PTSD Claims- Ugandan Knuckles

Section 2

“Caleb had been home since 2006”

  • has he just been living in the same house since 2006
  • where is home?
  • has he gone to a hospital?

“Way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms”

  • what symptoms?
  • what is “more then enough time”?

“is often quiet as a morgue”?

  • morgue means dead, but is a morgue entirely quiet?
  • how often?
  • how quiet is a morgue?

“A sound erupts”

  • is it instant?
  • how loud was it really?

“Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare”

  • is Caleb really screaming?
  • did Brannan actually wake him up?
  • a nightmare is big claim to make. Was it actually scary, or was Caleb just talking in his sleep? I’d be upset too if someone randomly woke me up.

“after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging”

  • whose arm length? Hers or his?
  • swinging like punching, or just waking up and sitting straight up wildly?

“the ensuing silence seems even denser”

  • how “dense” is said silence initially?
  • how much denser?
  • was it absolutely silent?

“Even when everyone’s in the family room watching TV, it’s only connected to Netflix and not to cable, since news is often a trigger.”

  • is everyone in the family room?
  • are they watching TV?
  • does it only have connection to Netflix and not one of many other possible non-cable viewing networks?
  • what about cable is triggering?
  • how bad of a trigger?

“Brannan and Caleb can be tense with their own agitation, and tense about each other’s.”

  • what level of agitation?
  • are they both tense all the time, or are they tense at different times?
  • does it build to a certain point?
  • when do they get on each other’s nerves?

“Their German shepherd, a service dog trained to help veterans with PTSD”

  • the dog is a German shepherd
  • it’s been trained for a long time to watch verterans
  • it’s trained to specifically watch veterans that have PTSD

“is ready to alert Caleb to triggers by barking, or to calm him by jumping onto his chest.”

  • the dog is trained to help the veteran
  • the dog is able to identify what the specific veteran’s triggers are
  • the dog is also trained to help calm the veteran by leaping on their chest

“This PTSD picture is worse than some,”

  • this is a strong assumption, as there is no way of gauging how bad something is compared to someone else, as everyone is different
  • on what scale is it worse
    • is there a specific aspect that makes it worse

“but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses”

  • makes the claim from the previous bit more realistic
  • how many people is this those that have devolved into drug addiction

“She has not, unlike military wives she advises, ever been beat up”

  • how many military wives have been beat up
  • how many military wives does she advise
  • are they all military wives
  • has she absolutely never been beat up?
    • there is no evidence to support that she hasn’t

“Nor jumped out of her own bed when she got touched in the middle of the night for fear of being raped, again. Still.”

  • was this ever a fear of hers
  • “again” means it’s happened before
    • makes it being a fear of her rational
  • “Still” means that she is vigilant

“Sometimes I can’t do the laundry,” Brannan explains, reclining on her couch. “And it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m too tired to do the laundry,’ it’s like, ‘Um, I don’t understand how to turn the washing machine on.’

  • why can’t she do the laundry?
  • why can she not understand how it works?
  • she could just write the instructions down
  • there’s an on button most washing machines

“She sounds like she might start crying, not because she is, but because that’s how she always sounds, like she’s talking from the top of a clenched throat, tonally shaky and thin.”

  • there’s no way to compare her voice to what it normally is, so there’s no real way to say if that’s not just her speaking voice
  • judging by the stress she speaks about, she could always be on the  verge of tears
  • as someone just meeting her, is this actually how she sounds, or is this dramatized?

PTSD Claims- lbirch141

05

“Secondary traumatic stress has been documented in the spouses of veterans with PTSD from Vietnam. And the spouses of Israeli veterans with PTSD, and Dutch veterans with PTSD.”

  • “Secondary traumatic stress” is claimed to be a type of PTSD, but is not an actual disorder.
  • “documented” is just the record, not an actual study completed. We do not know how it was documented or if a study was even done.
  • “Spouses of veterans” only indicates spouses were studied and taken into consideration of secondary PTSD. This could show not everyone in a household was studied or documented.
  • “Spouses of Israeli veterans with PTSD, and Dutch veterans with PTSD” shows different people, that could have fought in different wars. All of these veterans could have different ways of life and ways they fought.

“In one study, the incidence of secondary trauma in wives of Croatian war vets with PTSD was 30 percent. In another study there, it was 39 percent.”

  • “One study” does not show a whole picture. We cannot conclude secondary PTSD is real with one study being shown.
  • “incidence of secondary trauma in wives of Croatian war vets” does not show how many wives were actually studied. It could be two wives or two hundred wives.
  • “30 percent” gives us a number of just this group. We still also do not know what this 30 percent is out of. We cannot conclude this an accurate representation of a whole population of veteran’s wives.
  • “another study” is just a basic statement that another test was done. This does not give us a representation of how many people were actually studied.
  • “39 percent” is still a basic number that can represent some many different things. We do not know who was studied and what each wife has been though.

“’Trauma is really not something that  happens to an individual,’ says Robert Motta, a clinical psychologist and psychology professor at Hofstra University who wrote a few of the many medical-journal articles about secondary trauma in Vietnam vets’ families.”

  • “really not something that happens to an individual” does not make too much sense. There are many types of trauma someone can have and some types just cannot be contagious.
  • “a few of the many medical-journal articles about secondary trauma in Vietnam vets’ families.” a few does not give a very exact number. We cannot know how knowledgeable he is if it’s just a few. Also, if it is only Vietnam war vets, that’s only a small portion of veterans.

“Katie Vines, the first time I meet her, is in trouble. Not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarten class, nice round face like her daddy’s. No one’s the wiser until she cheerfully hands her mother a folder from the backseat she’s hopped into.”

  • “the first time I meet her” shows that it is only one occasion. We do not know if this has happened before or not if it is only the first time meeting Katie.
  • “she sprints from her kindergarten class” could just mean what she does shows her age if shes only in kindergarten.
  • “Not that you’d know it to look at her, bounding up to the car, blondish bob flying as she sprints from her kindergarten class” shows us that Katie looks normal on the outside, but has something wrong on the inside.
  • “nice round face like her daddy’s” is comparing a kindergartner to a war vet with PTSD. That is not something you can do because they are have two different mindsets.
  • “No one’s the wiser until she cheerfully hands her mother a folder” shows Katie does not seem to know or understand she did something wrong.

“’It says here,’ Brannan says, her eyes narrowing incredulously, ‘that you spit on somebody today.’”

  • “It says here” is a second hand source. We do not know the whole story from just this note.
  • “you spit on somebody today” seems like something normal kids do sometimes because they do not completely understand right from wrong. Again, we cannot compare a normal child to a veteran.

“’Yes ma’am,’ Katie admits, lowering her voice and her eyes guiltily.”

  • “lowering her voice and her eyes guiltily” tells us maybe Katie did know it was wrong.

“Her schoolmate said something mean. Maybe. Katie doesn’t sound sure, or like she remembers exactly. One thing she’s positive of: “She just made me…so. MAD.” Brannan asks Katie to name some of the alternatives. “Walk away, get the teacher, yes ma’am, no ma’am,” Katie dutifully responds to the prompts. She looks disappointed in herself. Her eyebrows are heavily creased when she shakes her head and says quietly again, “I was so mad.”

  • “Her schoolmate said something mean. Maybe. Katie doesn’t sound sure, or like she remembers exactly” doesn’t seem like something that proves that PTSD is contagious. Katie is a young child, and normal children try to cover what happened.
  • “‘She just made me…so. MAD'” may tell us the other students did something to cause Katie to spit on her.
  • “She looks disappointed in herself. Her eyebrows are heavily creased when she shakes her head and says quietly again, ‘I was so mad.'” implies Katie knows what she did, but could not help herself and got very mad.

 

PTSD Claims, jdormann

11

“It’s to help kids like that that Brannan and her volunteers put together an informational packet on secondary trauma for parents to give to teachers, explaining their battle-worthy idiosyncrasies and sensory-processing sensitivities.”

-Brannan feels that PTSD can cause serious trauma to those that are around people suffering.

-This claim would be more effective if it explained the packet and why people needed to read it

2.“Brannan gave the packet to Katie’s kindergarten teacher, but thinks the teacher just saw it as an excuse for bad behavior.”

-Not all of the population is aware of PTSD and they do not understand the severity of it because they have not directly seen someone suffering.

-Katie’s teacher doesn’t think that her thoughts and behaviors should be effected by her fathers PTSD

-PTSD does not only effect the person suffering, it can also effect their family and friends

This claim would be more effective if it detailed what specific behavior or the teacher’s point of view about Katie

3. Though Brannan hopes Katie will come out of childhood healthy, she still says, “She’s not a normal kid. She does things, and says things. She’s a grown-up in a six-year-old’s body in a lot of ways.”

-There is proof that a child growing up with someone that suffers from PTSD can alter their behaviors.

-Children do not understand the world and life as grown adults do, so they can be inappropriate or sound absurd at times.

-Katie’s actions are effected by her parents thoughts and actions, just like every child that has an adult figure in their life.

-What exactly does she say? Does she feel that she is different from her peers?

4. “She certainly looks like a normal kid when she comes down from her room dressed for tap class. In a black leotard, pink tights, and shiny black tap shoes, she looks sweet as pie.”

-Katie participates in normal activities for a child her age

-this shows she does not want to be different, and she enjoys the same things her peers do

-How else is she a normal kid other then going to tap classes?

5. “One time, a bad guy in Iraq had a knife and my dad killed him,” she says, apropos of nothing. “Katie Vines.” Brannan is stern but impeccably patient. She doesn’t know why Katie adapted this story about confiscating a weapon from an insurgent into a story about bloodshed, but she isn’t too happy about it.

-Unknowingly, Katie says things that she doesn’t fully understand and it can be at an inappropriate time.

-Katies mother isn’t happy about stories like this because she worries her daughter will be too different then kids her age and seen as an outcast.

-The claim should not include “Brennan is stern but impeccably patient”. This statement is weak and has no correlation to the prior or following claim.

6. “Katie is sorry—God, is she sorry, you can see it in her face and guilty shoulders, but she seems to feel like she can’t help it”

-When Katie is told what she said or did is unacceptable, she understands that her mother and others are unhappy with her.

-Katie is sad because when she shares things she knows or thinks, she is told it is not okay and doesn’t understand why because her knowledge of the world is not formed yet.

-She cannot differentiate between what is okay and what is not

-This claim is repetitive but it supports the idea that PTSD can have secondary effects on families

Critical Reading-Morty39

Part 16:

“In 2009, it was Hovda who delivered the Pentagon the recommendation that because multiple concussions could cause serious long-term injury, concussions need time to heal. “

“The recommendation” makes it seem they were not really trying to push or force the issues of concussions and the time to heal from them

“Could cause,” if they really want to try and force these rules on concussion they are not using strong enough words to push the subject.

“A fight ensued. Hovda says some of the Army’s best doctors implied that if soldiers were told they needed rest after concussions, it was going to usher in an epidemic of fakers, or retired guys claiming disability way after the fact.”

“A fight” makes it seem like there was a big ordeal and that the army really does not want their soldiers getting break after concussions.

“Implied” They do not know if it would really happen, but they would rather take the risk of the soldiers having long term medical issues rather than the chance some would take advantage of it.

“Epidemic” is most likely exaggerated

“Retired guys” makes it seem kind of annoyed about the situation, they did not say vets, which they should be called

“Although, the NFL was given the same memo in the 1990s, and brain damage in boxers is even older news, so it doesn’t seem like it would take a neuroscientist—or the top medical brass of an Army that builds laser cannons—to figure out that if 25 mph punches to the head cause brain damage, IED blasts that hit at 330 mph probably do too.”

“Is even older news” They are really showing that this has been a big issue by now and most people have realized how bad concussions can be

“Neuroscientist” Sarcasm to show that this is simple and does not take a lot of thought to realize it.

“IED blasts that hit at 330 mph probably do too.” This is in a annoying tone saying that it is pretty much the equivalent as 2 + 2.

“Eventually, Hovda’s cause prevailed. These days, there are MRIs in theater, assessments after blasts, mandatory rest periods after a concussion. But those reforms came seven years into the Iraq War, after Caleb and a million other soldiers were already home. When people ask Hovda if they’re gonna get better, he encourages them that they’re gonna get different.”

“Eventually” This shows that they are more than annoyed at how long they took to realize how bad concussions are.

“Million other soldiers” I would say this is an exaggeration but it is most likely close to the number of solders, there were definitely not a million but it gives the idea of how bad it was.

“Encourages” encourages they are going to be different is not a good answer when they ask if they are going to get better.

 

 

 

 

 

PTSD Claims – picklerick

08

Brannan sent Katie to the school therapist, once. She hasn’t seen any other therapist, or a therapist trained to deal with PTSD

—”Once” makes me think that Brennan had not tried very hard to get help for her daughter. If she was really worried she would’ve brought her to the therapist a lot more than once.

—”She hasn’t seen any other therapist” reinforces Brennan’s lack of willingness to get help for Katie.

Brannan knows what a difference that makes, since the volunteer therapist she tried briefly herself spent more time asking her to explain a “bad PTSD day” than how Caleb’s symptoms were affecting the family.

—”what a difference” is used sarcastically to state how the therapist made no impact on Katie’s behavioral problems.

Certainly she seems better than some other PTSD vets’ kids Brannan knows, who scream and sob and rock back and forth at the sound of a single loud noise, or who try to commit suicide even before they’re out of middle school. Caleb spends enough time worrying that he’s messing up his kid without a doctor saying so.

—”Certainly she seems better than some other PTSD vets’ kids Brannan knows” means that Brennan must know many other parents with kids who have behavioral problems similar to, or worse than, Katie’s. This also reveals that this issue is not specific Brennan’s family, and that this is a normal occurrence within post-war households.

—”try to commit suicide even before they’re out of middle school” means that it’s normals for children in families with PTSD to attempt to commit suicide at an abnormally young age.

—”Caleb spends enough time worrying that he’s messing up his kid without a doctor saying so” let’s me know that Caleb is worried about Katies mental state and it doesn’t help when the doctors tell him what he already knows.

Brannan is a force of keeping her family together. She sleeps a maximum of five hours a night, keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks, gets Katie to and from school and to tap dance and art, where Katie produces some startlingly impressive canvases, bright swirling shapes bisected by and intersected with other swaths of color, bold, intricate.

—”Brannan is a force of keeping her family together” reveals that the family needs Brennan, and without her, the family would fall apart.

—”keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks” shows how Brennan doesn’t have time to eat healthy and take care of herself properly because she is too busy providing care for her family.

—”startlingly impressive canvases” shows that one wouldn’t expect Brennan to have such a creative talent due the issues she is forced to deal with on a daily basis.

She used the skills she learned as an assistant to a state Supreme Court justice and running a small newspaper to navigate Caleb’s maze of paperwork with the VA, and the paperwork for the bankruptcy they had to declare while they were waiting years for his disability benefits to come through.

—”maze of paperwork” means that the VA gives Brennan a lot of confusing and unnecessary paperwork.

—”bankruptcy they had to declare” means that they did’t want to declare bankruptcy, but were forced to because Caleb’s disability benefits took so long to come through.

She also works for the VA now, essentially, having been—after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments—enrolled in its new caregiver program, which can pay spouses or other family members of disabled vets who have to take care of them full time, in Brannan’s case $400 a week.

—”after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments” shows how the VA gave Brennan even more hassle and paperwork when she decided to become part of their caregiver program.

Stone money—paTRicKStar

As I listened to the story of the people of yap, I tried to compare their curriency with ours.  The people the yap use form of currency that involves limestones.  These limestones are very heavy and are and abnormally large for currency. The way these limestones were acquired  was athe people of the yap would travel to a nearby island full of them. Upon arriving, they basically pick up the limestone put it on their raft sell back to their island and gain this form of currency. Now people wouldn’t just trade this limestone currency for just anything. They were mostly used for big purchases. Now compared to modern day society, our societies curriency is paper money. The paper money we have is back by gold. In the past we used to trade with gold and silver. For us hearing people are trading giant stones as currency sounds absurd. But to the people of yap these stones are worth it. Money is a human invention that  had a set value which killed off trading. Before money we would trade goods and commodities for other goods and services.

The invention of money just makes sense to me. It makes it portable, equal and universal. What I mean by this is we no longer have to barter good everyone knows the set amount. They understand the value of it and it could be used internationally. While listening to the podcast I was intrigued yet confused because with the people of yap you can have the value of the curriency without having the currency present. This idea blows my mind.

Now I’m our society we have banks to prove our curriency and show how much money we have. Although our curriencys are different and the way we handle our money is odd to the people of yap. Our main concepts are similar. Money, stone, checks and all forms of curriency are worth nothing without us giving value to these items. In our society today money controls everything ;money is power. The amount of money you have determines which class you are in our society. So essentially money does have a bigger role than just paper and a way to barter. Your net worth and the amount money you have does matter.

The reason  money has power is because we give it it’s worth. Think of it like the people of the yap they gave an in adamant object just like we did to paper money , value. Therefore setting a standard for people to except this idea.   The only difference between us and the people of the app is we made our money portable, tangible, and international. Our money can be used in exchange worldwide., Have a set value, NV easy to transport.  With the people you have the only problem with their ideas of currency was that you didn’t need to lose the currency to lose your value I could handle that I’m out of value of the asset without having the ass it with me which is a little hard to understand but it seems very absurd how can you be rich but have no money this is what we said fourth ofthe change

After listening  to the  podcast called how fake funny Siri Brazil. I was mostly confused with the concept. The narrator talked about how inflation was high and in reality kept increasing daily. What confused me was when they tried to get people to spend money to boost the economy by  lying to them to think that their money did have value when in fact inflation was so high it was worth less. I understand that people were scared to buy since they though maybe keeping their money would be safer but that would make the economy worse. How they tried to lie to people confused me.

Recently I’ve heard a lot of discussion on the news involving cryptocurrency called bitcoin. With this interesting topic of stone money. I am eager to learn more about our newest form of currency and see how it does.

PTSD Claims-Dohertyk9

A09

1. “At home after school, she makes Katie a pancake snack and then, while Katie shows me the website for a summer camp that teaches military spy skills, Brannan gets back to work.”

  • Pancake snack- This reminds the reader/listener that Katie seems to always eat some type of “pancake snack”.
  • Summer camp- This shows that Katie is influenced by her father’s service and deliberately searches for information on her own to find the summer camp.
  • “Brannan gets back to work”- A reminder to the reader/listener that Brannan is constantly working.

2. “Brannan founded the organization in 2007, after panicked Googling led her to the website of Vietnam Veteran Wives (VVW) when Caleb returned from his second tour.”

  • “Brannan founded the organization in 2007”- Factual Claim
  • Panicked- Emphasis on Brannan’s stress and fear at the problems she was experiencing with her husband.
  • Second Tour- Reminds the reader that Caleb only started experiencing the worse symptoms of PTSD after his second tour.

3. “Life after the first tour had been pretty normal.”

  • Life- Shows that Caleb’s PTSD affected his family’s entire life.
  • “After the first tour”- Implies that the second tour made the real difference.
  • “Pretty normal”- Shows that she considered Caleb’s behavior to be odd, but not enough to be considered very abnormal.

4. “‘Things were a little…off,’ Caleb was edgy, distant, but he did not forget entire conversations minutes later, did not have to wait for a stable mental-health day and good moment between medication doses to be intimate with his wife…”

  • Off- She admits that Caleb was not acting like his usual self, and that it was affecting “things”.
  • But- She states Caleb’s behavior in a negative way, but she is only concerned with comparing it with his symptoms after the second tour.
  • This sentence emphasizes how Caleb’s symptoms have taken a turn for the worse, comparing his behavior after his first tour with his now pervasive symptoms.
  • “wait for a stable mental-health day and good moment between medication doses”. This statement outlines how rare the stable day and good moment between doses are.

5. “…and then when he finally tried, pray to Christ for one of the times when it’s good sex, not one of the times when a car door slams outside and triggers him, or the emotion becomes so unbearable that he freezes, gets up, and walks wordlessly out the door.”

  • Finally- Shows how long it is before the stable day and good moment between doses.
  • “pray to Christ”- shows his desperation for a moment without getting triggered.
  • “when a car door slams outside and triggers him, or the emotion becomes so unbearable”- This shows just how easy it is for his environment to trigger him.
  • Wordlessly- Makes it clear that Caleb is incapable of even explaining or apologizing for his actions.

6. “All that didn’t happen until after the second tour.”

  • A reminder to the reader that Caleb’s symptoms severely worsened after the second tour.

7. “Brannan was in a terrible place, she says-until she talked to Danna Hughes, founder of VVW.”

  • “Danna Hughes, founder of VVW”- Factual Claim
  • Terrible- Explains that Brannan is severely affected by her husband’s trauma.
  • “until she talked to Danna Hughes”- shows how much Danna Hughes helped Brannan

8. “Danna had been through the exact same turmoil, decades ago, and had opened a center to help get Vietnam vets benefits and educate their spouses and communities about their condition.”

  • Turmoil- Shows how messy it is to try to handle a situation with an immediate family member or spouse with PTSD.

9. “‘What choice do I have?’ Brannan asks about running her own organization. ‘This is the only reason I am well.'”

  • “‘What choice do I have?'”- This shows just how hopeless and trapped Brannan feels. It implies that she feels that she has no other option.
  • “the only reason I am well”- This puts her situation into perspective, showing how the organization serves as an outlet for her in her tumultuous life.

10. “‘People care when you tell them. They just don’t know. They want to help and they want to understand, so I just have to keep going and educating.'”

  • “‘They just don’t know'”- She reminds the reader that for people who have never seen signs of PTSD, it is a mystery.
  • “‘so I just have to keep going and educating.'”- She admits her sense of duty toward the people with PTSD to inform those that don’t know about it.

 

-END OF ONE HOUR-

White paper 2—pATricKStar

Hypothesis

College students are at a high risk for mental health issues in the U.S.

Source 1

http://www.bu.edu/today/2016/mental-health-college-students/

The article explains how there has been an increase in the level of mental illness in college students everywhere. It also specifies this increase to Boston university and shows how they have saw an increase in their students with mental health issues.  Article explains which students are a higher risk. The students members of the LGBQT community are one of the groups because of how hard it might be to explain who they are. Another  person are the international students , they may find a challenging to relate to a socially with others coming from a different background.  Finally students who come from smaller high schools and transfer  to bigger colleges because this may find it harder to interact and fit in. This can cause then to feel alone and depressed.  Along with the stats of increasing mental illness, the article gives signs of mental illness they state if a personal starts to withdraw from social groups, starts sleeping more, has an increase in the substance-abuse, gives away all their possessions, and or starts posting suicidal related posts on social media and they are showing signs.  As we know learning and becoming aware it’s just one of the stops we could help but nothing is ever simple.  Most students don’t report because they don’t want to or they have fear of communicating but of the ones that do shows of shocking amount of mental illness.  Number is a referral to treatment at Boston University into thousand 14 and 2015 was 1,587.  In 2015 and 2016 number referred to treatment was 1,640. I stayed in mental health services are costly. This means students struggling financially probably not receive any treated even if needed.

source 2

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2732004/

Stress  is something we all go through. Whether it’s big or small we are all in town or stress at some point and our lines. Now there is good stress mad stress. Stress is the stress that motivate you to do better or even work harder. bad stress just leads you to being not proactive. Article goes into detail about how stress and substance abuse/addiction can go hand-in-hand if not treated properly. An experiment done on animals proves it. “Preclinical research also shows that stress exposure enhances drug self-administration and reinstates drug seeking in drug-experienced animals.” What we are finding out are Psychologist and researchers are starting to correlate the two as well as the facts. So now this topic is not just becoming an excuse for people to do engage in substance abuse it’s actually proven.

source 3

http://college.usatoday.com/2016/10/22/depression-is-at-an-all-time-high-for-college-students/ 

This article talks about depression. College students face many obstacles coming into the school. As we know it could be a stressful time and college was basically the place we learn to grow up you’re not baby anymore.  Depression is at a all time high for college students. As stated in the article, “According to a 2013 American Psychological Association survey, about one-third of college students have experienced depression within the past year and had difficulty functioning because of it.” This well-known fact is the reason why we need to focus on what is going on with students and how we can help them.  People think depression just has to do with sadness but some of the symptoms or signs he just can’t see. With many students losing their lives by being exposed to substance and partying with bad decisions out of impulse just to avoid feeling depressed. We have to ask ourselves, how can we stop this and how can we help.

Source 4

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/stressed-or-depressed-know-difference

Something that I found interesting in this article article that contribute to my topic is that they actually put a list where you can compare and contrast the differences between being stressed mean depressed. This is important now since most of the signs are similar. Many of us think that they might be the same thing or is that just depressed might just be someone being sad when it’s much bigger than that.

Source 5

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40596-014-0205-9

this widespread of mental illness is increasing rapidly. This alarming fact is wellknown, what isn’t, is the fact that we don’t know how to stop it yet. among the mental illnesses that affect students are anxiety disorder. “Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent psychiatric problems among college students, with approximately 11.9 % of college students suffering from an anxiety disorder” this is a huge amount if you consider the millions of students in college in the U.S. another main mental illness address is depression. depression is one of the most harmful because if not treated people can cause harm to themselves. something i like about the article is the writer addresses the abuse of alcohol in college. with many people being leftuntreated for their mental illnesses this could be a life threatening situation as we hear about on the news. many kids drink them selves or abuse drugs to death. “Approximately one in five college students meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder (AUD) in the previous year (12.5 % alcohol dependence and 7.8 % alcohol abuse)”

 

Source 6

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jclp.21972/abstract

this article talks about a survey done by The American College Health Association which surveyed to over 30,000 students across 39 campuses. “Results of the survey showed a significant increase in psychological problems on college campuses. For instance, 15.4% of students reported being diagnosed with depression. Furthermore, 28.4% of all students, regardless of whether they were diagnosed, reported that they felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.”what is alarming about this is as we know many students including myself will not go up and ask for help or talk to people. we feel the need to deal with it ourselves or some feel that they would get judged. The article addresses that substance abuse is another concern. with students not in the right state of mind this could be harmful to themselves and others.

Source 7

https://search.proquest.com/docview/1425547111?pq-origsite=summon

The amount of mental health issues of students has rose throughout the years.  “The most common substances used by young adults are alcohol, tobacco
and cannabis [8-10]. The use of two or more of these
substances simultaneously, known as polydrug use, has
received growing attention in the literature due to an increase
in prevalence in early adulthood.” With mental health issues many students may find the abuse of such substances such as drugs and alcohol as a way to relax and cope. the study done in the article focused on students 18-25 in france. it tried to determine what these students have in common. Which age/criteria fit best for the growing amount of the substance abuse.

Source 8

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460312002110?via%3Dihub

Negative affects have been link to the abuse of substances of drugs and alcohol. People don just abuse these drugs without a purpose. in college this where most people are exposed to these real life situations. the article defines the need for these substance to cope has having a negative urgency. “Negative Urgency refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in impulsive behavior while experiencing feelings of distress. a study showed that women diagnosed with alcohol dependence had  higher levels of Negative Urgency compared to both a control group of women, and a group of women diagnosed with depression” Having Negative Urgency has been shown to lead to the abuse of alcohol, smoking, and the use of illegal drugs. what this proves is it could be psychological to cause these behaviors.

Source 9

https://search.proquest.com/docview/1791486139?pq-origsite=summon

“When an individual is faced with an intense emotional
experience the more dominant emotions take over, and the individual can no longer rationally consider the situation” It seems that in many articles it is an impulse control. that something in the brain makes us not distinguish from right or wrong. something makes us choose the easy way instead of the right way.

 

Stone Money – PaulaJean5

When you think about money, you most likely picture dollar bills and coins. Picturing this means that you live in a society where money is exchanged for goods and put into a bank. This type of society consists of people who may not be able to comprehend the monetary system on the island of Yap. On the island of Yap, possession alone was more important than acquiring somebody’s possession. As long as it was known that somebody owned a large limestone wheel, which was the symbol of wealth, they were able to ‘purchase’ important goods. If the bank gives a loan to somebody after you put your money in your account, then what is the difference of our society and the people of Yap?

To think that money is a unit of measurement seemed bizarre to me before studying and researching these different societies and their fix to the flawed monetary system. It is a measurement of wealth and in some cases, happiness. Brazil was dealing with extreme economic issues for decades. The inflation was so bad that the price of goods were going up every day. It got to the point where many people were committing suicide. The solution they came up with was virtual money. Instead of being paid in physical currency, their wages were listed in units of real value, or URV’s.

“..they wrote a plan for a new currency, one that was stable, dependable, trustworthy. The only catch was this currency would not be real. It would not be printed. There would never be coins. It was fake. They called it a virtual currency.” (Joffe-Walt, 2011)

This compares to our monetary system in the aspect of placeholders. In Brazil, none of your money was tangible. If it was, it was not worth anything. In our society, the money in our bank is not actually ours. It is just a way to measure our wealth.

Another form of currency is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a type of money that you can spend anonymously on the black market. “A form of “e-money,” Bitcoin is made of strings of dazzlingly complex code created by raw computing power — a process called “mining” that can in theory be carried out by anyone with a computer.” (Renaut, 2013) By buying and spending bitcoins, you can purchase things without the bank knowing or anybody for that matter. Today, bitcoins are worth a lot more than they were when they first came out. Using bitcoins, you will never had to trade them, only mine. Mining is the process of creating a complex code using a computer.

Essentially, money is not real. It is a fake concept that measures wealth. This in itself does not make sense. If the money is not real, this means that the wealth is fake as well. Once money is declared fake, everything that we use it for and everything that it stands for changes or becomes worthless in a way.

Works Cited

The Invention of Money. (2018, January 31). Retrieved February 07, 2018, from https://www.thisamericanlife.org/423/the-invention-of-moneyGoldstein, J., &

Kestenbaum, D. (2010, December 10). The Island Of Stone Money. Retrieved February 07, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-island-of-stone-money

Renaut, A. (2013, April 13). The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin. Retrieved February 07, 2018, from https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bubble-bursts-e-currency-bitcoin-064913387–finance.html

 

White Paper – PaulaJean5

PaulaJean’s Proposal

I am going to be researching the placebo effect and how the medical aspect of placebo effects relate to social stereotypical placebos or expectation bias. More specifically, the effect of people’s demographics and what other people say on their self-esteem and behaviors due to stereotypes or negative connotation.

PaulaJean’s Sources

Asking Students to Confirm Their Gender Before a Test Leads to Lower Scores for Girls, Higher for Boys

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on a study done by the Educational Testing Services where they asked a group of males/females to confirm their gender before the test and another group after. The females who got asked the inquiry about gender did worse than the other females who got asked after. The males who got asked before did better than the others who got asked the question after the test.

What it proves: The study in this article will help me prove that just mentioning somebody’s gender to them before they take a test will trigger an unconscious stereotype in their head and make them perform due to that specific stereotype. This shows how much we focus on other stereotypes around us without knowing.

Stinking Thinking and Expectation Bias

The essential content of this article: Stinking Thinking or ST language triggers negative thoughts that will bring ones self-esteem down, making them believe they will fail or that they are terrible people. This kind of language will change one’s mind about their own self. Certain phrases are said with the intention to lower one’s confidence. There are many ways of thinking/speaking that easily shape the way a person thinks. (i.e. “What if…?, “I should have…”, or the belief negative emotions make something real.)

What it proves: My thesis was created to essentially research how one’s language, phrasing, and/or perceptiveness to negativity effects one’s self-esteem. This article provides me with information that shows just by using certain words and phrases one can change somebody’s whole mood and confidence level. The way a person words the things they say can make other people around them acquire certain beliefs.

Enhancing Placebo Effects: Insights from Social Psychology

The essential content of this article: This study focuses on social psychology and how you can apply it to life and increase positive expectancies in clinical settings. Providing a comfortable office, many awards for the doctor/therapist, multiple degrees, and also a sense of comfort and familiarity will let a patient believe that any type of treatment will work as long as it is paired with these social psychology implications.

What it proves: My thesis focuses on things people say or do that change what you believe in or think. In this case, the way the office looked and people acted shaped a patient’s opinion on a certain treatment. This helps me show a real life example where this relationship exists and occurs.

The Weird Power of the Placebo Effect, Explained

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on the different types of effects and what causes them. Regression to the mean is an effect that is caused by time. As time goes on, the sickness/disorder will be healed by time. Confirmation bias is when a patient’s focus shifts from the sickness to the recovery. This shift lets the ill person recognize signs of health and recovery which will end up in ignorance towards the signs of illness. Expectations and learning tell us that we should respond to pain and/or medicines due to the cues we receive from our environment. For example, if a patient receives painkillers from a pump that they cannot see, they will need twice as much medicine as the patients who watch the doctor actually administer it to them. Pharmacological conditioning is related to learning and conditioned responses. If a patient takes a painkiller and then switches to a placebo unknowingly, it will provide the same response as the painkiller as the patient’s body was trained to relieve pain when it took that specific pill. Social learning works in the same way as watching somebody else take a pill that eases pain, will make that certain pill work for them as well. Human connection also has a big effect on what one feels as warmth and empathy can actually help kick start or push along the healing process more so than patients not receiving the same attention and warmth.

What it proves: This proves that there many ways to alter one’s thoughts and beliefs. For example, a lot of what a hospital is is a placebo which makes you more trusting of the treatment. The way the world works around us really creates and shapes how we will think until another placebo pops up and changes our train of thought yet again.

Dogs and the Placebo Effect

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on the placebo effect on animals. There was a study done where a dog was given actual pills and then switched to placebos. They had a way to measure the dog’s pain and found out that the placebos actually worked as a painkiller.

What it proves: This proves just how subconscious the placebo effect is. Dogs, who do not have the cognitive capacity to understand what the pill is actually trying to do for them, are susceptible to the placebo effect. This proves how effective a placebo can be.

Getting Drunk on Expectations

The essential content of this article: This article’s main focus is on the fact that you can be drinking non-alcoholic beer and get drunk. Of course, you can’t know it is non-alcoholic, but just the scene of a party can itself can get you drunk. Alcoholics are advised to not drink non-alcoholic beer and be in a party setting because it can cause a relapse in their recovery. Drinking out of a keg is enough of a cue to trigger the intoxicated feeling. The “needle freak phenomenon” is another example of this. People with an addiction to heroin can inject themselves with a saline solution, thinking it is heroin, and  get an instantaneous high. Cues themselves are very powerful.

What it proves: This proves how our minds can trick us. Just by setting up our atmosphere in a way that is familiar with certain feelings and experiences, we can feel certain ways without the stimulus even being present.

Are Diets Just Placebos?

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on how diets may not be working because of the actual diet, but because of the act. They have done many experiments, and each one showed how just by being told the food was healthy or a part of a diet.

What it proves: This proves, once again, how powerful our minds are. If we are told something will help us lose weight, we start losing weight and feeling healthier even if it is not exactly scientifically proven.

Placebo of HIV Trials

The essential content of this article: Between 1996 and 1999, there were certain trials that tested the effect of highly active antiretroviral therapy on patients with HIV. This treatment was more effective in the clinical trials then they were in hospitals. This is called the trial effect. This test was done later in the early 2000s. It did not show the same results as the perception of HIV changed and there was more evidence to prove that HIV is more treatable.

What it proves: This proves that the time of studies can change results, but the placebo effect still shows. The trial effect is an interesting situation as one may intuitively think that being given treatment in a hospital would be more effective than a treatment in a clinical trial. But still, the time of the study and the relevance is very important for the placebo effect to take place.

Is the Placebo Effect a Placebo?

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on how the placebo effect is just a placebo. The placebo needs multiple factors and varies in every situation. Nobody responds the same way to things, and this is also creates a more difficult way to prove the placebo effect.

What it proves: This article proves that placebo effects are difficult to prove. I do not believe what this article says besides that. There are some flaws and not enough evidence supporting their point. Placebos are very hard to prove, but there is a lot of evidence that points towards it.

The Placebo Effect and Marketing

The essential content of this article: This article focuses on how marketers and advertisers can alter their products and advertisements to appeal to consumers. When they change their products, they start this expectation so when they buy it, it is as good as the commercial or advertisement said. Social media has a huge effect on this as well.

What it proves: This article proves that commercials are very meticulously created so that people buy these things and enjoy them when they are consumed or used.

What I am still looking for…

I am still looking for a thesis statement that is coherent and effective. I like where I am going, but I need to shape and create a thesis that is provable and able to be written a lot about.

Current state of research…

I like all of my sources so far, but I am not 100% confident on my progress. I am having a hard time getting my thoughts together. I think with time and help, my confidence will go up.