Goals and Depression
Striving towards meaningful goals is good for your well-being; even just having goals by themselves are indicative of well-being. This is an established dogma of positive psychology, so how can one argue that goals may be at the root of the experience called depression.
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A framework that aims to throw some light on this is the dual-process Tenacious Goal Pursuit (TGP) and Flexible Goal Adjustment (FGA) theory as proposed by Brandstatdter and colleagues.
As per this framework, we all strive towards goals, but only goals that are meaningful (say goals which align with our self-identity) and attai...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 24, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression ABCD ABCD mdoel goals mania personality Source Type: podcasts
Emotions and Personality: Take 8
I am currently reading ‘Emotions in the practice of psychotherapy‘ by Robert Plutchik and have been finding it a good read. In it Plutchik elaborates on his famous psycho-evolutionary theory of emotions that led to the circumplex and the Plutchik wheel of emotions. Basically, Plutchik argues that emotions can be classified on three dimensions- intensity, similarity and polarity (complementarity) and if one were to focus on similarity and polarity one can find eight basic or primary emotions, with other emotions either being a blend of the primary emotions or differing in intensity.
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An example w...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 18, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion personality ABCD ABCD model emotions personality disorders Plutchik Source Type: podcasts
The Stages of Moral Development
I have alluded to Kohlberg’s stage theory of Moral Development a few times in this blog, but never devoted an entire post exclusively to that; time to rectify that. For those not familiar with the Kohlberg model, I suggest that they read up an excellent description here.
Morality Play (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
To recap, Kohlberg argues, that we go through three levels (and two stages within each level) as we advance on our path of moral development. He arrived to this conclusion, among other things, based on a long-term study of 58 young men over a span of two decades. The stage of moral development was asse...
Source: The Mouse Trap - May 17, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: moral sense ABCD ABCD model kohlberg moral development Morality stages Source Type: podcasts
Growing From Depression
“Growing from depression” is a short, easy read on the subject of the depressive experience and how to make best use of and grow from that experience. The book is written by Dr. Neel Burton, who is a psychiatrist as well as a philosopher, and an exceptionally good writer.
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” so wrote Pascal/ Twain and in case of Neel he seems to have spent enough time on this book, making it succinct yet easy to understand and follow by a layman.
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The book is organized in four sections; one dealing ...
Source: The Mouse Trap - March 21, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression Book reviews Source Type: podcasts
Psychotherapy, East and West
Reading philosophical texts can be daunting- sometimes the terminology and words are dense and sometimes you have to re-read multiple times to understand what the writer means. But reading original sources can be highly enriching too.
Buddhist monk in Phu Soidao Nationalpark, Phu Soidao Nationalpark Waterfall, Thailand, Uttaradit Province Location: Phu Soidao Nationalpark Thailand. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So when I came across an opportunity to read and review ‘Psychotherapy east and west,’ by Alan Watts, I proceeded ahead with some mixed enthusiasm- I like his quote ‘What if money was no object’ ...
Source: The Mouse Trap - March 1, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: therapy Alan Watts Buddhism Hinduism psychotherapy zen Source Type: podcasts
The ABCD of Personality Structure
Regular readers of The Mouse Trap would be aware of my ABCD model of psychology whereby all psychological phenomena are explained in terms of Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive and Dynamic/Desire dimensions.
Personality Traits from SignalPatterns.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The affective dimensions is also related to sensory processes; the behavioral dimension to motor processes; the cognitive dimension to associative processes and the desire/dynamic/motives dimension to social processes.
We are increasingly focusing on brain as a means to study psychological phenomena and thus four major divisions of neurosciences are aff...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 27, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: personality ABCD Agreeableness Conscientiousness HEXACO Neuroticism Openness to experience Trait theory Source Type: podcasts
The Evolution of Altruism And Its Relationship to Personality
Altruism, put simply, is helping others or cooperating with others, even if it is costly to self. Of course, something like that cannot evolve, unless there are benefits too, associated with such acts of apparent selflessness.
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Evolutionary theory mandates that there be some genetic payoffs in terms of either inclusive fitness or future benefits to self (reciprocity) for any kind of altruism/ cooperation to evolve.
I recommend reading Wikipedia articles on reciprocity, kin selection, and evolution of cooperation if they are not familiar to you or you need a refresher.
Cooperation, to start with...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 27, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: altruism evolution personality Big Five personality traits game theory HEXACO reciprocity Source Type: podcasts
The Four Sub-Types of ADHD
Recently, I wrote a post about the four neural sub-types of depression. That classification was based on resting stage fMRI comparing depressive patients with controls; I hope someone does similar studies for other psychiatric conditions.
English: Symptoms of ADHD described by the literature (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The current post is an attempt to delineate what may come out in such a study if done for ADHD. I will be focusing on ADHD as it manifests in children, adolescents as well as adults.
I will be mostly relying on factor analytical studies of ADHD that have typically revealed 3 to 4 underlying factors.
ADHD has t...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 26, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: ADHD creativity Source Type: podcasts
Do Cultures Have Personality?
When people talk about culture and personality, the normal top-of-the-mind concern is whether cultures affect personality and if so to what extent?
English: An Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World: World Secular-Rational and Self Expression Values as a map of world cultures based on World Values Survey data. Svenska: En Världskulturkarta av Inglehart-Welzel typ. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Personality, or enduring individual differences in thinking, feeling, motivations and behavior among have been shown to be partly heritable and under genetic effect; they are partly shaped by the culture and early life experiences a...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 24, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: culture personality Source Type: podcasts
The Four Neural Sub-Types of Depression
Regular readers of The Mouse Trap will be familiar with my obsession with knowing how nature is carved at its joints or in other words what are the natural categories or basic kinds.
Anhedonia (The Graduate album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This translates into thinking a lot about what are the fundamental drives, basic emotions and personalty traits and what taxonomic system of mental illness is most reflective of underlying fundamental nosological differences.
While synthesizing the work of others, has great value, and one derives many valuable theoretical insights based on such musings; there is nothing better than findi...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 23, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression anergia anhedonia anxiety Depression (mood) Major depressive disorder mania Source Type: podcasts
The Four Shades of Dark
People since time immemorial have been fascinated by the problem of evil; some consider it a philosophical (why does evil exist?) and religious problem (Why does god allow evil if he is omnipotent and benevolent?) while some others have taken a more scientific approach.
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Prominent psychologists from Roy Baumeister to Simon Baron-Cohen have written about evil and I first got drawn into psychology when I read ‘The anatomy of human destructiveness‘ by Erich Fromm in 1992, while still in college. As a matter of fact Fromm first came up with the term ‘malignant narcissism’ wh...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 22, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: personality Erich Fromm evil Machiavellianism narcissism psychopathy sadism Source Type: podcasts
Basic Needs, Basic Beliefs, Basic Pathologies
Kahneman in his book ‘Thinking fast and slow‘ elucidates the two type of thinking processes involved- a system I consisting of fast, intuitive processing, and a system II consisting of slower, more deliberate processing. Lesser known is the fact that a similar dual process theory of personality that precedes his work is by Seymour Epstien.
The Pleasure Principle (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Epstien is know for his Cognitive-Experiential Self theory of Personalty (CEST), according to which he reintroduced the concept of unconscious in psychology, in the form of the Experiential system, but his unconscious wa...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 19, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: cognition personality Affect (psychology) beliefs needs unconscious Source Type: podcasts
Different Frames, Different Outcomes, Different Emotions
Most readers I presume are familiar with the work of Kahneman and Tversky on how statements framed in either loss or gain lead to different outcomes; however this is not a post about prospect theory. Instead this is about a different type of framing: whether the goals you set for yourself are in terms of approach or avoidance, and is loosely based around the work of AJ Elliot as also that of Higgins around prevention and promotion focus.
English: Emotions Q-sort (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One can set an approach goal or a goal with promotion focus (I’m using these interchangeably in this post though there are importan...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 12, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: emotion motivation approach avoidance emotions motivations Source Type: podcasts
Self-reflective Consciousness and Existential Concerns
I am currently reading ‘A life worth living‘ and found the introductory chapter by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi quite stimulating and inspiring.
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In that chapter, Mihaly claims that human brains are unique in lieu of their ability to give rise to self-reflective consciousness (I believe that many primates and some other animals may also have self-reflective consciousness, but that is tangential to our discussion here). This self-reflective consciousness in turn leads to some interesting psychological effects.
To begin with, the self-reflective consciousness gives rise to a sense of individuality...
Source: The Mouse Trap - February 12, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: positive psychology consciousness existentialism Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Source Type: podcasts
Depression and its Antecedents
Today I will approach the problem of depression, but from a particular vantage point – that steeped in cognitive theory and informed by the work of Martin Seligman.
English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Latviešu: Abrahams Linkolns, sešpadsmitais ASV prezidents. ?????? / Srpski: ??????? ???????, ????????? ?????????? ?????????? ????????? ??????. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There have been other views about depression- a psychoanalytical one whereby depression was deemed as rage turning upon inwards and directed towards the self; and a biomedical one whereby depression is considered a d...
Source: The Mouse Trap - January 17, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: sandygautam Tags: depression Depression (mood) Major depressive disorder Mental health Source Type: podcasts
