Stress and Stress Responses

Today in class we'll be taking a look at "Psychological Factors Affecting Other Medical Conditions," otherwise known as Psychophysiological Disorders. There are a couple of pieces of research that your text introduced that are worth revisiting here.

The first is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale developed by Holmes and Rahe. This attempts to measure the number of stressors one has encountered in a particular period of time. Each item on the scale is assigned a number of "Life Change Units," and this Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire (designed for college students) gives you a sense of how it is scored.

You'll also encounter the work of Friedman and Rosenman, whose work established a link between personality style and risk of heart attack. This (brief) Type A/Type B Indicator will give you a sense of the different personality styles addressed in the model.

Practice: Clinical Observations

Today in class we will be doing an exercise to practice our clinical observation skills. At some point, your instructor will ask you to complete this form, which will help us determine if our observations are consistent.

Podcast Recommendation: The Problem with the Solution

When discussing the history of abnormality and treatment, several of my podcast-savvy students recommended this episode of Invisibilia to me: The Problem with the Solution.

Despite being a regular listener of Invisibilia, I had somehow missed this episode. For anyone interested in community-based mental health and helping the severely mentally ill, I highly recommend it.

You can listen here:

You could even listen while coloring this accompanying coloring page!

Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders

Here's the link to descriptions of the diagnoses associated with the case examples you explored in class.

Clinical Observations Lab

During today's class, you will be exploring the basics of clinical assessment, including the use of clinical observations. After viewing the video and recording your initial impressions on the paper form provided to you, please take a moment to respond to these questions.

MOCA Assessment Featured on Daily Show

If you're a fan of the Daily Show, you may have spotted this reference to a neuropsychological assessment used (apparently) to assess the President. In this course, we'll take a look at what tests like this mean and what they are used for.

Tonight at 11/10c, Trump aces a cognitive exam that asks him to identify pictures of animals and name words that start with the letter “F.” pic.twitter.com/YgCgSqhHl4

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) January 18, 2018

New Study Resource Added

Today's snow day allowed me to compile flashcard sets and refine them for End-of-Semester Review. Here's one with Specific Disorders and Category names. We'll be using these during review activities.