Eating Disorder

Private Practice is a show about a group of doctors. They all have different types of cases. This week though the episode : Second Choices, really stuck out to me. A ten year old boy named Oliver was brought in by his mother and step father to his pediatrician, because he had a stomach ache. As this child walks into the scene he is wearing what looks like a hockey mask. His mother makes him wear this mask so he wont eat things. The parents go on to explain that Oliver has been eating every thing around him. This condition started the same time Olivers mother remarried. Oliver has Pica, which is a condition where a person has uncontrolable urges to eat things around him or her. Oliver had eaten his stuffed animals, potpouri, books and other objects. Cooper(the pediatrician) tells Oliver that pica is a rare condition and he brings in a psychologist Dr. Sheldon. Oliver's mother is very upset with her sons condition she just wants him to be normal. She is more concerned with her new husband leaving than her sons condition. When Oliver was being admitted to the hospital Cooper walks into a room and Oliver's mother is eating toilet paper. The mother never told anyone about her condition. She told Cooper that she only does it when she is nervous but had complete control over it for years. Oliver told Sheldon he doesn't know why he does it, he isn't even thinking when he puts things in his mouth.

In our psychology class we haven't learn about this condition. It really interests me. I am not sure if it would be under the category of eating disorder or mental disorder. In chapter 9 we learn about motivation and emotion. What motivates an eating disorder? Some scientist think that damage to the hypothalamus depending could cause an eating disorder. The hypothalamus controls our motivational stimuli, it tells us when to eat and when to stop. Social acceptance is another factor in eating disorders. I think Pica would be more of an psychological disorder. I can see a connection with the emotion, the mother feels nervous and then this makes her just eat anything that is within grasp. The little boy Oliver is in automatic mode when he is eating, he is not even thinking about it. I can also see how this condition may even be genetic. It could not of been environmental because the mother had not shown signs of pica before to her son.

Instinct or Not

Good vs Evil, right or wrong; is it genetic or are we taught what is good and bad? Biologist and cognitive neuroscientist Mark Hauser seems to think that evolution is hardwired into our moral instinct. Hauser talks about a scenario that could happen. " A healthy man walks into a hospital where five patients are awaiting organ transplants. " Hauser then asks is it morally acceptable to kill this healthy man for his organs. Without even thinking people would say no. Hauser thinks we come to this conclusion because our instincts are encoded into our brains by evolution. Hauser thinks millions of years of natural selection has made our universal moral grammar in our brains to make rapid decisions about ethical dilemmas. Hauser gives two examples of moral thinking:

" a train is coming down a track, and it is going to run over and kill five people. There is a person standing next to the track and can change the course of the train. Now if the person does this he or she will die but the other five will be spared. Morally people would think it is okay to spare the one life and save the five. "

Second scenario, a nurse comes up to a doctor and says"doctor we have five critically ill patients that all need an organ to survive. We do not have time to send out for organs, but a healthy person just walked into the hospital we can use his organs and save the five. "

Now in both cases one person dies and five are spared. Morally people would have a different reaction. People of different race, age, religious backgrounds,even educational backgrounds can not explain why the two cases differ for them morally.This article goes on to explain how children as young as 15 months old are impressionable to others beliefs.

I read this article in the magazine Discovery Presents THE BRAIN, it was written by Josie Galusiusz . Galusiusz interviewed Marc Hauser in the first part of the article. This article was named "The origin of Right or Wrong".

This really connects with chapter 1 in our psychology books. We learned about evolutionary perspective and how all humans share the same basic characteristics. Were our morals really part of operant behavior? Where, if a person was to be a hero and sacrifice his or her life for another there was fame to come with that. The people that were around to see the admiration others had for the hero,this would be a positive reinforcement.This would then be passed on to others. Where when a person killed another person there was negative attention brought upon the murderer and that person would be either killed or put in jail. That would of been a negative reinforcement.This showed others to behave and value human life. This also connects with the social cultural perspective. Socially and culturally it is known that killing is bad and putting someone Else's life before yours is good. I believe universally selfishness is looked down upon.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones is a movie based on the novel The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold. The movie was directed by Peter Jackson. Jackson toned the movie down so that it could be viewed by young adults. This movie is not for the weak hearted. Suzie Salmon is a 12 year old girl who was murdered. This movie shows the struggle a family will go through losing a loved one. The parents are dealing with losing a child in different ways. The father becomes obsessed and the mother becomes withdrawn. Suzie was a happy loving child, who loved photography and imagined herself growing up and becoming a wildlife photographer one day. The characters lived in the 1970's where people did not make child abduction and abuse public knowledge. People still lived in their perfect little bubbles where nothing bad ever happened to children. Suzie's little brother Buckley would tell their father that he could sometimes see Suzie and he knew she was still watching. After Suzie was murdered she was stuck in the in-between. In the in between Suzie could see her family and she tried to communicate with her father. Her murderer Mr. Harvey was a sick twisted man. The movie did not show that Suzie was raped and murdered, but in the book the author made it known that Mr. Harvey was a sexual predator. In the in between Suzie met a little girl Holly who was about Suzie's age. It later showed all of Mr. Harvey's victims in the in-between with Suzie . The victims were finally going to heaven.

Sigmund Freud would of had a field day with George Harvey. All of Harvey's victims were young girls. Harvey would be working on a doll house and you could hear Suzie's voice in his head saying " mom ,dad look at me, look at me, look at me" and that is when he flipped. Harvey had well drawn out plans for the shelter he was going to build to lure Suzie into. I believe Freud would of said that Mr. Harvey had mother issues and this was linked to his sexual desire and this is why he had the urge to harm women. In Freud's model for the concept of personality there is the superego where the conscience is. It is said that conscience develops that a child has a sense of right or wrong.It is as if Mr. Harvey's super ego did not develop consciences. He has no morals and felt no guilt or remorse for what he had done to those people. You could see the pride he felt in what he had done,the control he felt he had. Mr. Harvey kept a scrap book of news articles about Suzie's disappearance and kept an object that Suzie had in her possession when she died.

Depression

In the movie Seven Pounds, Ben Thomas is an IRS agent who is living every day with the fact that he killed his wife and six other people in a car accident. Throughout the movie Ben is looking for people who need and deserve his help. Ben has flashbulb memories of the car accident and you can feel the pain that Ben is suffering. Ben becomes friends with a women, Emily Pose who he is auditing. Emily has cognitive heart failure and Ben helps her around her house and with her dog. Ben is depressed in this movie but there is something about Emily that is lifting his spirits. In the beginning of this movie Ben is telling the audience about how the first time he saw a boxed jellyfish he was 12,and he would never forget his father telling him how they were the most deadliest jellyfish. Ben lived in a house by the ocean, he later moves into a motel and brings his jelly fish with him. Ben's goal is to change the lives of seven people. This movie is about a man who has made a mistake and does everything in his power to make up for it.

Seven Pounds is a perfect movie to analyse and break down into different parts of psychology. There are flash bulb memories due to a traumatic event. The mood disorder is depression. There are more psychological problems with the characters than physical. Behaviorist would have a Field day with Ben Thomas.

I felt like Ben was carrying this poisonous jellyfish around to remind him of death. Ben would not let himself move on. He looked at his phone for a split second and caused a major car accident. This guilt led into major depression. When Ben would fall asleep he would dream about the accident, you could see that he was not sleeping well.

Prejudice

This movie is about a little boy (Bruno)who's father is a Nazi solider. Bruno's family moves to the country,their home is near a concentration camp. Bruno thinks this camp is a farm. One day he was exploring and came across a little boy on the other side of a fence. Bruno thinks this boy is working on the farm and is having a lot of fun with friends. Bruno is experiencing jealousy and confusion at the same time. Bruno eventually finds out that his new friend Schmeul is a Jew.

Bruno has conflicts in this movie because he is being taught by family and his teacher that Jews are evil, corrupted , steal money, jobs, and Jews were why the Germans lost the Great War. But Bruno had become friends with Schmeul before he knew he was a Jew and Shmeul was nothing like what Bruno was told. At one point the movie Bruno's father said" They are not people." Bruno's mother has tried hard to shelter him from the reality of the war. Eventually she has had enough and says that she and the children are moving to a safer area. Bruno is sad that he has to leave Schmeul.Bruno believes that the concentration camp is not a bad place it is more like a vacation spot for Jews. Bruno finds his way into the concentration camp. While there reality finally hits Bruno. At the age of 8 he and his friend Schmeul learn how cruel the world really is.

In chapter 12 we learned about prejudice. The Germans were prejudice against Jews and blamed them for everything that has gone wrong in their country. Bruno is dealing with a social role as a son of a German soldier. He is supposed to hate Jews and look at them as vermin. As a result Bruno lies to his mother about what he is up to. He also lies to a German solider about not knowing Shmeul and feeding him, which got Shmeul beaten. Gretchen's(Bruno's sister) behavior would be characterized at conformity. Throughout the movie you saw this innocent little girl change into a person with the same thoughts and views as a German Solider.

In chapter 11 the subject of stress and health is covered. Shmeul is very depressed with his situation and can not understand how Bruno can look at this camp as a fun place to be. Shmeul is in an environment where PTSD would occur along with depression which would cause him to experiance fatiuge, nausia, headaches and maybe even suicidal thoughts.