mental – Jineral Knowledge

Child Prodigy

Posted on 12/09/201209/03/2019 by Jinavie

At the age of 6, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart toured Europe to astound audiences with his mastery of the violin, organ and keyboard. At the age of 11, Judit Polgár defeated a Grandmaster in chess, later becoming a Grandmaster herself at the age of 15. By the time he finished elementary school, Saul Kripke had taught himself ancient Hebrew, finished the works of Shakespeare and mastered the works of Descartes and complex mathematical problems.

Each of these people is considered a child prodigy – person who develops and shows extreme talent in a skill at a level far beyond the norm for their age. The term wunderkind (German for “wonder child”) is also used. For some unexplained reason, these people are far beyond the average level of children at their age in terms of intelligence or a certain talent.

Prodigies are actually a subset of a condition known as precocity, where a young child shows unusually early development or maturity, especially in mental aptitude. For example, a German child called Christian Friedrich Heinecken is known to have talked within a few hours after his birth, learnt the key events of the first five books of the Torah within a year, mastered the Bible at age 2 and had a working knowledge of universal history and geography, Latin and French at age 3. Unfortunately, he was struck ill at the age of 4, and shortly after predicting his death, passed away. Heinecken’s case is an extreme example of precocity, but nonetheless most precocious children show at least an outstandingly advanced level of mental maturity compared to other children. Along with prodigies, savants and children with extraordinarily high IQ (over 160) are also considered precocious.

Although precocious children enjoy their extreme talent (for which they usually have deep passion for) and may even become famous for it like Mozart, they are almost always at risk of certain problems. One common issue is that they tend to be placed on pedestals as people constantly praise their ability. This can quickly evolve into narcissism, setting a major expectation that the child battles with throughout his or her life. Children with advanced intellect are often unable to fit in to society as they are far more intelligent than their peers. Not only do other children shy away from them, but they feel too bored and unstimulated by other children and choose to alienate themselves. Furthermore, although they may have the intelligence and maturity to comprehend philosophical concepts, they still have the emotions of a child, meaning they are tormented by the dissonance between the rational mind and their emotions. All of these factors combined lead to a great increase in risk of depression in precocious children.

Essentially, the main conundrum for child prodigies is trying to balance their amazing talent with a happy life in a “normal” society. This could be achieved by parents keeping things real and not placing excessive expectations on the child, and giving the child a way to vent their genius in some way. For example, chess has been a classic way of keeping children with high intellect engaged. Having this kind of vent allows the child to still engage with other members of his or her society (other children), while honing their great skills for an even brighter future. The child must stay engaged and passionately practise and advance their skill so that they do not stay in a perpetual rut all their life.

With great power, comes great responsibility.

Psychology & Medicine

The Three Christs Of Ypsilanti

Posted on 18/08/201209/03/2019 by Jinavie

On July 1, 1959, a social psychologist named Milton Rokeach began an experiment in Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan to explore the nature of delusions. He gathered three paranoid schizophrenics who each believed they were Jesus Christ and put them in one room. Technically, there can only be one Jesus Christ. So how did the three schizophrenics respond to each other’s claims that they were Jesus?

The experiment ran for two years, with the three patients meeting regularly with Rokeach (under the guise that it was a support group). The initial meetings were far from peaceful. One “Christ” would yell out that the other two were fakes, while another would decry that he would not worship the other Christ as he was the real Jesus. The third reasoned that there cannot be more than one Jesus, and that he was the Good Lord. The arguments escalated to the point of physical violence in many cases. No one would budge and accept that the other person could be Jesus, as they themselves were Jesus. It was the ultimate paradox and cognitive dissonance, as there can be only one Jesus.

Rokeach hoped that the patients would soon see the error of their delusions. He even went as far as sending each of them fake letters from the patient’s “wife” and “the hospital boss” to see if they would alter their routine as the letter advised. But instead of breaking down and accepting that they were deluded, the three patients each found an explanation to resolve the cognitive dissonance.

One patient declared that his fellow patients were actually dead but being controlled by “machines”, thus their arguments were not credible. The other two explained that the other patients were “crazy” people with mental health issues, thus they should not be believed.

This is not a surprising ending to the story, as the definition of a delusion is that it is a “fixed, false belief not amenable to reason”. By definition, a delusion cannot be “reasoned” or broken with logic. Even if you blatantly show the patient proof that their delusion is not real, the patient will not yield. Instead, they will find creative ways to work around the inconvenient truth. Ergo, no matter what evidence you put forward, those three patients would always, in their mind, be the one and only Jesus Christ.

Now let us assume that you met a doppelgänger who states that they are the real “you”, challenging your identity. How would you respond? Challenging one’s identity is the most vicious attack possible, as no person is secure enough with their own identity to be unaffected by the attack. Because people define themselves with a set identity, changing even a small portion of their identity causes extreme confusion and panic. To avoid such emotional turmoil, the brain does everything in its power to protect the identity it believes in. This is why people will respond with fury and anger when their identity is challenged.

People say that “I know myself the best”. But if we construct our identities around flimsy, false foundations, we would still cling to the idea that that is our true identity. If people were to suggest that we are not who we think we are, our brain would defend its identity at all costs. In that case, are our identities delusional? How do we know whether our identity is the real us, or a delusion our brain is clinging to?

Better yet, imagine that everyone around you claimed that you are a duck. Even though you know for sure that you are not a duck, everyone else sees you as a duck and defines you as a duck. An interesting thing about delusions is that the definition includes the phrase: “…and not in keeping with that person’s subculture”. This means that if everyone in your subculture were to say that your belief and your identity were wrong, you could be labelled “delusional”. In that case, are you crazy or is everyone else crazy?

Psychology & Medicine

Parent

Posted on 29/04/201215/02/2019 by Jinavie

Parents only have one duty: to bring up their children with love. The problem is that so many parents do not know this fact, or have a twisted understanding of the concept of “love”. Some never even hug their child, some abandon their child for their own lives and some even abuse their child. However, that does not mean one should obsess with their child either. Always teaching the child that “they are the best” is not love. Also, trapping a child and preventing them from leaving you is obsession, not love. Some parents tell their children that studying will lead to a happy, successful future, and compare them to other children who get better grades. This is a crucial mistake, as the children will probably live out an unhappy life with a deep wound in their heart for the rest of their lives. This is because the parents’ role is not to secure a successful future and instructing them how to get there, but to allow the child to independently plan their future, taste failure and develop their own values and philosophy, only supporting them from the side. A parent is not a leader who leads a child along a predestined path of life, but an assistant who supports a child while they pave their own path of life and walk down it. To support and respect a child’s decisions, dreams, talents and potential; to teach the wisdom and skills the child will need to follow their dreams; that is true love.

Of course, that is not to say that one should neglect and leave a child without any interventions. If a child clearly makes an objective error or misbehaves, it is a parent’s role to correct it. This kind of home education is not interference like obsessing about the child’s studies, but supportive intervention that helps the child follow their dreams and not be lost on the way. Home education is a very important form of love that imbues a child with skills such as social skills, ethics, morality, philosophy and love that will allow them to lead a happy and wholesome life.

Why is parental love so important to a child? Childhood is a critical period when the child’s brain is rapidly developing and when the child begins to form his or her personality and view of the world. Almost every mental illness (especially personality disorders) can be traced back to a childhood trauma, or at least be affected by it. For example, a child whose parents did not care for them will grow up lacking love and attachment, leading to constantly seeking love and attention from others, which may develop into dependent personality disorder. If a child has to live up to the parents’ great expectations, they will not receive sympathy and fail to develop a self identity. To fill this void, the child will continuously float from one person to another to seek this sympathy. A child with obsessive parents being led to believe that they are the best could develop narcissistic personality disorder, who becomes violent and enraged when someone points out a mistake they made. As one can see, parental love is a crucial nutrient that fosters a healthy personality in a child, helping them become a wholesome, independent “person”.

No matter how poor the parents are, a child who was raised on love is able to construct a plentiful, happy life. Then, when the child becomes a parent, they will know how to raise their own children with love as well. The best parents are those who respect the child’s decisions and allow them to be free when they set out on their pursuit of happiness. All you need is love.

Psychology & Medicine

The Desire Of Others

Posted on 12/03/201215/02/2019 by Jinavie

This world endlessly tells us to live for the desires and wants of others. We live every day to fulfil the desire of our parents, our teachers, our friends and our lovers. But to live for other people’s desired, you must first fulfil your own desires. For our weak “self” identity to survive and develop, we cannot allow other people’s desires dominate us.

There is a mental illness called delusional disorder where the patient is obsessed about a “false belief” and is completely convinced that it is the truth. The word “delusion” brings to mind strange cases such as “I was abducted by aliens” and “the government is monitoring my phone calls”, but these delusions are more common with conditions such as schizophrenia. Instead, delusional disorder presents with delusions such as Othello syndrome (believing your spouse is having an affair) or hypochondria that are not too strange and allows for a relatively normal day-to-day life, making delusional disorder very hard to detect. Furthermore, the patients form these delusions in a very logical and highly structured manner, causing the patient to become easily obsessed with it and make the delusions more believable.

Delusional disorder can be categorised into six types:

Erotomanic type: delusion that someone is in love with you
Grandiose type: delusion that you are godlike and possess greater value, strength, intelligence or identity than others
Jealous type: delusion that your lover is unfaithful
Persecutory type: delusion that someone is acting malevolently or trying to harm you
Somatic type: delusion that you have a medical condition or physical defect
Mixed type: delusion showing characteristics of more than one of the above types, with no one type being prominent

As these patients are so attached to their delusions, treatment is extremely difficult. As soon as a psychiatrist or psychologist attempts treatment or even a close friend denies the delusion, they instantly become an “enemy”. The patient automatically incorporates those people into their delusion and antagonise them to worsen the situation. This is why the key principle of treating delusion is “do not touch the delusion”. For example, if the patient believes they are someone else, instead of negating that delusion you should give them a chance to be that person. A treatment called “psychodrama” uses impromptu acting to bypass the delusion and tries to reach the patient’s subconscious, or their “self”. Through this, one can approach the patient’s “self” via affirming their delusions, allowing the psychiatrist or psychologist to ask what the patient’s “self” wants and discover the source of the delusion. The important point is that this treatment is not an instant cure for the delusions (it takes a while for the patient to rid themselves of the delusions completely).

Delusional disorder is a phenomenon which is not uncommon in people who live for the desires of others. A perfect example would be young celebrities. If young teenagers begin life in the entertainment sector and live for the audience before they develop their own “self”, they may not be able to find answers to questions such as “who am I” and “what do I want”, ultimately causing a weakening of their identity. As the “self” is highly capable of tricking itself, it creates a delusion that can rationalise this situation and works to create a different identity.

Thus, the most important tool for surviving in this world is not money, power, wisdom or love: it is your identity and “self”. If you do not know what you truly want, then life cannot give you happiness and success.

Psychology & Medicine

Pica

Posted on 19/02/201215/02/2019 by Jinavie

Occasionally, there are news stories about a man who eats steel or a girl who likes to eat plastic. Such a condition where the person develops an appetite for a non-food substance is called pica. Pica is more common than one would think. The most common cases are those of dirt, clay and chalk, with the disorder being much more prevalent in children or pregnant women. Although pica is officially a mental disorder (possibly related to OCD), it is possible that it is a neurological mechanism to cure a certain mineral deficiency. For example, patients with coeliac diseases or hookworm infections tend to be iron-deficient and the substances they eat tend to contain iron. It is unclear how the brain knows what “food” to eat to cure a disease, but there are many cases where people subconsciously consume foods that would improve their health. According to a study, between 8% and 65% of people have had a sudden urge for a very strange appetite. However, as substances commonly involved in pica (such as dirt and ice) are solids, they can damage the oesophagus and the digestive tract. Also, they may contain toxic chemicals which can cause poisonings, making pica a potentially dangerous condition.

Psychology & Medicine

Weltschmerz

Posted on 21/12/201115/02/2019 by Jinavie

There is a German word called weltschmerz, which translates into “world pain” or “weariness against the world”. This word describes sad emotions felt after realising that the material world cannot satisfy the mind and that the ideal, hypothetic utopia in your mind cannot exist. It also describes the sadness felt after realising that your weaknesses arose from physical and social conditions of the world. Weltschmerz was widely used by poets such as Lord Byron, mainly as a way of viewing the world. It is a very pessimistic view of the world that often leads to or associated with depression, resignation and escapism. In severe cases it may lead to mental disorders such as hikikomori (a social disorder where the person does not and cannot leave their room due to fear and disgust of the world, also known as agoraphobia).

Psychology & Medicine

Mind Reading

Posted on 15/09/201114/02/2019 by Jinavie

Here are ten facts about you:

1. You are reading this right now.
   2. You are thinking that is a stupid fact.
   4. You did not notice I skipped 3.
   5. You are checking now.
   6. You are smiling.
   7. You are still reading this even though it is stupid.
   9. You did not realise I skipped 8.
   10. You are checking again and smiling about how you fell for it again.
   11. You are enjoying this.
   12. You did not realise we have passed number 10.

Psychology & Medicine

Werther Effect

Posted on 05/09/201114/02/2019 by Jinavie

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people in the developed world. Every year, approximately one million people take their own lives – far greater than the number of people dying from liver disease, Parkinson’s or even homicide. Despite being one of the most preventable causes of death, suicide still plagues society.
Among the many factors contributing to suicide attempts (mental disorder being the major one), one of the more interesting one is mass media. The effect of mass media on suicide rates can be traced back as far as 1774.

In 1774, Goethe wrote a novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther, where the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love affair. Shortly after publication, there were many reports of young men who used the same method as Werther to commit suicide. There were even reports of people dressing up like Werther (yellow pants and blue jacket) or leaving the book open to the passage detailing his death next to themselves. After this event, the book was temporarily banned to stop the “epidemic”. Since then, the phenomenon of copycat suicides has been called the Werther effect.

The human brain is trained to think about the information it receives. This applies to suicide as well and people with mental disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are more prone to suicidal thoughts after hearing stories about it. This effect is amplified by the media tending to glorify or beautify such deaths (as the subject tends to be a celebrity or a fictional character), causing some people to subconsciously believe that suicide is acceptable. In essence, the Werther effect is a form of peer pressure where cognitive dissonance lead people to act irrationally because others in society appear to be doing the same thing.

The Werther effect is surprisingly effective in predicting an increase in suicide attempts after the publication of news regarding suicide. On April 8, 1986, a Japanese singer called Yukko Okada, only 18 at the time, committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of her recording studio. Her popularity meant the media were over the story like hungry wolves, reporting the tragic death in every form possible. Within two weeks, 33 young people (including one nine-year old) killed themselves – 21 by jumping from buildings. This episode was dubbed Yukko Syndrome and is one of the most famous cases of the Werther effect in modern society.

Just like in the original case of the Werther effect, the suicide could be fictional and still cause an increase in suicide rates. There was a German television show called Death of a Student that depicted a railway suicide of a young man at the start of every episode. After it began airing, railway suicides by teenage males increased by 175% in Germany. Curiously, there was no increase or decrease in suicide rates via other methods, suggesting that the Werther effect not only affects the choice of method, but also induces suicidal thoughts in those who did not plan on killing themselves.

In 1987, a campaign in Vienna to inform reporters about the Werther effect and the role of the media in suicides led to a dramatic drop in reporting suicides. This was followed by an 80% drop in subway suicide and non-fatal attempts, along with a decrease in the total number of suicides.

The Werther effect is a fine example of how words can kill.