Blog Post #6 Interview

1. When people have dreams, how do they relate to the people's thoughts and problems that they are currently having while actually awake?

I don't know too much about this, but from what I understand, dreams are connected to real life events or places or people because during REM sleep our mind is reliving the experience we just had that day. By doing this, memories are encoded from short term memory into long term memory.  I think this is why things come up in our dreams.  Also, there is a way to systematically control ones dreams called Lucid Dreaming that might be interested in looking into.

 

 

2. I've heard that colors have affects on people, for example the color blue makes people relaxed and calm. Is this true and if so, why do colors affect people's emotions?

Again, I don't know too much about this but from a quick search I found a website which suggests that we have color channels in our brains that perceive and react to color in certain ways.  That is all I really know about this topic.

 

3. What are some psychological disorders that people commonly have and why do people have them?

Some of the more commonly diagnosed psychological disorders are depression, phobias of different kinds are common, and ADHD or hyperactivity.  Still, the majority of the population does NOT have any of these.  They are just the most prevalent disorders that I can think of off the top of my head.

 

4. How does society's image of being "perfect" having an affect on people's minds?

Every person is influenced greatly by the social and cultural norms surrounding him/her.  I think the idea of being "perfect" is a very difficult idea to understand and people perceive what is perfect very differently. I think that when people are far away from their desired self then there is more anxiety, stress, and dysfunctional behavior. You might be able to look into Humanistic psychology and find more information about people's prototypes of beauty to see how much the idea of beauty can vary from culture to culture.

 

5. How do therapists analyze people who have psychological disorders?

There are lots of tests that psychologists use to determine whether people have disorders of any kind.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4 (DSM 4) is the bible of disorders and gives specific guidelines for each disorder.  For example, depression according to the DSM 4 is not just people feeling sad.  It is having beyond usual sadness for extensive periods of time.  It also interferes greatly with normal duties and functions of one's daily life.  As psychologists interview patients, they narrow down the disorder it might be and then use the specific criteria of each disorder to determine exactly what disorder a person might have (if any at all).  Here is a link to an awesome podcast about the test used to identify psychopathshttp://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/436/the-psychopath-test.