people just like having sex during that time of the month, but they also choose to gorge on their women’s tampons or maxi-pads. I'd probably pay money for that view. For further reading you should check out this webpage.

4.  Bugchasing - this is not just a fetish, it's a self harm behavior because people who are "bugchasing" purposely engage in sexual intercourse with HIV infected people. They are not the same as barebackers, who just prefer having sex without a condom. The psychology behind bugchasing is different as it may be due to self harm tendencies, the feeling that this practice is extremely erotic due to its taboo nature  or even a way for lonely and alienated people to be part of a community. 

5. Mechanophilia - I don't even know if this is bad or good. Designers such as Filippo Tommaso

Emilio Marinetti or Francis Picabia supposedly had this fetish, so having sex with cars should be accepted for the greater good? It is beyond me how a person would develop sexual interest for a car or something mechanical, but I've seen it, I've seen a couple of guys that were a tad too much into cars.

6. Oculolinctus - the art of licking eyeballs. No, not an art, just a fetish, and a pretty dangerous one too. If you've seen the news, you know that this practice has been spread among young people. I don't know where it comes from, but apparently it's the new "second base".

Psychoanalysis Part I – Transference and Countertransference

via minddisorders.com   

Psychoanalysis can be described as a curative method based on complete verbalization of thoughts and free associations method in a context that will allow patients to overcome their repressed memories or thoughts.

We can say that psychoanalysis is a specific technique to investigate the mind. The novelty of Freud’s discoveries came with the acknowledgement of how important the unconscious processes were. He stated that they behave differently than conscious processes as the influence of this part of our mind can make us reach conflicting mental states.  

Some of the characteristics of psychoanalysis are:

•      it is a long term therapy method, even today despite the vast amount of short term therapies.    Psychoanalysts believe that there is a need for a long term therapy as their method will modify the      patient’s personality to be able to eliminate the symptoms completely;
•  Psychoanalysis searches for the cause and it is not based on eliminating just the symptom;
•   it is a non-directive type of psychotherapy;
•   it uses specific methods;
•   it explores transfer and counter-transfer;

Transference and Countertransference in Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is not just a strictly intellectual process where the patient talks and the therapist analyses, it is a relationship where affectivity plays an important role. This is why transfer is so important.  At first Freud considered that transference can be an impediment during therapy but he later discovered that it is actually essential.

The patient transfers feelings towards the therapist, feelings that they may have for their brothers, sisters, mothers, etc.; it is considered to be a reenactment of a childhood relationship. Defined shortly, transference is unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. For example, a person could despise somebody who resembles in some way their ex-lover. During psychoanalytical therapy transference is explored, a method that is not used in other therapies. As transference often appears when there is an emotional connection, it can be an important concept in finding the cause for mental distress, so transfer is also stimulated during psychoanalysis.

This relationship is important for two reasons: it helps the therapist search for childhood models and identify particularities that define the patient’s relationships with the ones around them. This bond between the patient and therapist will help the patient overcome their resistances as the patient will feel the need to please the therapist, as they feel protected and supported.

Countertransference is also important, although it is quite a controversial term. It wasn’t discovered at the beginning of psychoanalysis. It can be defined as an unconscious affective reaction of the therapist in relation to their patient. During the 60’s countertransference started playing a big role during therapy.

Resistance is another concept used in this therapeutic approach and can be defined as a phenomenon when the patient completely disagrees with their therapist and fights back any type of interpretation. However, this is just a type of resistance that can be easily seen during therapy but it can manifest itself in other ways such as: being late or not coming at all to the therapy sessions, developing new symptoms, falling asleep during the psychotherapy session, or eventually, leaving the therapy process completely.  Psychoanalysts believe that patients develop resistances because they cannot face what lies in their unconscious.

Also, there’s another approach on transference and countertransference that is offered in Adlerian psychotherapy. The patient’s transference is pointed out and explained as an obstacle to cooperation and improvement. On the other hand, experimenting countertransference would suggest that the therapist needs to continue their personal therapy and training to overcome such tendencies in the future.

The Psychoanalytical Space

The place and atmosphere where the therapy is conducted also plays an important role during psychoanalysis; those who still practice classic psychoanalysis choose to have a simple space with a couch, no paintings or decorative items, an armchair and a small table. Obviously, this is not the exact description as everybody chooses to decorate and design their office the way they want but it should give you some perspective on how a psychoanalyst’s office should look like.

The therapy is usually done with the patient lying on the couch and the therapist behind him; this helps the patient with their projections and verbalize things easier.  

Predicting People's Behavior - How accurate are we?

 Figuring other people out is not a bad thing. It’s actually an adaptive trait we have, which should definitely be enhanced in various ways. Trying to figure out others in order to predict behavior and adjust yourself accordingly is reasonable, but the problem starts when people actually believe that their predictions are infallible and live in a sort of mind reader delusion or thinking that their judgments cannot contain any error.

 Self-delusion can be pleasing and sufficient for a modest mental activity. Actually, self-delusion can be seen as a very effective coping mechanism. People alter their ideas to model a world where they can have the illusion of control. There are many biases people use to make sure that they maintain that illusion about the world. But let’s talk a bit, before that, about one of the other mechanisms, a sort of magical thinking where people actually consider that they can read the minds of others with great precision. This mind reading is also correlated with a sort of Know-it-all behavior as we will see further. Also, we will analyze the cognitive biases that fuel this inner circular belief system. I will not debate right now whether there is this paranormal possibility or not, as I am only approaching this problem from an epistemological point of view.

First, I want to mention the problem called The Problem of OtherMinds which regards our inner life and, most importantly, other people’s inner lives. As an epistemological problem, this is concerned with how our beliefs about mental states other than our own might be justified. On the other hand, there’s also the problem of us being able to form a concept of mental states other than our own, which is perhaps the key to solving the first. We could go for the most extremist point of view on the matter, which is metaphysical solipsism and consider that no reality exists other than our own mental activity or state and that the external world has no independent existence. But the solipsist’s tragedy is the fact that they will have to convince people that they are a figment of their imagination, the solipsist’s imagination. But we managed to distance ourselves from the sub-main point, which was the fact that according to The Problem of Other Minds, it is rather difficult to perceive the inner world of other people, let alone draw conclusions based on what we might perceive. Even philosophers agree, that embracing one Philosophy of the Mind or other, will not entirely solve this. But let’s get back to the main point: self-delusion in prediction.

It seems that people who self-delude themselves have a problem with comprehending the fact that people have minds, other minds, different than their own minds. Also, extending one’s mental product to other people’s minds greatly influences our perception of reality and our inner self, in a biased way. The problem with mind reading is not the attempt to read minds and predict behavior, that is normal after all, but the fact that some people are so sure of their own predictions and false knowledge they might produce they might engage in disastrous behaviors and ways of thinking. 

Here are few theories that may explain people’s need to actively try and read other’s minds and predict their behavior:

Egocentric judgement

“Later researchers elaborated on Piaget’s initial findings and theorizing to show that young children do not reliably distinguish between what they know and what others’ know (Perner, 1991; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), do not provide sufficient information to identify ambiguous references in communication (Deutsch & Pechmann, 1982; Sonnenschein & Whitehurst, 1984), and rarely distinguish between the way an object appears to them and the way it would appear to someone else (Flavell, 1986).” (Whole article here: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/nicholas.epley/EpleyCompass.pdf)

It seems that this egocentric judgment can be still seen in humans as they rarely find out that other’s perceptions differ from their own, thus diminishing their mind reading power.

Attempting Mind Reading As A Coping Mechanism

We all have coping mechanisms in order to tolerate stress or avoid sadness and conflict. I’m not saying that coping mechanisms are bad, but some people might use them as an escape from reality. Reality is not just the exterior world, but also their mind and the things that they are willing to acknowledge about themselves. This means that  they will live with a distorted view about themselves and the world. Predicting and trying to read the minds of others while flirting, for example, has been proved to be a difficult task for both men and women. It seems that women usually misread that the men are less interested in them, while men believe that women are much more interested in them compared with how interested they are in reality.  This might be a coping mechanism for both sexes. Women might use the less interested coping mechanism in an attempt to diminish their expectations in order to avoid disappointment as men tend to be less committed, while men might use this self-delusion to stroke their ego and avoid acknowledging failure. Some people have this so rooted in their personality, they would be lost without it and they will constantly live in denial, being unable to see when others prove them wrong. This can be extremely distressing for those around them and counterproductive for them as they cannot reach authentic self-knowledge and not even a correct image regarding the outside world and people, as they model everything to be a part of their coping mechanism puzzle. We can say that they are the people who constantly live in a cognitive dissonance related to almost everything that would shatter their inner world.

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/busslab/pdffiles/CognitiveBiases.PDF

Attempting to Read Minds In Order To Manipulate

This is probably why the term reading minds and the whole idea was invented in the first place. People like to manipulate other people, it’s that simple.  But this need may have an underlying issue.  A person who likes manipulating loves being in control or feeling superior, which is connected to a need to raise self-esteem. Actually people who overly-predict, plan, or constantly try to read the minds of others are actually looking for some stability in an attempt to control and cope with reality. But, as I mentioned several times in this article, this is just an illusion of control.  

Cognitive Biases used by in mind reading attempts and over-prediction  

The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight  - It seems that people show an asymmetry when they start thinking about how much knowledge they have about other people and how much other people can tell about them. It seems that six studies suggested that people believe that the knowledge of their peers is greater than their peers’ knowledge of them. So we believe that we know more about other people than they know about us and the term for this is “naive realism”.  http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/81/4/639/

Mind Projection Fallacy – this occurs when people are sure that the way they see the world reflects the way the world really is and they can even go as far as thinking that there are imagined objects in reality. Here’s an article that explains this phenomenon in detail. http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/prob.as.logic.pdf

Confirmation Bias http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/confirmation_bias.htm – this is probably one of the main tools used in mind reading self-delusion.

Youarenotsosmart.com http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ made this simple:

“The Misconception: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis.

The Truth: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions.”

The confirmation bias is actually derived from your ability to filter the information around you. This means that you are prone to see information that confirms your beliefs.  I will give you an example: women, when thinking they were pregnant, started seeing everything that was related to motherhood. They started seeing a lot of pregnant women, children, articles in the newspaper related to that, etc. This doesn’t mean that the universe was trying to tell them something, it just means that they were focused on filtering information based on their interest. The same applies with mind reading: we get an amount of information about a person but we filter it through our own preconceptions. This is why preconceptions are bad in the first place, they keep us from thinking clearly and seeing the whole picture. Whenever that person shows behavior that is against our preconceived idea about them, we ignore it or attribute it to some other instance like being an exception. But when they show a certain behavior that confirms our theory, we obviously believe that and our theory gets stronger. How many times have you actually tried to find counterarguments to your strongest beliefs? Whenever I believe something the first thing i do is try to find arguments on the internet or in books that support that idea. Later, I wake up and start looking at different opinions. The same happens to people when trying to read the minds of others. It seems that the “most likely reason for the excessive influence of confirmatory information is that it is easier to deal with cognitively” as it is easier to see how the data you receive supports your position rather than denies it.   http://www.skepdic.com/confirmbias.html

Overgeneralization – well isn’t this the mother of all fallacies? Overgeneralizations actually means  recognizing those qualities in a person or a thing which we have seen before and extending those qualities to the whole population. When it comes to the logical fallacy called hasty generalization this means that people will make an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence and without considering all of the variables. Statistically speaking, your conclusion does not represent the whole population, although you use it like it does.

Selective perception - is the personal filtering of what we see and hear so as to suit our own needs. Much of this process is psychological and often unconscious. Have you ever been accused of only hearing what you want to hear? In fact, that is quite true. We simply are bombarded with too much stimuli every day to pay equal attention to everything so we pick and choose according to our own needs. This leads to the Halo Effect, which means that you will evaluate or judge people, events, places, etc. only by a single trait or experiment creating a prejudice in your judgment. People will often try to perceive further interaction with somebody based on one element or a very few elements. http://lilt.ilstu.edu/rrpope/rrpopepwd/articles/perception3.html

Psychological projection or projection bias – this is a defense mechanism where people deny their own attributes that they see in other people or the outside world. It reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of these impulses without letting the conscious mind recognize them. People who unconsciously believe that they have failed will often blame others for self-failure, for example.

Trait ascription bias – this is quite interesting as it shows people’s capacity to flatter themselves at an unconscious level. They see themselves complex and different from the other world, like a unique snowflake as Palahniuk described this. However, they see others as definitely much more predictable and simple in behavior and thought. Obviously, there is an explanation for this, we can analyze our inner world and access it better than we can do it with others. But, unfortunately, this is the source of prejudice and stereotyping which is not a lucid view upon the world.

Overconfidence Effect – this refers to “someone's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater than their objective accuracy, especially when confidence is relatively high.” Actually there were studies that showed how people rated their answers in quizzes as 99% certain but were wrong 40% of the time. In short, overconfidence seems to be an example of miscalibration of subjective probabilities and probably another coping mechanism.  http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_overconfidence/

Wishful Thinking – there are many mechanism involved in wishful thinking and some might say that it is quite an adaptive cognitive bias. However, when it really alters our perception of the world, it becomes a really bad cognitive bias. What wishful thinking actually means is the fact that we tend to believe to be true what we wish to be true. There have been quite a lot of studies showing that subjects will usually predict positive outcomes rather than negative outcomes (just search the internet and you will find quite a few). Wishful thinking is also a well-known logical fallacy.

Availability Heuristic – Mind readers like to predict, a lot. Actually, that’s what they do. Of course, predicting is important and good when one has elementary statistics knowledge and doesn’t use anecdotes as proof. This is a mental shortcut that uses the ease with which examples come to mind to make judgments about the probability of events

Illusory Correlation - Illusory correlation is seeing a relationship that you expect in a set of data that has no relationship, for example false associations like overgeneralization and stereotyping.

The Focusing Effect - This bias occurs when people exaggerate the important of one aspect, event, trait, piece of information which influences the way they can accurately predict future outcome. This can also be extended to perceiving their well-being. When trying to mind-read people, there is also the tendency to take one trait and form a global opinion with that trait in mind. Also, the future opinions can be flawed by a certain focus a person has based on a preconception. It’s just like using a magnifying glass on some aspects and drawing conclusions based on our exaggeration. There is an interesting article that quotes a few studies in this direction for those interested: 

http://www.morgenkommichspaeterrein.de/ressources/download/125krueger.pdf

Anecdotal evidence – I know a person who...I met somebody who... A friend of mine... – this is the form of anecdotal evidence and it’s an attempt to use personal accounts as an argument supporting some views of a group, experience, circumstance, etc. That’s wrong because you cannot extend your knowledge about those only based on your experience since you probably haven’t met a statistically significant amount of people.

Attentional bias -  a person does not examine all possible outcomes when making a judgment about a correlation or association. It also seems to be an attention bias towards negative information regarding people, things or situations. It seems that people dislike loses more than large gains and they are prone to attribute causality to negative events rather than positive events. More about this and some studies regarding this can be found here http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/cacioppo/jtcreprints/beingbadisnt.pdf

Choice-supportive bias – we tend to think that our choices are better than they actually were. We also attribute positive features to the choices we make and negative features to things we did not choose. 

Illusory superiority  or the above average effect– another cute cognitive bias very familiar to those involved in great self-delusion. It means that people will overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and underestimate their negative qualities in relation to others. You can probably imagine how many errors a person who thinks they can predict behavior and read minds can do when having this illusion. Actually, thinking that you are a mind reader with accurate descriptions is itself an illusory superiority. This reminds me of the Downing effect that describes the tendency of people with a below average IQ to overestimate their IQ while people with an above average IQ will underestimate their IQ. I guess Bertrand Russell was right when he said: The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Psychologist Fallacy – well it seems that this fallacy exists. It’s pretty similar to the fallacies described above and it refers to projecting your own mind’s properties into the external world. An observer presupposes the universality of their own perspective when analyzing a behavioral event. This makes us judge people based on our own set of rules, which may or may not be correct.

Illusion of validity – describes the state in which consistent evidence persistently leads to confident predictions even after the predictive value of the evidence has been discredited. Here’s an interesting article about its persistence in clinical environment: http://implab.hu/wiki/images/e/ed/Einhorn_Hogarth_1978.pdf

...and many, many more cognitive biases, but this article is already too big.

The mind-reading tendency is common to all people, some more than the others. However, the problem with this behavior is the fact that once people have moderate success with it or delude themselves that way, they will use in their everyday life. Unfortunately, they are unable to perceive other’s mental states directly and will have to infer them and there is a great chance that they will commit some error every time they do it. There is a variety of tools they can use such as: observations of behavior, second – hand reports, or simply intuition.

Obviously, none of these are precise and not even summing them up will lead to an infallible conclusion. Mind reading mistakes can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, social conflict, and poor decision-making. Also, let’s not forget that people can be imprecise when reading their own mind (their past mind or their future mind), which is very sad considering their attempts to read other people’s minds. An authentic understanding of self is another philosophical issue that is hard to be solved, so considering this fact and other circumstances how can people actually believe that they can actively read minds? 

Well, in the end we must agree that people like control. Information is control for people, although if we analyze it we will see that having information about something is just an illusion of control. Also, the fact that our information might not be precise and we are using it as a base for having control is just a recipe for disaster, both in communicating with other people and personal development. In the end, our demeanor should be directed towards being less wrong not being superhumans who read minds and predict behaviors so that they feel less confused.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/l/list_of_cognitive_biases.htm

http://kidsthinkingcritically.wordpress.com/thinkingerrors/jumping-to-conclusions/mind-reading/

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross - 5 Stages Of Grief Model

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her book called “On Death and Dying”, there are five stages of grief. However, one should not conclude that these stages only apply in case of personal death or somebody else’s death. We can experience the stages in other traumatic life events such as social rejection, divorce, break-up, disease, etc. Although she is popular for her grief model, she also did a lot of research on other aspects associated with death, dying and overall personal trauma.

Source

Why are these theories applied in other aspects of life? First of all, let us analyze the concept of social death or psychosocial death. Social death can be defined as experiencing a profound sense of loss, but that loss cannot be publicly acknowledged if the person is still biologically alive. Some of the traumas previously named can be characteristic for social death. The grief process that follows a divorce, for example, is usually similar with the grief process one experiences when they physically lose their significant other. In other words, any type of loss or rejection feels like dealing with death and also reminds us, from an existentialist view, that we are alone in the world and there is no stability. These stages don’t respect an order of appearance, each person experiences grief differently and may skip or switch certain stages. The stages we previously talked about are described as:

Denial – During this stage, things will feel overwhelming so, as a coping mechanism, the person will try to deny their state because they feel a shock. This shock has changed everything in their life and it usually doesn’t make sense at first. Actually, although it would seem like a negative aspect, denial is actually good because it helps us cope and survive and understanding your pain begins with denial.

Anger – A very important stage in the healing process, anger is not endless no matter how much you think it is at the moment you experience it. Actually, the more anger you express, the better you will cope with your problem afterwards, because it helps you let go of your pain somehow. Anger is much better as despair because it gives you a focus towards an object, while despair is just a feeling without structure. Try not to suppress your anger.

Bargaining – this is a form of temporary truce, you will make certain promises to yourself, to God, or whatever you believe in that certain things will happen if you get through the traumatic event. In this stage, you will experience regret a lot and often think about times when you could have done things differently. 

Depression – depression is a state of mind characterized by the present, unlike bargaining which is characterized by the past. Depression is the appropriate response to a great loss and should be understood while experiencing it because it’s an important step in your grief.

Acceptance – although most people have the misconception that acceptance means being all right with your current situation, it is not the case when analyzing grief. Acceptance during the grief process is about seeing the reality just as it is and coping with it in an authentic way. In other words, acceptance is not denying our feelings, trying to recreate meaningful relationships, despite the loss you endured.

From an epistemological point of view we can notice that these stages of grief are very similar to the structure we use when we gather new information that contrasts the old information we believe in. It seems that our thought patterns are constructed to resemble the stages of grief whenever we learn something new, leading, more or less, to an emotional roller-coaster. Even if the stages of grief have been criticized by scientists who consider that there is no pattern similar to most people, but there is evidence that points to the fact that most people have the same way of integrating traumatizing or controversial information while experiencing some or all these stages.

Further reading:
http://jordan1990.hubpages.com/hub/The-five-stages-of-grief
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=five-fallacies-of-grief
http://grief.net/Myth%20of%20Stages.pdf

Morbid Jealousy - blinded by emotion

Source

Many see jealousy as a normal and even desirable emotion. Not being jealous is viewed by many as a problem or a sign that your partner doesn't care enough. But there are times when jealousy can become unhealthy for the person experiencing it and for those involved. 

Morbid Jealousy, Delusional Jealousy or Othello’s Syndrome describe the same psychiatric condition and a person suffering from this will have strong beliefs that their partner is being unfaithful despite having little or no evidence to support their claims. It is often described in detail as a range of irrational thoughts and emotions, together with associated unacceptable or extreme behavior, in which the dominant theme is a preoccupation with a partner’s sexual unfaithfulness based on unfounded evidence. (Source)  

Also, there are other abnormal behavior patterns linked to this delusion such as stalking, verbal or physical abuse, emotional abuse, etc. Although this condition will be presented more as a diagnosis, it is more of a symptom linked to other psychiatric conditions as it was rarely diagnosed as a pure condition.  

The aspects that distinguish normal jealousy from obsessional jealousy:

Source

- the person who is jealous spends a lot of time concerning about their partner’s unfaithfulness and  find it difficult to concentrate on something else.

- limiting the partner’s freedom and checking the partner’s behavior impairs the relationship (controlling behaviors such as monitoring movements, inquiring about relationships with different people when there is clearly no romantic interest, refusing to allow the partner to have time by themselves or with their friends) There is also a need of control in other aspects such as spending money, dressing in a certain way or even stalking the person (following them to work or school to gather evidence for their infidelity).

- since this type of jealousy is delusional the partner will not understand the situation even if they are given strong evidence. They will see signs of unfaithfulness in almost any interaction or behavior.

- intimidation may be a common way for the partner to gain control. Threatening to end the relationship, to hurt you or your loved ones, or even to destroy your property are strong signs of Morbid Jealousy or Borderline Personality Disorder.

People suffering from Paranoid Personality Disorder may also suffer from Morbid Jealousy as the essential feature of Paranoid Personality Disorder is a pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such as their motives as interpreted as malevolent. The pattern begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts. (DSM IV TR) Actually some of the diagnostic criteria (3 out of 7) for Paranoid Personality Disorder can be linked to Morbid Jealousy:

- suspects, without sufficient basis, that the others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her;

- preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates;

- has recurrent suspicion, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.

The same applies to Borderline Personality Disorder as it may also be a predisposing condition for morbid jealousy. Some of the aspects involved in Borderline Personality Disorder and Morbid Jealousy are:

- feelings of unworthiness

- anxiety about rejection and abandonment

- perception of unfaithfulness in partner

- affective instability and anger

- primitive defense mechanisms such as projection or unacceptable impulses

Delusional Disorder – Jealous Type is the definition of Morbid Jealousy in DSM. The presence of one or more non-bizarre delusions that persist at least 1 month would be sufficient for diagnostic. Psychosocial functioning varies as some people suffering from DD-JT might be unimpaired by their condition. However, when psychosocial functioning is impaired, this is a result of the person’s delusional beliefs. For example, they might avoid going out with their partner from fear that their partner might be attracted to somebody else.

According to DSM IV TR, the person suffering from DD-JT usually confronts the spouse or lover and attempts to intervene in the imagined infidelity by restricting the spouse’s autonomy, secretly following them, investigating the imagined lover, or even attacking the spouse.

There are different theories concerning Morbid Jealousy. Freud believed that extreme jealousy was linked to latent homosexuality, Klein believed that it emerged from the rivalry between son and father. Others have claimed that the level of competiveness is important as the person uses projective mechanisms and identification with their rival.

Some worrying aspects of this condition are self harm or violence. For the other partner involved in there is high risk of isolation, a loss of identity, or developing a mental disorder such as anxiety and depression.

Agoraphobia - A (Very) Short Overview

Agoraphobia is an unmotivated fear regarding open spaces such as markets, bridges, streets and even big tunnels. It also may include a fear of being in a crowd, a gathering and even being inside a bus and other situations that involve public transport. According to DSM IV TR (p.429)agoraphobia is anxiety about, or avoidance of, places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having a panic attack or panic-like symptoms. 

Symptoms

The person suffering from agoraphobia experiences a fear so extreme they cannot go in public places, remaining isolated in their own home. In rare cases, the person will also experience high anxiety when left alone at home if they are used with somebody permanently with them. Panic attacks are the most common symptoms and the person will have them whenever they feel insecure.  Other symptoms are high blood pressure, sweating, nausea, chocking, chest pains, shortness of breath, fear of being out of control, fear of dying, trembling, etc.

Agoraphobia usually occurs after 20+ years and it seems to affect more women than men.

Treatment

-SSRIs and SNRIs

-cognitive behavioral therapy (10-20 visits):   

• Learning to gain control over the feelings
• Recognizing and replace panic-causing thoughts
• Stress management
• Relaxation techniques

-gradual exposure

• Desensitization
• Exposure therapy

Also, remember, if you suffer from panic disorder, an early treatment will prevent agoraphobia. 

Further reading and sources:  

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001921/

Anxiety disorders, Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR (4th ed.,) p. 429

Schizophreniform disorder - A (Very) Short Overview

Schizophreniform disorder  is a mental disorder characterized by a transitory psychotic episode. The most common symptoms are: delusions, hallucinations, catatonic behavior, social withdrawal, and disorganized speech. Other symptoms may include: lack of energy, poor hygiene, apathy, etc. These are all very similar to schizophrenia, but they will disappear spontaneously after 1-2 months (but less than 6 months).

V. Magnan described this disorder in the 19th century as one with an unexpected debut, unsystematic symptoms, and delirium prone to mystical and persecutory themes, aprosexia, and spatiotemporal confusion.

The prevalence of schizophreniform disorder is distributed among sexes equally, but the peak onset will be between ages of 18-24 years in men and 24-35 years in women.

Prognosis

If the symptoms persist beyond 6 months we no longer face a schizophreniform disorder diagnosis, but one of schizophrenia. There is also a significant risk associated with schizophreniform patients, especially if they go into a depression after their psychotic episodes. This is where psychotherapy may help patients understand their psychotic episodes and it is likely to improve the prognosis and recovery as patients are less prone to experience relapse.

I. Barrelet published a statistical prognosis regarding this disorder in 1986 showing the following evolution:  1 out of 7 cases are actually signs of schizophrenia,  1 out of 4 cases was the sign of bipolar disorder psychosis, and in 1 out of 10 cases it was an acute symptom of bipolar disorder. However, despite this statistic, prognosis is usually optimistic. A relapse is influenced by physical health, use of substances and alcohol, family history, environment, and other episodes. 

Freud And His Controversial Theories

Freud’s studies about the unconscious had deep impact on the 20th century though. He was born in Austria in 1856 and studied medicine in Vienna. He revolutionized psychiatry by developing psychoanalysis and this “speech therapy” replaced some medicine and electric shocks that were used as treatment. Freud was also an exceptional writer, winning the Goethe Prize in 1930.

Freud’s basic idea was the fact that human behavior is greatly influenced by sexual desire, which he considered present in humans from early childhood. He argued that dreams, like neurosis, were a disguised desire and the key to understanding behavior.

He is also known for dividing the human mind into: id, ego, and superego. The id is the primitive part of our mind, where instincts like sexual desire or hunger exist. Ego is the rational self and superego is the moral element that tries to inhibit the ego with culpability.

Sublimation, Oedip’s complex or “guilt complex” are just a few of the concepts Freud came up with and are still used in psychology today. 

One idea that managed to make feminists really angry was the one regarding childhood molesting. Freud argued that his molested female patients were imagining everything. He also had the Penis Envy theory which was about the envy women felt because they had castration anxiety. He suggested that when they are 3-5 years old, girls distance themselves from their mothers and devote their affections to their fathers because they realize that they have no penis. Unconsciously, girls believe that their mothers are responsible for their missing penis. 

Another controversial idea was the one regarding religion. For Freud, religion was an expression of neuroses and distress and also a way to control the Oedipal complex, feel fulfillment, and an attempt to gain control over the outside world. He believed that all religions were mass deceit but also added that no religious person would ever recognize that. This was probably one of his most controversial statements and it brought him even more fame.

He wrote: “A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it."

His idea about death was also very unusual for that time. He considered that humans have an instinct of death that manifests itself through a need to destroy oneself.

There were no experimental studies proving that Freud’s methods worked better than the ones used by other psychiatrists at the time and soon he became less and less popular. This was a dramatic experience for Freud and he was convinced that his adversaries were mentally ill. He wrote to his friend Carl Jung that he was treating his reluctant colleagues the same way as he treated his patients. 

When he reached his forties, Freud started believing that he would die at the age of 51. He started being depressed and having more and more medical problems, so he began self analysis. The major breakthrough of his self analysis was the fact that he felt a lot of hostility towards his father and that he had sexual feelings towards his mother when he was about two or two and a half years old. He experimented with cocaine and considered it to be a great treatment. He also smoked a lot and believed that it helped him concentrate more, which eventually gave him cancer; he committed suicide with the help of a fellow doctor when his pain was unbearable.

Freud might have been an unusual character but his concepts and ideas are still widely used today and his “speech therapy” is the basis of many psychological approaches.

Further reading and references:
http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/p/sigmund_freud.htm

Aphasia - A short Overview

Aphasia is a disorder that results from damage to the portions of the brain that are responsible for language. It occurs suddenly and usually as a result of a stroke or head injury. However, it may also be the cause of brain tumor, an infection or dementia.

Aphasias can be divided into:

-receptive and expressive aphasias

-fluent and non-fluent

-anterior and posterior aphasias

Broca Aphasia

The name of this aphasia comes from the area that is affected, the Broca area. This area is located in the  posterior inferior frontal gyrus of the brain. It is the most common type of aphasia and it’s non-fluent.

The speech is affected and talking is only reduced to a few nouns and verbs. This is usually the first sign that occurs when a person has Broca aphasia. In some extreme cases, patients only produce a single word. Sometimes writing can be affected too.

Here is a girl suffering from Broca aphasia after an ischemic stroke:

Here is a man suffering from Broca Aphasia:

Wernike Aphasia

The name of this aphasia also comes from the affected area. It is a fluent aphasia and it is characterized by a severe impairment of understanding. Patients can hear that the person is speaking but they cannot understand the message. Although it is a fluent aphasia, talking can be affected too. People can produce “word salad” in the most extreme cases. This happens because the person cannot verify what they say since they cannot understand language. So even if they hear themselves talking and they are able to talk (their expressive ability is not impaired), their speech seems affected because they simply cannot correct themselves. A word salad happens when a person says intelligible words but they are randomly put together. If a person has used certain expressions for a long time, they are automated and they can be preserved and understood.

Here is the patient with Wernike Aphasia:

Conduction aphasia
This is also called associative aphasia – is a rare form of aphasia. It is caused by damage in the language centers and it’s usually acquired from stroke, traumatic brain injuries or localized lesions – like the rest of the aphasias. The main characteristic is the fact that patients cannot repeat words, not even when they read aloud. However, their speech and writing is almost normal. They understand words and their grammar is good. They might also have frequent errors during spontaneous speech but they are aware of them.

Anomic aphasia/ amnesic aphasia/nominal aphasia
Patients suffering from this type of aphasia have a problem with recalling words or names. In severe cases the person speaks without nouns. It is probably one of the most frequent forms of aphasia and it can also appear as a residual aphasia.

Transcortical motor aphasia 
This aphasia affects speech and writing but it can also induce a strange phenomena: echolalia  - the patient automatically repeats what another person says perfectly but they cannot talk themselves.

Transcortical sensory aphasia 
The patient has a poor comprehension but has a good speech with correct grammar. Patients will be able to communicate and repeat. However, they suffer from semantic paraphasia, so they cannot understand what they are being told.

Global aphasia 
 A massive aphasia that effects both expression and understanding.

Recovery: speech language therapy and support groups

Further reading:

The National Aphasia Association http://www.aphasia.org/

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/voice/aphasia.htm#what

Nature vs. Nurture - Feral Child Victor of Aveyron

In the year 1800, in a village located in the French province Aveyron, a child gained a lot of popularity among the villagers. Many considered him a savage beast because he was searching and digging for roots, he climbed trees, and didn’t walk in a biped position. It seems that he was about 12 years old. He became popular and people all over came to see the “oddity”. He couldn’t speak, he had a lot of scars on his body, and he had weird food preferences. Soon he was taken for study. He was called Victor and he was a feral child.

Feral children (are also called wild children) are human children who have lived isolated from human contact from a very young age. 

Victor seemed to ignore any form of civilization that was offered to him: he ripped his clothes apart, he didn’t eat meat, he preferred raw potatoes, roots, and nuts. He was not making any sounds and he was indifferent to human voice. He was also accustomed to exposure to cold and when a biology professor Piere Joseph Bonnaterre took him outside in the snow, the child started playing and running nude. Our perception of cold and warmth is mostly based on the experience we have, so it seems that Victor was used to cold weather and he probably spent his life outside.

Apparently Victor lived all his early childhood alone, he was a stranger to social norms and something about him made him closer to his animal status. A lot of people hoped that he was going to offer answers regarding the true nature of human beings, a subject that was highly disputed by philosophers in that time. There were questions that needed to be answered: What makes us different from animals? What would happen if we would be raised totally isolated from the human society? How much do we owe to education in the process of our upbringing?

Another thing people thought was the fact that the boy had to have a noble character; this would have proved the theory that children were born good, but they are corrupted by society. However, instead of a good child, he wasn’t adapted to society, he couldn’t walk in a biped position and he couldn’t talk. So there was no way to see if he was good or bad.  Doctors concluded that he was mental retarded and recommended putting him into an asylum.

Jean-Marc Itard did not agree with the diagnostic and argued that the deficiencies were caused by his social isolation. Because he was away from humans he couldn’t have developed social skills, but he was an extraordinary being because he had the ability to survive on his own. Itard personally took care of the child, wanting to show that the environment is the one that influences human behavior. He started publishing reports on his progress and it seemed that Victor showed significant progress in understanding language and reading simple words; however, this was only at a very low level. When it came to emotions, he had affection for the people who took care of him but he couldn’t communicate and he spoke just a few words. He had no sexual interests and he didn’t manage to adapt to social life. The fact that he showed affection was an amazing thing and there’s a record about one event: the housekeeper was mourning the loss of her husband when Victor showed a sympathetic behavior towards her.

Throughout the years Itard spent working with the boy, he managed to obtain some small gradual progress. It seems that Victor understood the meaning of actions and used an “action language” which is a more primitive form of communication.

Most doctors reached the conclusion that he had mental deficiencies after all but this is not certain. He was sent to live with a woman and died in 1828.

Itard created new methods of diagnostic for mental and language abilities and combined these procedures with a program of instruction. He became the founder of “oral education of the deaf” the field called otolaryngology.

The subject of feral children is still controversial nowadays; some people believe that there are no genuine feral children. Others believe that the child suffered from autism or schizophrenia.