|
PSI Tutor: Academic Mentor Newsletter Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
| << July03, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter |
August04, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter >> |
|
Sight, 1(9) A student psychology newsletter from: http://www.psitutor.org July 23rd, 2006 Respect for others (ethics), is respect for the self… “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” - Victor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_E._Frankl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The news this week - *** Announcements *** Feature Article : Born Aliens – Final! *** Learning Resources & Fun *** The Student Psychology Forum @ http://www.psitutor.org/Forum.html *** The blog: http://psychmatters.blogspot.com COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION ARE THE KEYS TO LEARNING! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Announcements Apologies My apologies for being remiss in sending out a weekly newsletter over the past fortnight. Life can get really crazy at times. So look forward to a double issue coming your way soon… White Lies are OK Associated Press sponsored an opinion poll of North American attitudes toward “lying.” From the results it appears that white may be more acceptable than most people think. Are they really necessary…? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060711/ap_on_re_us/the_lies_we_tell On the other side of the argument… A group of UK protesters are advocating For animal testing, such as that used in psychology research. Personally, I am against the use of other animals (besides ourselves) for research. However, I also think the debate is an important one: http://www.pro-test.org.uk/ Cool Interface! The BPS Research blog posts regular psychology research updates. The latest report is about a young knife victim’s neural implants that allow him to access email and change channels on his TV – with his thoughts! For all us cyberpunks that is so cool! Not to mention a great step forward for the autonomy of those who are physically different to what we consider the norm in society: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/ Android in the Mirror A senior Japanese researcher and lecturer has constructed an android copy of himself – to help share his workload. He is testing his creation on his undergraduate students. The ‘droid will provide a ‘vessel’ through which he can deliver lecturers remotely, from home an hours drive away! http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71426-0.html Daily Cognition A blog with daily cognition research updates, and a wealth of other psych related blogs and newsletters to subscribe to: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Article: Born Aliens: Final I found this an interesting read, your comments are welcome at the Student Psychology Forum. by: Sam Vaknin In the first three months of the pregnancy, the central nervous system "explodes" both quantitatively and qualitatively. This process is called metaplasia. It is a delicate chain of events, greatly influenced by malnutrition and other kinds of abuse. But this vulnerability does not disappear until the age of 6 years out of the womb. There is a continuum between womb and world. The newborn is almost a very developed kernel of humanity. He is definitely capable of experiencing substantive dimensions of his own birth and subsequent metamorphoses. Neonates can immediately track colours therefore, they must be immediately able to tell the striking differences between the dark, liquid placenta and the colourful maternity ward. They go after certain light shapes and ignore others. Without accumulating any experience, these skills improve in the first few days of life, which proves that they are inherent and not contingent (learned). They seek patterns selectively because they remember which pattern was the cause of satisfaction in their very brief past. Their reactions to visual, auditory and tactile patterns are very predictable. Therefore, they must possess a MEMORY, however primitive. But – even granted that babies can sense, remember and, perhaps emote – what is the effect of the multiple traumas they are exposed to in the first few months of their lives? We mentioned the traumas of birth and of self-inflation (mental and physical). These are the first links in a chain of traumas, which continues throughout the first two years of the baby's life. Perhaps the most threatening and destabilizing is the trauma of separation and individuation. The baby's mother (or caregiver – rarely the father, sometimes another woman) is his auxiliary ego. She is also the world; a guarantor of livable (as opposed to unbearable) life, a (physiological or gestation) rhythm (=predictability), a physical presence and a social stimulus (an other). To start with, the delivery disrupts continuous physiological processes not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. The neonate has to breathe, to feed, to eliminate waste, to regulate his body temperature – new functions, which were previously performed by the mother. This physiological catastrophe, this schism increases the baby's dependence on the mother. It is through this bonding that he learns to interact socially and to trust others. The baby's lack of ability to tell the inside world from the outside only makes matters worse. He "feels" that the upheaval is contained in himself, that the tumult is threatening to tear him apart, he experiences implosion rather than explosion. True, in the absence of evaluative processes, the quality of the baby's experience will be different to ours. But this does not disqualify it as a PSYCHOLOGICAL process and does not extinguish the subjective dimension of the experience. If a psychological process lacks the evaluative or analytic elements, this lack does not question its existence or its nature. Birth and the subsequent few days must be a truly terrifying experience. Another argument raised against the trauma thesis is that there is no proof that cruelty, neglect, abuse, torture, or discomfort retard, in any way, the development of the child. A child – it is claimed – takes everything in stride and reacts "naturally" to his environment, however depraved and deprived. This may be true – but it is irrelevant. It is not the child's development that we are dealing with here. It is its reactions to a series of existential traumas. That a process or an event has no influence later – does not mean that it has no effect at the moment of occurrence. That it has no influence at the moment of occurrence – does not prove that it has not been fully and accurately registered. That it has not been interpreted at all or that it has been interpreted in a way different from ours – does not imply that it had no effect. In short: there is no connection between experience, interpretation and effect. There can exist an interpreted experience that has no effect. An interpretation can result in an effect without any experience involved. And an experience can effect the subject without any (conscious) interpretation. This means that the baby can experience traumas, cruelty, neglect, abuse and even interpret them as such (i.e., as bad things) and still not be effected by them. Otherwise, how can we explain that a baby cries when confronted by a sudden noise, a sudden light, wet diapers, or hunger? Isn't this proof that he reacts properly to "bad" things and that there is such a class of things ("bad things") in his mind? Moreover, we must attach some epigenetic importance to some of the stimuli. If we do, in effect we recognize the effect of early stimuli upon later life development. At their beginning, neonates are only vaguely aware, in a binary sort of way. l. "Comfortable/uncomfortable", "cold/warm", "wet/dry", "colour/ absence of colour", "light/dark", "face/no face" and so on. There are grounds to believe that the distinction between the outer world and the inner one is vague at best. Natal fixed action patterns (rooting, sucking, postural adjustment, looking, listening, grasping, and crying) invariably provoke the caregiver to respond. The newborn, as we said earlier, is able to relate to physical patterns but his ability seems to extend to the mental as well. He sees a pattern: fixed action followed by the appearance of the caregiver followed by a satisfying action on the part of the caregiver. This seems to him to be an inviolable causal chain (though precious few babies would put it in these words). Because he is unable to distinguish his inside from the outside – the newborn "believes" that his action evoked the caregiver from the inside (in which the caregiver is contained). This is the kernel of both magical thinking and Narcissism. The baby attributes to himself magical powers of omnipotence and of omnipresence (action-appearance). It also loves itself very much because it is able to thus satisfy himself and his needs. He loves himself because he has the means to make himself happy. The tension-relieving and pleasurable world comes to life through the baby and then he swallows it back through his mouth. This incorporation of the world through the sensory modalities is the basis for the "oral stage" in the psychodynamic theories. This self-containment and self-sufficiency, this lack of recognition of the environment are why children until their third year of life are such a homogeneous group (allowing for some variance). Infants show a characteristic style of behaviour (one is almost tempted to say, a universal character) in as early as the first few weeks of their lives. The first two years of life witness the crystallization of consistent behavioural patterns, common to all children. It is true that even newborns have an innate temperament but not until an interaction with the outside environment is established – do the traits of individual diversity appear. At birth, the newborn shows no attachment but simple dependence. It is easy to prove: the child indiscriminately reacts to human signals, scans for patterns and motions, enjoys soft, high pitched voices and cooing, soothing sounds. Attachment starts physiologically in the fourth week. The child turns clearly towards his mother's voice, ignoring others. He begins to develop a social smile, which is easily distinguishable from his usual grimace. A virtuous circle is set in motion by the child's smiles, gurgles and coos. These powerful signals release social behaviour, elicit attention, loving responses. This, in turn, drives the child to increase the dose of his signaling activity. These signals are, of course, reflexes (fixed action responses, exactly like the palmar grasp). Actually, until the 18th week of his life, the child continues to react to strangers favourably. Only then does the child begin to develop a budding social- behavioural system based on the high correlation between the presence of his caregiver and gratifying experiences. By the third month there is a clear preference of the mother and by the sixth month, the child wants to venture into the world. At first, the child grasps things (as long as he can see his hand). Then he sits up and watches things in motion (if not too fast or noisy). Then the child clings to the mother, climbs all over her and explores her body. There is still no object permanence and the child gets perplexed and loses interest if a toy disappears under a blanket, for instance. The child still associates objects with satisfaction/non-satisfaction. His world is still very much binary. As the child grows, his attention narrows and is dedicated first to the mother and to a few other human figures and, by the age of 9 months, only to the mother. The tendency to seek others virtually disappears (which is reminiscent of imprinting in animals). The infant tends to equate his movements and gestures with their results – that is, he is still in the phase of magical thinking. The separation from the mother, the formation of an individual, the separation from the world (the "spewing out" of the outside world) – are all tremendously traumatic. The infant is afraid to lose his mother physically (no "mother permanence") as well as emotionally (will she be angry at this new found autonomy?). He goes away a step or two and runs back to receive the mother's reassurance that she still loves him and that she is still there. The tearing up of one's self into my SELF and the OUTSIDE WORLD is an unimaginable feat. It is equivalent to discovering irrefutable proof that the universe is an illusion created by the brain or that our brain belongs to a universal pool and not to us, or that we are God (the child discovers that he is not God, it is a discovery of the same magnitude). The child's mind is shredded to pieces: some pieces are still HE and others are NOT HE (=the outside world). This is an absolutely psychedelic experience (and the root of all psychoses, probably). If not managed properly, if disturbed in some way (mainly emotionally), if the separation – individuation process goes awry, it could result in serious psychopathologies. There are grounds to believe that several personality disorders (Narcissistic and Borderline) can be traced to a disturbance in this process in early childhood. Then, of course, there is the on-going traumatic process that we call "life". About the Author: Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for Central Europe Review, United Press International (UPI) and eBookWeb and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory, Suite101 and searcheurope.com. Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***Resources & Fun Happy Soul Newsletters Subscribe to an assortment of psychology orientated newsletters: http://www.selfimprovementnewsletters.com/ Brain Teasers Challenge yourself! http://www.puzz.com/iqteasers.html Medication Library Easy access to a myriad of psychology drugs: http://psychcentral.com/meds/ Centre for Psychology Resources An abundance of psychology resources to be found here: http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/aupr/psycres.shtml ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- That’s the student psychology news for this week, hope it was of some interest and or help. Feel welcome to email topics that are relevant to you (admin@psitutor.org), and I will do some research and include them. Remember, www.psitutor.org now has Live Tutor Chat, or you can email your questions and assignments for some homework help. There is also the blog: http://psychmatters.blogspot.com And come join the student psychology forum @ http://www.psitutor.org/Forum.html for help with homework, essay or questionnaire construction etc. Maybe you just want to discuss a theory! You are welcome to forward this newsletter onto others who you think my benefit from it. write well, Charmayne Paul www.psitutor.org v-_- pax |
|
| << July03, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter |
August04, 2006 - Sight -Student Psychology Newsletter >> |
|
PSI Tutor: Academic Mentor Newsletter Archives Index
|
Subscribe
|
|
|
Archives powered by Zinester's Mailing List Service
Details on PSI Tutor: Academic Mentor Newsletter |
Browse for more newsletters at Zinester's Ezine Directory
Managed by Zinester's Mailing List Management |