Psychology in Action

Tag: mental illness

  • What are the Areas of Study within Psychology?

    The field of psychology had its modern origin just over 100 years ago, and yet interest in the field has grown rapidly. Researchers with broad and varied interests have expanded the field, and as a result there are many different subdisciplines. Highlighted here are several key areas of psychology. Biological psychologists apply biological principles to…

  • Is ADHD a real disorder?

    Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that approximately 5 percent of children have a specific deficit in attention compared to children of their same age and sex, many people still question whether ADHD (and some still call it it’s former name: ADD) is a real disorder. A recent article in the New York Times takes on this…

  • The Origins of Mental Disorders

    The recent article in the New York Times outlining research on the preschool-age depression has raised public interest in the origins of mental disorders. Many non-scholars and even some psychologists are skeptical about the emergence of psychological problems in very young children. The stability of temperament (personalities traits such as extraversion and introversion) is now…

  • brain mapping disorders

    An ever growing number of studies feature brain mapping to illustrate structural differences in the brain based on grouping those with and without a given disorder. Techniques such as structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can aid in researchers understanding of differences in shape and volume of various brain regions. Group differences are often found, yet…

  • One example of how animal research can help humans

    Human and animal studies have found that brains go through substantialsynaptic pruning during childhood, removing approximately half of all synapses until puberty. While the pruning of synapses is a natural process, some researchers have theorized that schizophrenia arises from excessive pruning (Siekmeier & Hoffman, 2002). Presuming schizophrenia is a disorder of disruptions in neural connectivity…

  • Disclose or not? The catch 22 of mental illness

    A recent report published by SAMHSA addresses the issue of self-disclosure regarding mental illness. Research has already shown that the more familiar people are with others who have different form of mental illness, the more their attitudes regarding mental illness will improve. The problem is that in the process, those who self-disclose fear being ostracized,…

  • Abortion does not cause mental illness

    From Science Sounds: A recent article in the New York Times reported results from an APA study that concluded that abortion does not cause mental illness. The full title of the article is “Abortion Does Not Cause Mental Illness, Panel Says.” Maybe I am being paranoid, but somehow that title calls the results into question…