Psychologies: Advance In Neuroscience

‘Behaviourists explain maladaptive behaviour in terms of the learning principles that sustain and maintain it. Discuss this statement and show how a behaviourist’s approach to therapy is in stark contrast to a psychoanalytic one’

Today I’ll be discussing Patricia Smith Churchland’s Are Mental States Irreducible to Neurobiological States. According to The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, “[Churchland] is known for her work connecting neuroscience and traditional philosophical topics such as consciousness, the self, free will and ethics” (T.N.I.P, 424).

My interest in the human brain really began my junior year of high school when I took AP Psychology. I could not get enough of learning about how and why we function on a day to day basis, which can be looked at from multiple perspectives including from a biological angle. It amazed me then, and still amazes me today, that a complex network of neurons which fire electrochemical signals is the basis of every action we do on a day to day basis. This idea sparked my passion for learning more about the nervous system and how it functions, and is an interest which remains with me to this day. This same year of high school I also fell in love with Chemistry and Anatomy/Physiology, both of which applied in some capacity to AP Psychology as well. Ultimately

This perspective involves examining the physical aspects that affect a living thing’s behavior such as the brain, nervous system, and genetics.

They are many theories in psychology that can be used to “understand” behaviour, two theories I am going to look at are; Psychodynamic approach and the humanistic approach. I will discuss these 2 psychological theories of development and explain how it accounts for the psychological development, health and behaviour of the individual.

This weeks reading discussed the brain and many complicated factors that go along with it. The brain has been an important area of study for decades and there are many different perspectives when it comes to how it works. Brain imaging, like what is discussed in the reading provided by Dr. Gordon Rose entitled "Postcards From the Brain" has shown us more information about how the brain works, but it has also led to many perspectives related to how consciousness works, and hard versus easy problems in the brain. It debates whether hard problems even exist. Furthermore, the reading provided, also describes language in a baby's brain, how mimicry works, and disorders throughout human development. These sections all involve slightly different perspectives when it comes to how our mind works.

My practice is driven by and laden with traces of the values of capacity for change and growth, the voice of the individual, and curiosity. The belief in the capacity for change and growth motivates me to sit with some clients that others consider difficult and attempt to assist them in seeing the prospect of change while maintaining a respect for their decision. The value of the voice of the individual drives me to open myself to the many possibilities that the client considers and hear things from their perspective. This value causes me to be invested in the client voicing whatever they deem necessary and working through what they voice to build the solutions they have created. The value of the voice of the individual also inspires me to

“Opening Skinners Box” a book by Lauren Slater written about the ground breaking experiments in the psychological world. Posing ways to not only get the answers to all of the big questions but to understand why we chose to accept those answers. In the early years phycology was an unknown, scary and intimidating area that many people wanted answers to. In all of the compelling research and ground breaking experiments, for each answer that came up, two more questions came with it. The mind is a tricky thing to grasp, but thanks to a few well known scientists we are a little closer to understanding it.

After that discovery, the brain became a bit of an obsession. I've always been fascinated by how people think, and wondered what the underlying structures of cognition and memory are. I think my obsession started after reading, "How We Learn" by Benedict Carey. I was so intrigued by the counterintuitive methods of learning he proposed. Since then, I’ve read extensively in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. One book that was particularly influential for me was Norman Doidge’s “The Brain’s Way of Healing;” which introduced me to neuroplasticity. His book made me realize the incredible potential for research in neuroscience. How everyone can benefit from it, especially the 1 in 6 of the world’s population that suffer from neurological

The most important “brain discovery” for me was #2. #2 was talking about some drugs may be the next step to curing mental health issues. At my freshman year, I had to research about drugs in my health class. I researched about Ecstasy, which is similar to LSD and MDMA. Ecstasy(and MDMA) was used medically at 1914 and the 1970s, but since it was too dangerous to use drugs, medical use was banned in 1985. What I found interesting about this topic which is also my biggest takeaway, is that drugs might come back to medical usage. The article has a quote saying, “The studies are showing big effects,”(Dr. Matthew Johnson) which I would agree with because it was used in the 1900s and it worked! Another quote saying, “The exciting thing isn’t just

The lectures in psychology captured my interest like no other subject had. I vividly remember thinking to myself how incredible it was to think about the science behind why we think. Not only did psychology answer some of these questions, it’s also rapidly changing. Contrary to my love of having questions answered, I love how much is still unknown in psychology. With the progression of technology, the landscape of psychology is shifting; videos we watched in class from five or ten years ago posed questions that couldn’t be answered until recently. Our teacher was able to incorporate new evidence into her presentations, removing the feeling of stagnation felt with other

In my opinion, the psychodynamic theory makes most sense because it gives the background of sexual drive as far as the id, ego, and superego. Freud came up with a theory which explained the desire to want to do something and having balance. With this theory, most child molesters use their id and not their ego. They think about their wants and needs and not what is morally right. Also, cognitive distortion makes sense too because it breaks down the thoughts of a child molester. According to the research, molesters think if a person did not resist, then they wanted it and a lot of sexual offenders think like that by taking it as consent sex when it is not. For example, if a child just lays there and do not say stop they think the child must want

You may know that the human brain consists of around 100 billion neurons. You may also know that it consists of ten times that many glial cells. What makes the brain fascinating, however, has little to do with the elements that comprise it. 50% of our genes define the intricate design of the brain; the organization of the other 98% of the body is described by just the other half of our genes, which speaks to the significance of the brain in making us who we are. Such facts are a microcosm of my fascination with the brain,

I chose to research Advances in neuroscience. It was interesting to note how scientist have come to understand the brain throughout time, but also that they still only understand a minute part of what the brain actually does. Scientists have gone from thinking the brain was just a pile of phlegm, to thinking it was like a refrigerator that cooled the heart, and during the Renaissance , they thought our perceptions emotions, reasoning and actions were controlled by animal spirits that swirled through cavities in our head and traveled through our body (Zimmer 2014). Sounds pretty funny, but back then they didn’t know any better.

This, I led me too a love of psychology. How wonderful was it that there was a whole science devoted just to that one mystical organ? Studying the brain, we can unlock the doors to human