Fall 2009
Companion Website for Your Textbook
Subject pool: To participate in the subject pool for extra credit, please go to http://cmich.sona-systems.com; your login name and password were emailed to your cmich email address. See syllabus section on research credit for more details. If you have additional questions about using the subject pool, you can contact the subject pool coordinator at psypool@cmich.edu.
Past Students Speak on Getting Help Early On
Practice
Questions
PsychLog Assignment
You can read some sample PsychLogs for both PSY100 and
PSY250 here; several more samples are also available for your perusal in
my office.
Sample
PsychLogs PsychLog Tips
PsychLog Scoring System
Links Related to Class Material *
For textbook-provided links related to each chapter, see the section of "web
links" listed under resources of each chapter on your student companion website.
Behavior Online "the gathering
place for Mental Health and Applied Behavioral Science Professionals."
Includes a bunch of discussions that vary widely in quality, editorials,
other resources, etc.
Chapter 1: History of Abnormal Psychology
For an overview of the history of abnormal psychology, check out this chronology
of noteworthy events in American psychology, which includes most of the
highpoints (and lowpoints) of abnormal psych history also.
For more on exorcisms, including the recognition that they were not limited as a treatment technique to only years past, you can see the homepage of "Wanda Pratnicka, Exorcist and Psychotherapist." Have fun.
Chapter 2: Current Approaches to Psychopathology
For more about biological views:
The Whole
Brain Atlas is a site not specifically related to psychopathology,
but with lots of information about the structures and functions of the
brain.
The American Psychiatric Association is certainly not exclusively biologically/medically oriented, but as this is the only mental health profession that includes prescribing privileges, as well as the only one with a medical background, you will find more biologically oriented information here.
In our very own department, Dr. Gary Dunbar's Brain Research Laboratory is an active center for all sorts of brain stuff, especially related to Huntington's Disease.
To see the demonstration of the reuptake process on the Zoloft website, go to this page and click on "Click Here" in the box with the little neurons.
For more about psychoanalytic views:
The American Psychoanalytic Association
has a brief description called
About
Psychoanalysis. Alternatively, you can read Freud's entire Interpretation
of Dreams and/or The
Origin and Development of Psychoanalysis. NOT brief.
Although we don't really cover Jung in this class, you can find out more on your own by going to the website for the C.G. Jung Institute.
For more about behavioral, cognitive, and cognitive-behavioral
views:
You can read the original article describing the Little Albert study here,
or by going to the library and getting: Watson, John B. & Rayner, Rosalie.
(1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology,
3, 1-14. (You can get many other full original articles online at
Classics in the History
of Psychology; another related example is Skinner's paper describing
how he got pigeons to act
superstitious:
Skinner, B.F. (1948). Superstition in the pigeon. Journal
of Experimental Psychology, 38, 168-172.)
Here's the Little Albert video clip shown in class (I found it on youtube only with subtitles, but I wanted it to be from the same video I show...)
For more information on positive reinforcement, as well as some "self-instructional exercises" that show how some behaviors can be positive reinforcers in some situations but not others, go here for a site developed by Dr. Lyle Grant at Athabasca University.
Do you want to apply what you're learning? Here's one example: How to Toilet-Train Your Cat. There are lots of other animal training websites as well. An Animal Trainer's Introduction to Classical and Operant Conditioning does a really nice job reviewing the basic concepts in both conditioning processes, and giving lots of examples of how they explain various animal behaviors, and how you can use them to get the behaviors you want. If you google "dog training operant conditioning" you'll see the one above, as well as a number of others that also explain basic operant conditioning principles and how to use them in training.
There are a number of websites for various providers of cognitive-behavior therapy, often including great descriptions of what this therapy looks like. One example is the San Francisco Bay Area Center for Cognitive Therapy. The Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research website is similar, but especially notable because the Beck Institute was founded by Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the man who developed cognitive therapy. There is also the homepage for the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, which doesn't have as much general information but does provide resources on this topic.
A youtube video of Albert Ellis in the Gloria series of different treatment approaches. (The first seven minutes are Ellis explaining his theory and what RET is, and at around minute 7, he begins demonstrating the method with Gloria. This continues in several other clips: 2, 3, and 4.
A clip of Tim Beck demonstrating his cognitive therapy method.
For more about humanistic views:
Here is the homepage for the Association for Humanistic Psychology; it includes basic information on theories of humanistic psychology as well as various resources related to this field.
Carl Rogers in the Gloria series, demonstrating humanistic therapy, continued in 2, 3, 4.
Fritz Perls in the Gloria series, demonstrating Gestalt therapy, continued in 2, 3.
Chapter 3: Diagnosis
and Assessment
There's a section of the American Psychiatric
Association (the organization that publishes the DSM) website on the
DSM - to read it, click on Clinical Resources.
The study we talk about in class about the pseudopatients is: Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250-258. I found an unofficial version online at http://www.scottsdalecc.edu/ricker/pests/online_articles/Rosenhan1975.pdf, or you can use the psychology databases on FirstSearch, where you can also find a number of critiques of the study.
In class, we discuss various diagnoses that have been included or excluded over the years as the political/social/cultural climate has changed. As the various committees and workgroups move forward in developing the DSM-V, there are many people focusing on the removal of gender identity disorder as a diagnosis, and much controversy just over who gets to be on, or chair, these committees, so it's a great example of a lot of the issues we discuss in class. For more on this, see the GID Reform Advocates site.
We also discuss a number of advantages and disadvantages of classification. For a wonderful cartoon on this subject, click here.
Niko's proposed Test Links : I don't know who Niko is, other than someone with clearly a little too much time on his hands, but he's compiled a bunch of IQ tests. I am NOT recommending this for any sort of valid testing (especially since I haven't looked at most of them in detail), but thought you might find it interesting.
Chapter 4: Research Methods
Research Design
Explained : I don't know who these people are, but they've put
together a very nice guide to research design that's pretty easy to use.
Statistics on the Web : Includes links to various organizations, consulting groups, publishers and educational resources, but of particular note are the online stats texts and web courses and links to statistics discussion groups. Or, if you're in the middle of a project already and want a quick guide to which statistics to choose, go to Selecting Statistics, a program that asks you questions like number of dependent and independent variables, and tells you what you should use.
And now that you have those parts down, learn about Pitfalls of Data Analysis (subtitled "How to Avoid Lies and Damned Lies").
I debated where to put this, because it pretty much applies to everything, but it seems to fit best with our discussion on research design. Anyway, Mission: Critical is a website developed by San Jose State University's Institute for Teaching and Learning to teach and encourage critical thinking. It includes not only information on the need to think critically and pitfalls in critical thinking (such as logical fallacies), but also a number of exercises that let you test yourself easily. Some of these are a little simplistic, but it's a really neat way of applying these principles and getting immediate feedback.
For a fun look at using the scientific method, check out The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project.
James Randi has a foundation offering one million dollars to anyone who can support claims of supernatural or paranormal or extrasensory abilities via a controlled test of these abilities. So far, as he noted in the video seen in class, no one has claimed the money.
Another source of information on skepticism, pseudoscience, etc is the Skeptics Society and Skeptic Magazine.
A related kind of site is Quackwatch, where you can find tons of info on all sorts of "quack" claims and the scientific evaluations thereof.
And finally, Emily Rosa, the girl in the video we watch in class, is an adult now, and is featured in a Penn and Teller show on "new-age medicine." It's not really a class-friendly video due to the language used, so I'll just link to it: it's in three different segments on Youtube. The segment on Touch Therapy is at about minute 8 of part 2, continuing in part 3, which also shows additional clips of Emily's original research study. The other sections are pretty interesting too, for additional examples of pseudoscience and sham treatments and all, along with, in Part 1 (at 4.38), someone repeating the importance of "belief" that the touch therapists in our class video emphasized: "For those that don't believe, nothing is possible; for those that do believe, all things are possible." It's a great example of why critical thinking is so important, I think.
Chapter 5: Anxiety Disorders
The Anxiety Disorders Association
of America is an organization for both mental health professionals
and for people in general with (or interested in) anxiety disorders.
The Trauma and Anxiety Disorders Clinic that I run here at CMU offers clinical services to both campus and community members; we also conduct research on the nature and treatment of anxiety disorders.
The group I worked with before coming to CMU, the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety is a large research clinic focusing on PTSD as well as other anxiety disorders; their webpage has some information about these disorders and their treatments. The center I worked in for my graduate training (although again, at a different institution then) is The Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders - this is where the intensive exposure therapy for agoraphobia that was on the 20/20 video was conducted. The National Center for PTSD is a consortium with branches in several VA hospitals, and is one of the biggest groups conducting PTSD research.
Although we focused on PTSD as an outcome of rape in this section, since this was the chapter on anxiety disorders, there's a lot more information out there on rape and other related problems. The U.S. Department of Justice has a Violence Against Women Office that includes resources such as hotlines as well as a lot of information on research being done in this area.
National Anxiety Disorders Screening Day is held in May each year - sponsored by the organization described below under eating disorders. Go to this website to find a screening site near you.
From the NY Times "Patient Voices" series, six individuals speak about their
experiences with
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Chapter 6: Dissociative Disorders
In class, we discuss the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of DID (MPD).
The article Sybil—The
Making of a Disease: An Interview with Dr. Herbert Spiegel from the
New York Review of Books, describes some ways in which probably the most
famous case of Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder
may have not have been all it was suggested to be. You can read the beginning
here for free, but will need to pay a small fee for the
full interview (or you can google the title of the article to find unauthorized
versions for free).
A related article, in The New Yorker, is on creating MPD/DID; the article is apparently now the first chapter of a book, and is excerpted here: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/acocella-hysteria.html
Trauma has been linked to a number of different types of disorders. Within the anxiety disorders, it is most clearly linked to PTSD, but also to phobias, for example. However, it is generally considered a primary etiological factor in dissociative disorders. The International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies includes a number of people particularly interested in dissociative disorders; the The International Society for the Study of Dissociation (a group I personally don't recommend putting too much stock in...) is a related organization, focusing specifically on these problems. David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages are a large collection of trauma-related resources. As always, however, be critical when evaluating information you find; this is especially true in the field of trauma, however, as it seems to attract a number of somewhat more flaky people whose science is not quite up to current standards!
Chapter 7: Mood Disorders
Here's information on a recent study showing that Exercise may be just as effective as medication for treating major depression . (Okay - that one moved and I haven't found it again, but here's an easy-to-read article on it: http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/mindandbody/a/exercisedep.htm) that should stay in one place.
The National Mental Illness Screening Project mentioned earlier also has a Depression Screening Day . The CMU Counseling Center often participates in this screening day, as do a number of other nearby locations.
Interested in Learned Helplessness theory? There's an email discussion list you can join; for more information, go to The Learned Helplessness Home Page.
For information on suicide and suicide hotline resources, go to Dr. John Grohol's Mental Health Page.
An article in New York Magazine shows some of the more recent ways that bipolar disorder is being discussed: http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/health/features/n_9986/index.html
Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatist who has bipolar disorder, has written about her experiences extensively (if you search for her on amazon.com, you'll see a number of books focusing on various aspects of bipolar disorder). She was interviewed for the NPR show "This I Believe," which can be found at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675356 - links to some other stories on her are found at the bottom of that page also.
Students often ask how they might best help friends/relatives who are depressed, or who have other psychological problems. The organization Families for Depression Awareness has many resources on this, and while I'm not endorsing the the organization or the information they provide specifically, it does appear to be a helpful site.
From the NY Times "Patient Voices" series, nine individuals speak about their experiences with bipolar disorder.
Chapter
8: Eating Disorders
The National Mental Illness Screening
Project organizes screening days for several types of problems.
The Eating Disorders Screening
Day will be held in February - you can find the nearest site here,
as well as information on eating disorders.
The University of Pennsylvania's Weight and Eating Disorders Program is a premier research clinic in this area.
In class we talked briefly about how eating disorders are now on the rise for men as well as for women. The Hard Body Sell is an article describing increasing body dysphoria among men. The article appeared in Mother Jones, and is obviously not an academic article, but provides an interesting analysis of how some of these body/weight/shape issues are becoming more problematic for men now.
The New York Times has a photo/video presentation of eight people with eating disorders, discussing their experiences. I've not had a chance to watch it yet, but wanted to link to it before I forgot.
Chapter
9: Stress and Health
The Society of Behavioral Medicine is one of the primary professional organizations in the field of health
psych, and there is also a Health
Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.
From the NY Times "Patient Voices" series, six individuals speak about their experiences with HIV/AIDS.
From the NY Times "Patient Voices" series, six individuals speak about their experiences with diabetes.
Chapter 10: Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders
Much of what we know about normal sexuality as well as about sexual
disorders is a result of Kinsey's studies. For more information,
try the Kinsey Institute
.
The case of John/Joan was the subject of a Rolling Stone article by John Colapinto, who later wrote a book on the topic, As Nature Made Him. The RS article can be found at http://www.infocirc.org/rollston.htm, and the book at any major bookstore. Sadly, David Reimer (the real Joan/John) committed suicide in 2004.
An article in the NY Times Magazine describes the rise in transgendered kids in women's colleges particularly, but also with a good exploration of some of the issues of transgenderism in general. And as noted in Chapter 3, there's also the GID Reform Advocates site, which provides a very specific viewpoint of some of these issues.
With perfect timing for our class, the Nov 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly has an article on transgendered children, which is pretty fascinating to read I think.
Chapter 11: Substance-Related Disorders
National Alcohol Screening
Day is held in April. Find a local screening site here.
Chapter 12: Personality Disorders
To find out more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy, go to
Behavioral Tech, a company focused on
training clinicians in DBT and providing resources on this treatment and on the
problems associated with borderline personality disorder, or to Dr. Linehan's
clinic website, Behavioral
Research and Therapy Clinics, at the University of Washington.
Chapter 13: Schizophrenia
In our own Psychology Department, Dr.
Stuart Quirk has a research program focusing on schizophrenia; students
interested in joining his research team can contact him through his website.
The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is one of the primary advocacy and informational organizations for people with schizophrenia.
In general the atypical antipsychotic drugs have been seen as having fewer side effects than the typical ones. But a newly released study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests both typical and atypical antipsychotics lead to increased risk of sudden cardiac death.
Chapter 14: Disorders of Childhood
For a ton of information on learning disabilities (and some on ADHD), see LD
Online.
In class, we discuss some of the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of ADHD and its treatment by Ritalin. Here's a column by George Will that appeared in the Washington Post addressing this issue: Boys Will Be Boys (it's not available at the Washington Post site anymore, but I found this one...).
Another controversy in this chapter is the use of Facilitated Communication. For a more detailed discussion of this method, please see FACILITATED COMMUNICATION: MENTAL MIRACLE OR SLEIGHT OF HAND? in the Skeptic vol. 2, no. 3, 1994, pp. 68-76. In addition to reading this for info on FC itself, you might also read it as a primer on evaluating any other technique or treatment touted as a miracle cure... (That particular article seems to have been taken down so they can sell it; while I'm tracking it down, here's a different one on a related topic: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-05-25.html - you can also do a news search on the Free Press to read about our very recent case of abuse allegations (leading to an arrest and trial!) stemming from FC, which was finally tossed out in court after it became clear that the facilitator, not the child, was the one communicating...)
Dr. Larissa Niec in our psychology department runs a Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Clinic for children with externalizing behavior problems; as do the other specialty clinics, the PCIT clinic includes both clinical work and research, and there are opportunities for interested students to become involved in the research being done on children with behavior problems.
Temple Grandin, the woman with autism discussed in class, has been on NPR several times. Here's a snippet of text in which she describes how her brain works, with links to some of her other interviews. A longer story was featured on This American Life, and can be found at http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/mcdonalds/grandin1.html (this has links to the audio clip and text).
Dr. Grandin's mother recently wrote a book called A Thorn in My Pocket, which the Free Press describes as "advice for raising special needs children," although I would think that some of it would also include her own experiences raising Temple Grandin, which the Freep article describes at in their article on the mother (Eustacia Cutler) and her book.
For a teacher's perspective, here's a column from the NYTimes on echolalia in kids with autism, and how these kids use memorized phrases as a step in meaningful communication. The author also has a personal blog on her experiences as a special ed teacher.
Here's a newspaper article about Dr. Paul Offit, author of "Autism's False Prophets," which discusses some of the same issues we discuss briefly in class on etiology and treatment of autism.
From the NY Times "Patient Voices" series, six individuals speak about their experiences with ADHD.
There's currently much discussion regarding the diagnosis of Asperger's Disorder, and whether it should remain distinct from autism. The NY Times covered this recently in an article called "A Vanishing Diagnosis for Asperger's Syndrome," and in a perfectly timed op-ed for our class, Simon Baron-Cohen (Sacha's cousin), one of the foremost researchers in the area of autism, discussed why he thinks that's a premature move.
Chapter 15: Late Life and Psychological Disorders (Cognitive Disorders)
The film we watch in class, "Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter," was shown as part of the POV series on PBS in 1995, and in another series more recently. You can find out more about the film (including how to buy your own copy) and the filmmaker, Deborah Hoffman, at http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c127.shtml.
The New York Times Magazine had an article on the importance of autopsies in which the lead was a story about a woman who had died, presumably of Alzheimers; the autopsy, however, revealed she had had multi-infarct dementia instead. The first few paragraphs do a nice job of illustrating some of what we've talked about regarding the diagnosis of Alzheimers. (You may need to register to read the story, but it's free.)
Chapter 16: Legal and Ethical Issues
For links to various
ethical codes, go to the page for my graduate seminar in
ethics.
Keep Watching This Space..... I'll keep adding related
links as I come across them and as I have time to make updates.
In the meantime, if you have any sites you think should
be added, or any questions or comments, please email:
meado1ea @ cmich.edu
This page was last updated on
11/16/09
.
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