Overcoming the Impossible

Ronald Bassman conducted the work. The purpose of the article was for Bassman
to elaborate on his experiences of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and after his
recovery from this disorder. Bassman has the hope of by speaking out perhaps other
people will be helped. There is a chance for recovery, a fact that unfortunately many
people dont believe. Also unfortunately, a psychiatric hospital may not be beneficial for
schizophrenic patients all the time because when asked to recount their experiences and
thoughts they are subjecting themselves to increased stress and suffering.
The article intrigued me primarily because there were no variables being tested,
there were no experiments, yet I felt like I learned something. The personal story gives
the public a different outlook about schizophrenia, and the fact that institutionalized care
may perhaps ironically not be the best option. I somewhat connected previously
deprivation of hope and recovery efforts, and this study supported that claim. People
need hope to provide them with the will to expedite recovery. There were no ethical
questions posed.

The Schizophrenic Mind
Sharon Begley wrote the article. The aritcles point was to explore schizophrenia
in greater detail. Schizophrenia is one of the more difficult disorders to diagnose, but
some symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, frequently derailed/incoherent speech,
catatonic behavior, or the absence of feeling or volition. Occasionally people afflicted
with schizophrenia hear voices that either carry on a conversation or running
commentary. This disorder also caused activation in multiple parts of the brain, but is
especially associated with low activity within the frontal lobes. The precise causes of
schizophrenia are not known, but one factor is the age of the father, and there must be
some more prenatal factors that predispose a person to schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is an intriguing disorder because it is relatively common in our
population, but yet not much is known about it. The methodology used seems like it
worked and provided valid conclusions. The main questions the article raises are what
factors causes the dopamine imbalance within the brain as well as the low activity in the
frontal lobs. More research definitely needs to be done to answer these questions and
then from there perhaps a cure could be concocted. There are no ethical questions.

Whos Crazy Here Anyway?
Rosenhan conducted this work. The purpose was to find out whether the
characteristics that leads to psychological diagnose reside in the patients themselves.
Rosenhan recruited eight people to secure as pseudopatients, as they went to
psychological hospitals and complained about voices (even though they were actually
normal). The hospital stays for these patients lasted in the range between 7 and 52
days. Doctors could not diagnose them as sane even though other patients had the ability
to.
I was really surprised at this study because I never expected the validity of these
hospitals to be compromised in such a way. It really startles me that some of the doctors
at these psychiatric hospitals cannot distinguish people from faking real disorders and
having them. This is a sign of concern, especially for criminals who take the insanity plea
and have to be passed by doctors. The methodology seemed adequate; its just that
some pseudopatients are bound to be better actors, but nonetheless I believe in the
conclusions. There did not seem to be any ethical considerations.

Picture This
This research was done by Murray Henry, who designed the Thematic Apperception Test. Similar
to the inkblot test, but instead of using random rogue dots, the pictures are dots that simulate images of
people. The subject is asked to create a story for the image at hand. The story given by the subject is
then interpreted to find something bothering the person in their subconscious. It was found that most
of the stories came from either books and movies, real life events with other people, the subjects
fantasies, or experiences of his/her own life. Participants clearly projected their own existence into
stories.
I found this research interesting because it shows how people tend to use their own frame of
reference interpretation, which calls into question whether what we see is actual reality of just some
that is a skewed perception. Now, these perceptions could just be from external places, and these may
be confused with internal conflicts. Because of such circumstances, this technique should not be used
as a main source of diagnosis. There were no ethical issues found in the experiment.

Making a Good Impression
This research was done by Soloman Asch. Asch recognized that we usually have at least several
characteristics from which to form an impression of a person. He realized that one does not recognize
another person as being composed of several distinct traits or characteristics, but one forms a unified
impression of the whole person. The purpose of Asch's research was to not only discover how one
"mentally and cognitively organizes these various discrete characteristics to produce this single unified
impression", but also to prove that a single word change in a description of someone will create a
variation of the entire impression formed. The general results of these two experiments supported
Asch's theory that one does not recognize a person as being made up of several traits, but instead one
has a "general unified impression of the whole person".
I found this interesting because it shows that it is not just one specific trait that makes us have
an impression on someone, it is a combination of traits and presentation the person puts forward that
causes us to this form a image of them in our minds. I found experiment to be ethical because it had no
complications that endangered the subject.

Projections
This research was done by Herman Rorschach, and is about the inkblot test. The theory behind
the inkblot is that it is so vague that it can be interpreted in many different ways, and the interpretations
made about these inkblots can be used to view a persons inner self. The results found that certain
groups of people had patterns in the way in which they interpreted each inkblot. Depressed people gave
fewer answers; happy people gave more in-depth answers, schizophrenics sometimes refused to give
answers to certain inkblots.
I found this research interesting because the inkblot is what most people view psychology as if
they havent had any real exposure to it, and thus when I finally found out what it is it gave me a better
understanding of what kind of tool it is in the field. Although this test is interesting, it should not be used
as a main source of diagnosis. The interpretations could be helpful or lead t nothing, and thus although
one can use this test it is not as reliable as others. No ethical issues were found in this test.