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!