Test yourself: How well adjusted are you?

Posted on October 16, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

Instructions: answer yes, no, or uncertain. Try to keep “uncertain” answers to a minimum. Although there is no time limit, work rapidly.

  1. Do you frequently have spells of the “blues”?
  2. Do you daydream frequently?
  3. Are you troubled with the idea that people are watching you on the street?
  4. Do you often feel lonesome, even when you are with people?
  5. Do you often feel just miserable?
  6. Does the thought of an earthquake or a fire frighten you?
  7. Does it frighten you when you have to see a doctor about some illness?
  8. Are you easily moved to tears?
  9. Do you dread the sight of a snake?
  10. Are you frightened by lightening?
  11. Do things often go wrong for you from no fault of you own?
  12. Have you frequently been depressed because of law marks in school?
  13. Do you blush easily?
  14. Do you sometimes envy the happiness that others seem to enjoy?
  15. Are you often sorry for the things you do?
  16. Do you get discouraged easily?
  17. Have you ever been afraid that you might jump off when you were on a high place?
  18. Do you get angry easily?
  19. Are you troubled with feelings of inferiority?
  20. Do you consider yourself rather a nervous person?
  21. Do you often feel self-conscious because of your personal appearance?
  22. Are you ever bothered by the feeling that things are not real?
  23. Are your feelings easily hurt?
  24. Do you worry ever possible misfortunes?
  25. Are you bothered by the feeling that people are reading your thoughts?
  26. Have you ever fault that someone was hypnotizing you and making you act against your will?
  27. Does criticism disturb you greatly?
  28. Are you often in a state of environment?
  29. Does some particular useless thought keep coming into your mind to bother you?
  30. Do you get upset easily?
  31. Do you worry too long ever humiliating experiences?
  32. Does it frighten you to be alone in the dark?
  33. Do you have ups and downs in mood without apparent cause?
  34. Do ideas often run through your head to that you cannot sleep?
  35. Have you ever been extremely afraid of something that you know could do you no harm?

Directions for scoring: Read no further until you have answered all the questions. When you are satisfied with the answers you have recorded, add up all the “yes” answers. This is your score. A given score may have a different meaning for a man than for a woman, for there are sex differences here. Interpret your score as follows.

                                                             Men                           Women
Very unsatisfactory

Unsatisfactory

Average

Good

Excellent

 20-35

14-19

6-13

3-5

0-2

 22-35

16-21

8-15

4-7

0-3

 

If your score is billow average, it may be wise for you to seek out help from a psychological counseling center, a mental-hygiene clinic in your town, a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist.  

Psychological test

How to handle anger?

Posted on October 15, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

Be consistent. A denial is likely to impress a child as especially humiliating and frustrating if it represents a departure from custom. We all find it easier to become reconciled to the habitual.

Keep them occupied. Anger is less likely to arise in the course of absorbing, successful play or work. Anger is a kind of letting off steam. If the steam can be let off in constructive channels, there is less likelihood that it will seek destructive ones.

Be flexible. What I accepted yesterday may irritate today. As circumstances change, behavior changes. The parent or teacher who insists on a routine which is at this moment inappropriate adds unnecessarily to the burden of frustration which every child must in any case carry.

Be tolerant. What can the adult to do deal with anger in himself? Some clues may be sought in the studies on children that we have explored. However, it must be recognized that there is a hazard in transferring to adults principles discovered in walking with children. In the absence, however, of controlled studies dealing directly with methods of controlling anger in adults, we may seek suggestions from the studies with children, exercising due caution in recognizing their tentative nature.

Seek consistency in your life and in your relations with others. When we are suddenly imposed upon with no prior warning, then anger is likely to flare out. What is unavoidable, what fits into an accepted routine is less likely to arouse antagonism.

Keep yourself occupied. Stimulating the organism but providing no outlet in muscular response makes our burdens harder to bear. If the heightened energy occasioned by an annoyance can be discharged in action, the annoyance will tend to become dissipated. Athletics provides healthful and socially approved channels for the release of tension.

Be flexible. Cultivate adaptability in yourself. Although routine is comfortable, we cannot always expect to have it. Deliberately seeking out changing scenes frees us from too great an emotional dependence upon the customary.

Be tolerant of yourself and others. Disarm an affront by attempting to understand how the other person feels. Be ready to laugh at yourself occasionally. Accept your irritabilities and reconcile yourself to living with them. View with perspective the annoyances to which we all are subject. In your imagination, live partly in the future. Try to look upon today’s irritation with the same urbane amusement you will feel over it tomorrow.

One of the best ways, perhaps, to express a rational attitude toward anger is this: not elimination but sublimation. We “sublimate” a drive when we express it-indirectly, it may be-in a socially approved manner. Society does not permit us to kill our enemy (except in wartime), but we can poke fun at him, default him at tennis, substitute him for the villain in the western movie or undersell him. Moreover, the scourges of war, poverty, ignorance and disease still remain among us in the twentieth century. As we attack them with all the aggressiveness and counting at our command, we release our feelings of anger at the same time that we serve man.

Human behavior

Test yourself: Introvert or extrovert?

Posted on October 7, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

  1. I don’t have many acquaintances.
  2. I am sensitive to remarks other make about me.
  3. My feelings are easily hurt.
  4. I tend to suspect the motives of others.
  5. I tend to worry over possible misfortunes.
  6. I feel sorry for myself when things go wrong.
  7. In moments of stress or excitement, I lose self-control easily.
  8. I rarely seek out positions of leadership at social affairs.
  9. I tend to be overly critical.
  10. I prefer work which I can do by myself rather than with others.
  11. Sometimes I find myself feelings depressed, for no good reason.
  12. Even when there is no reason for it, I often find myself elated and exited.
  13. I hate to be untidy or slovenly in my dress or appearance.
  14. I take excellent care of my personal possessions.
  15. I often find myself feeling self-conscious.
  16. It’s hard for me to discount something I hear or read, even when I know it’s just a rumor.
  17. It’s easier for me to express myself in writing then in speech.
  18. I find it hard to obey orders.
  19. I have very few acquaintances of the opposite sex.
  20.  I dislike talking in public.
  21. I often feel that the world needs some fundamental changes.
  22. It’s hard for me to change myself.
  23. I hate to tale “white lies.”  I prefer to tell the truth even when it hurts.
  24. I frequently become absorbed in my own thoughts, feelings and fancies.
  25. I don’t care for athletics.
  26. I like crossword puzzles.
  27. I play chess.
  28. I work hardest when I am praised.
  29. I often daydream.
  30. I am more selfish then the average parson.
  31. I don’t care to argue.
  32. I have no talent for salesmanship.
  33. I am easily moved to tears.
  34. I like romantic poetry.
  35. I can’t bring myself to confide in a parson unless I know him extremely well.
  36. Bold action in a crisis comes heard to me.
  37. I prefer to follow the lead rather than to take it.
  38. I talk to myself often.
  39. I like to write about myself.
  40. I keep a diary.

To score: Add 40 to the total number of “yes” answers. From this sum, subtract the number of “no” answers. Disregard the blanks.

 

Psychological test , ,

Adults who teach fear

Posted on October 7, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

Adults can sometimes unwillingly instill fear in a child by too many and unneeded warnings of danger or by showing fear themselves. A mother tells one of such incident:

“The spaniel pup jumped up, wagging his whole body delightedly. Little Journey Tow Years stepped back uncertainly, but his face was all smiles and his hand extended to pat the doggy-if he would ever stay in one place long enough to be patted. ‘Don’t be afraid, dear, he won’t bite you,’ said the kindly owner of the puppy. Johnny Two Years pulled back his hand in a flash, his face clouded. It had never occurred to him before that a dog might bite. Now he knows that here might be something dangerous in puppy’s frolic. He thought it over and as the dog jumped up again he began to cry; for the first time in his life, he was really afraid of a dog.”

The fear might perhaps never have arisen if the thought of fear had not been placed in the child’s mind by the adult’s well-intentioned but ill-advised remark.

Parents who make unflattering comparisons many similarly be imposing grater burdens on their children. An eleven-year-old boy had talent in music and a fine mind. But his parents talked a great deal in his hearing about the social poise and physical stability of his six-year-old sister. They felt they needed to apologize for his deficiencies. They were, of course, without realizing it, handicapping him in these social adjustments. Disparagement and failure enhance feelings of insecurity. What parents say and how they feel may be very influential in determining how their children feel and act. The general psychological environment in which a person lives is of great importance to his emotional life. A noise may provoke no fear at all in a child if he is with an adult whom he regards as his friend. There is certainly plenty of noise in the rough-and-tumble horseplay of youngsters; yet fear dose not arise in this familiar significance in defining its emotional overtones.

Child psychology ,

Test yourself: How vivid is your imaginary?

Posted on September 26, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

Instructions: ask yourself, in each case, how vividly you can call to mind image (or picture) of each of the following. If the image is vivid, mark V; if moderate, M and if pale or nonexistent, 0.

  1. The colors of United States flag
  2. The color of a carnation
  3. The face of the first person you saw on arising this morning (not yourself)
  4.  Your signature
  5. Name of your college in print
  6. The sound of voice of the teacher in your math class
  7. The crying of a child
  8. The sound of a clock striking the hour
  9. The characteristic tone quality of a violin
  10. The spoken name of your college walking downstairs (the feelings in your muscles)
  11. Clenching your fist
  12. Signing your name
  13. Combing your hair
  14. Rising from a sitting posture
  15. The feel of smooth glass
  16. The feel of sandpaper
  17. The feel of oil
  18. The feel of a hat on your head
  19. The feel of a handshake
  20. Coffee (its odor)
  21. Gasoline
  22. A burning match
  23. A gardenia
  24. Tobacco smoke
  25. Lemon (its test)
  26.  Sugar
  27. Salt
  28. An olive
  29. A fried egg
  30. A piece of ice on the tongue
  31. A worm bath
  32. A cold shower
  33. The feel of ice on the plum of the hand
  34. The feel of a hot metal object
  35. The prick of a pin
  36. Running your finger along the edge of a sharp knife
  37. The feeling in your foot when it has “gone to sleep”
  38. Having a hair pulled from your scalp
  39. A sore throat

To score: assign values of 2 to each V and 1 to each M. disregard the 0s.

Intelligence, Psychological test ,

Dream: world of imagination

Posted on September 18, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

A type of imaginary in which nearly everyone engages to greater or lesser is dreaming. We dream more when we are hungry then when we are sated, although, as is well known, overeating may produce nightmares. Dreaming occurs during shallow sleep more often than during deep sleep. Typically, a dream is short in duration. What a subject reported as a long hazy dream actually took less than three minutes, as attested by an electrical record. In 84 dreams reported by hypnotized subjects, duration varied from five to eighty-three seconds, with an average of thirty-six seconds. Though many investigators believe that dreams last but one or two seconds, some assert that they may last up to ten minutes. Various types of muscular response may accompany dreaming in some persons-calling out, talking, even walking, as in somnambulism.

What do we dream the dreams we do?

To some extent, the content of the dream may be influenced by the temperature in the room, the position of the sleeper on the bed, his organic condition, and the like. For example, when a bit of cold metal was pressed against a hypnotized subject’s forehead at the same time that a tuning fork was sounded in his hearing, he dreamed of being at the airport in a snowstorm dreamed that she was sliding down a chute feet first: the experimenter had pressed down on her ankles so that her feet were at lower level then the rest of her body. Similarly, one may dream that he is suffocating if he becomes tangled in his bed clothes, or that he is falling out of bed if, during changes in position, his body is momentarily out of balance. A subject whose hand was stroked about ten seconds with a piece of cotton reported dreaming that a cow licked his hand. At another time he reported dreaming of a dead horse when a bottle of asafoetida was held to his nose.

Feelings and Emotion

Effects of alcohol in human mind

Posted on September 15, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

Contrary to popular beliefs, alcohol is not a stimulant but a depression, which attacks and numbs the higher brain centers, thus lessening their inhibiting control. As behavioral restrains decline, more primitive emotional responses become manifest; the drinker may indulge in the satisfaction of impulses which he ordinarily holds in check.

Some degree of motor in coordination soon becomes apparent, and the drinker’s sense of discrimination and perception of cold, pain and other discomforts are dulled. Typically he experiences a sense of warmth, expensiveness and well-being. In such a mood, unpleasant realities are screened out and the drinker’s feelings of self-esteem and adequacy rise. Casual acquaintances become the “the best and most understanding friends in the world”, and the drinker enters a generally pleasant world of unreality in which his worries are temporarily left behind. Thus he stimulated emotionally while intellectual and motor functions are impaired.

When the alcoholic content in the blood stream reaches 0.3 per cent, muscular condition, speech and vision become markedly disturbed and thought processes become confused. Next come a stupors condition and finally, when the alcoholic content in the blood stream reaches approximately 0.5 per cent, the whole neural balance is upset and the individual “passes out”. Unconsciousness here apparently acts as a safety device, for more alcohol might will be lethal.

In general, it is the amount of alcohol actually concentrated in the bodily fluids, not how much liquors is drink, which determines intoxication. However, the effects of alcohol very with the individual-his personality, his psychical condition, the amount of food in stomach, and the duration of drinking. The attitude of the drinkers is important; too: although actual motor and intellectual abilities decline in direct ratio to the blood concentration of alcohol, many persons who consciously try can maintain adequate control over their behavior and evidence few outward signs of being intoxicated even after drinking relatively large amount of alcohol. Despite such variations from one drinker to other, each usually reacts to alcoholic intoxication with a fairly consistent reaction pattern. Some drinkers become sad and mournful and pour out their troubles; others become drowsy and may go to sleep, while still others become suspicious, intolerable or pugnacious. Probably the great majority of excessive drinkers become subjectively euphoric and experiences a marked sense of well being, sociability, and adequacy.

Abnormal behavior

Hallucinations

Posted on September 15, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

In hallucinatory reactions, patient perceives various kinds of strange objects and events without any appropriate “external” sensory stimuli. He may hear voices telling him what to do or commenting upon or criticizing all of his actions. Occasionally massages are received from God or from some organization, telling the patient of great powers that have been conferred upon him or his mission to save mankind. In some instance the voices are ascribed to specific persons such a God, some relative or friend, or “enemies”. In order cases the patient insists that he has not the vaguest idea as to the identity of the person or persons talking. Similarly, the voices may be will localized they may come from the radiator, or the window, or an imaginary telephone receiver which the patient hold to his ear or they may seem to come from all directions and to be all around the patient. Although, visual, olfactory, gustatory and tactual hallucinations also occur. The patient may see angels in haven, or small poison gas that has been ejected into his room, or taste the poison in his food, or feel small bags crawling around under his skin.

Hallucinations may result from a variety of biological and psychological conditions. Among the former are extreme fatigue, the use of drugs, delirium accompanying fever, and organic brain pathology. Even where such biological conditions obtain, however, the personality of the patient usually plays an important role in the development of hallucinations. This is brought out in God’s description of the behavioral condition of five survivors from a sunken ship who spent fifteen days adrift on a raft. Although all of these survivors reported periodic irrational thoughts while adrift (the most common being that they could walk off the raft upon the water), only one of the survivors showed such a severe reaction to the exhaustion and exposure that he turned from the rescuers to talk to an imaginary person.

The elaboration of projection, wishful thinking, and other ego defense mechanisms may lead to hallucinations as well as to delusions. Probably most of us talk to other persons in fantasy and conjure up their replies. In dream this process is quite vividly illustrated. Thus is not surprising that individuals intensely preoccupied in fantasy with their conflicts and problems should sometimes find these voices and events so real that they seem to come from external sources. Sherman, for example, concluded from a study of 19 children who experienced hallucinations, that the hallucinations were a simple projection of some mental difficulty and took the form of either explanation or a compensation for the difficulty. One child who had a strong conflict between a tendency to rebel saw a person on each side of him saying “be good” or “be bad”. These persons were farther elaborated through symbolic fantasy so that one becomes a “good man” and other “the devil”. The hallucinations of many psychotic patients appear to follow a similar pattern.

 

Abnormal behavior

Fear and anxiety in childhood

Posted on August 30, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

From the early age all children are more or less trouble by fear, and some are so afraid that their freedom of action is seriously impaired. Adults too are usually afraid, many of them combat with unresolved problems that are established directly or indirectly in their childhood fears. Fears exists so generally in contemporary life that the present time has been called the “age of anxiety”. Thais probably does not mean that the present age is more fear ridden than earlier periods in history but that people recognize the inroads of fear more clearly and acknowledge them more openly than they did in the past. In earlier generations one make of a hero was that he was without fear. Now it is recognized that such a hero probably never existed. No one who is alert to currents in his own life and to circumstances in the world in which he lives can be wholly without fear. Some people are afraid to admit to others that they are scared, and there are some who are unwilling to grant to themselves more humbly and who face reality with more courage do not feel it necessary to play false in this regard. They accept the fact that fear has had, and still has, an important place in their lives.

Early signs of fear

During infancy, a child’s fears arise mainly in response to happenings in his immediate environment. As he grows older, the range of his fears grows wider. As he acquires the ability to dwell upon his past and to anticipate his future, a large number of his fears pertain to distant dangers, foreboding as to what the future may bring, and apprehensions concerning his own impulses and what he has done or might do.

There have been various theories as to what are original or unlearned fear stimuli. In an earlier day, there were theories to the effect that we are endowed with many instinctive fears, such as fear of animals, of the occult, of death, of large bodies of water, and so forth. Later a theory was advanced that there are only two original, “natural” fear stimuli, namely, loud noises and sudden displacement or less or support, but this account was as inadequate as it was simple. The circumstances that may give rise to so-called “unlearned” fears in the infant include not simply noises and less of support, but any intense, sudden, unexpected or novel stimulus or any condition which demands some kind of adaptation for which the organism is unprepared.

Moreover, the fear stimulus cannot be described as consisting as consisting simply of an isolated external stimulus like a noise, for example. Depending upon the condition of the organism of the time-weather, for example it is in a state of tension or relaxation-a certain noise may produce fear at one time but not at another. In like manner, a happening may produce fear one child and not in another. It is necessary to take a account not only the condition of the individual who is responding but also the setting of the external stimulus. A noise and a sudden movement, each of which alone elicits no response, may, in condition, produce fright; again a jolt may arouse fear who a child is with an unfamiliar person but not when a familiar person is near.

Child psychology , , ,

Classification: Psychosis, Neurosis and Character disorders

Posted on August 28, 2012 by raihan | Permalink 0

1. PSYCHOSIS

Disorganization of personality, marked by impaired vocational and social functioning and intellectual deterioration. Any or all of the following characteristics: disorientation for time, place and person; delusions (false beliefs); hallucinations (false perceptions); bizarre behavior; association and judgment.

  1. 1.       Individual reaction: Severe depression during the involutional period without previous history of psychosis.
  2. 2.       Affective reactions:Inappropriately exaggerated mood and marked change in activity level with associated through disorder.
    1. Maniac-depressive reactions: cyclical disturbances involving various combinations of or alternations between excitement and delusional optimism on the one hand and immobilizing, delusional depression on the other.
    2. 3.       Schizophrenic reactions:Bizarre behavior; disturbance of thought and reality testing; emotional withdrawal. Varying levels of psychotic thinking and behavior.
      1. Simple type: Intellectual deterioration, social and emotional apathy.
      2. Hebephrenic type: Extreme regression, bizarre mannerisms, silliness.
      3. Catatonic type: Extreme regression, bizarre motor behavior, such as posturing or stupor. Periodic excitement and loss of control.
      4. Paranoid type: Unsystematized delusions, with or without hallucinations, extreme suspiciousness of and hostility toward others.
      5. 4.       Paranoid reactions: Delusional thinking that is more or less encapsulated and intellectual functioning less drastically affected then in schizophrenia.

 

2. NEUROSIS

Impaired social, intellectual and vocational functioning without disorganization of personality or less of control with reality. Impairments arise because of excessive defensiveness, anxiety, or disabling symptoms that are usually symbolic efforts to resolve conflict.

  1. 1.       Anxiety reaction: Diffuse fearfulness, tension, and restlessness which sometimes snowball into episodes of panic.
  2. 2.       Dissociative reactions: Massive repression or dissociation of certain aspects of experience or memory, varying in intensity from sleepwalking to amnesias and multiple personality disturbances. Formerly classified as a form of hysteria.
  3. 3.       Conversion reaction: Symbolic resolution of conflict that imitates those effects of physical illness, like paralysis, blindness, anesthesia, etc. formerly classified as a form of hysteria.
  4. 4.       Phobic reaction: Intense irrational fear of specific objects or events. May have a symbolic significance.
  5. 5.       Obsessive-compulsive reactions: Repetitive, irrational thoughts (obsessive) and actions (compulsions) which usually involve some symbolic effort at conflict resolution.
  6. 6.       Depressive reaction: Depression, usually accompanied by guilt, feelings of inferiority and anxiety.

3. CHARACTER DISORDER:

Deficiencies in personality development, especially in the areas of learned values, sexual identification, self-control and ability to delay gratification. Antisocial irresponsible or society unacceptable behavior that is unaccompanied by appropriate levels of anxiety and guilt. Impaired judgment, emotional immaturity or instability is frequent symptoms. Behavioral symptoms range from general inadequacy to overt, antisocial acting-out.

  1. 1.       Personality pattern disturbance: Characteristically inadequate or distorted style of copying. Symptoms may resemble psychotic characteristics, but they are less amenable to treatment. Under stress these disturbance may deteriorate to psychosis.
  2. 2.       Personality trait disturbance: Similar to personality pattern disturbance but the symptoms are somewhat more encapsulated and tend to resemble neurotic rather than psychotic styles.

Sociopathic personality disturbance: Emotionally shallow but sometimes superficially engaging people who cannot conform to society’s demands. Symptoms vary from chronic luck of responsibility to extreme forms of acting-out. Anxiety, if present, is not attached to the appropriate symptom.

Abnormal behavior , , , , ,