#Psychological Disorders

[devilboydogman]

Having a psychologically induced physical disability be like “sorry I can’t walk right now I’m sad.” And it’s completely unexaggerated and literal.

I’ve been in therapy for ten years, and have been inpatient, iop, and partial hospitals. I was taught unresolved trauma and stress can cause like. Stomach and heart issues, migraines.

No one ever told me whatever the actual duck THIS is could happen. Like yeah, my new normal is that crying and panic attacks and triggers make me jerk around involuntarily until I’m catatonic. Is that. How does. PLEASE TELL ME I’M NOT CASE 0 FOR THIS??? MY DOCTORS ARE SO CONFUSED BUT APPARENTLY ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSIONALS ‘YEAH, PSYCH DISORDERS CAN CAUSE THIS.’ While also seeming confused. I am baffled myself. Like huh???

[turbotaxevasion]

Happy Disability Pride Month!

In honor of the shift from LGBTQ Pride Month to Disability Pride Month, I’m going to bring awareness to some underrepresented and underinformed disabilities as a queer and disabled artist/writer. These are all disorders that I have come across among friends and acquaintances. Every disorder I discuss must have a clinical diagnosis in order to be treated. You should only be self-diagnosing if you plan on going to a doctor to confirm your speculations. Do not self-diagnose if you are not willing to confirm with a medical professional. This post is not to diagnose you.

Big Trigger Warning: Discussions of psychological disorders like E/Ds, depression, and personality disorders. 

Dysautonomia

Any disorder relating to the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system

POTS

I have this! It is a nervous system disorder that affects heart rate and blood pressure because your nervous system does not allow your muscles to properly circulate blood, especially through the legs. Some symptoms include elevated heart rate, chest pain, low or high blood pressure, fatigue, changes in body temperature, and dizziness or fainting. POTS is more common in AFAB people than AMAB.

Amyloidosis

Amyloidosis is a disorder that occurs when a protein known as amyloid builds up in the organs. Amyloidosis is closely related to dysautonomia and chronic pain syndromes such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome because of the comorbid symptoms. These symptoms include edema, purpura around the eyes, skin that bruises easily, and fatigue.

Frey’s Syndrome

A neurological disorder closely related to dysautonomia that causes excessive sweating while eating. There are very few solutions to this disorder and even fewer of them are known to work.

Mitochondrial Syndrome

Mitochondrial diseases occur when there are genetic mutations and deformations to the mitochondria in cells that directly influence how the organelle produces energy. People with mitochondrial diseases can have poor growth, muscle weakness, seizures, visual and / or hearing problems, learning disabilities, and may develop kidney, liver, or heart disease.

Autonomic Dysreflexia

Autonomic dysreflexia is a disorder that causes abnormal overreactions of the autonomic nervous system. Symptoms include elevated heart rate, excessive sweating, and high blood pressure.

Chronic Pain

Any disorder relating to long-lasting pain surrounding any part of the body.

Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome

I have this one too! Patellofemoral pain syndrome is a chronic pain syndrome in which muscles in the lower extremities are too weak to support patellar (kneecap) movement. Thus, the patella (kneecap) will not track right. this causes lots of issues with walking.

Scoliosis

I also have this one! Scoliosis is defined as a physical disorder in which the spine is not a straight vertical line. There is either an “S” or “J” curve in the spine, compressing it and causing sharp or aching back pain.

Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction

TMJ causes pain and tenderness in jaw joints and surrounding muscles and ligaments. Symptoms of TMJ include jaw stiffness, limited movement and locking of the jaw, ringing in ears, and dizziness.

Myofascial Pain Syndrome

This is a chronic muscular pain disorder. Typically, this pain is confined to one specific area, such as the neck or shoulders.

Fibromyalgia

A chronic disorder that causes pain and tenderness throughout the body, as well as fatigue. People with fibromyalgia can also have depression, anxiety, and trouble with memory and concentration.

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

EDS is a group of disorders that affect connective tissues that support the skin, bones, blood vessels, organs, and other tissues. Symptoms of EDS include stretchy, translucent skin, loose joints, and chronic pain. 

Arthritis

Arthritis is defined as inflammation in one or more joints causing stiffness and pain. There are many different kinds of arthritis, each with different causes. These causes can include wear over time, infections, and underlying diseases.

Neurological Disorders

Any disorder relating to the brain and how it functions.

Seizure Disorders

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a disorder of the brain characterized by repeated seizures. People with epilepsy can experience multiple kinds of seizures and can experience symptoms such as confusion, staring spells, stiff muscles, and loss of consciousness.

Cerebrovascular Diseases

Functional Neurological Disorder

Functional Neurological Disorder is essentially a stroke mimic. It can replicate the symptoms of a stroke, such as limb weakness, numbness, and speech disturbance.

Migraines

Lots of people have migraines and I am no exception. Migraines are caused by excessive blood flow to the brain. Migraines affect more than 10% of people worldwide and are 3 times more likely to affect AFAB people than AMAB people.

Psychological Disorders

Any disorders affecting mood, thinking, and behavior. I will not be discussing my mental disorders on the internet. Most people are familiar with what these are and what they look like, so I will instead be providing statistics for each one.

Anxiety Disorders

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) affects 6.8 million adults. Only 43.2% of those adults are receiving treatment. AFAB are twice as likely to be affected (Anxiety Disorders Association of America).

Panic disorder (PD) affects 6 million adults. AFAB are twice as likely to be affected (Anxiety Disorders Association of America) .

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affects 2.5 million adults. AFAB are 3x more likely to be affected (Anxiety Disorders Association of America) .

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) affects 7.7 million adults. AFAB are 5x more likely to be affected (Anxiety Disorders Association of America) .

Depression 

Approximately 280 million people in the world have depression. AFAB are twice as likely to develop depression (World Health Organization). 

Bipolar Disorder

4.4% of US adults experience bipolar disorder in their lives (National Institute of Health).

Personality Disorders

It is estimated that 9% of US adults have at least one personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association).

Eating Disorders (TW)

Eating Disorders affect 9% of the population worldwide (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders).

BIPOC are significantly less likely than white people to be asked by a doctor about eating disorder symptoms (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders).

Black teenagers are 50% more likely than white teenagers to exhibit bulimic behaviors (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders).

Rates of body dissatisfaction were higher among transgender and nonbinary youth (90%) compared to cisgender youth (80%) (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders).

[abbs85]

Train crash of thoughts

Ever since I started with DBT training for my Borderline Personality Disorder I have not stopped thinking, thinking about the past to try and figure out why I am like I am. Why some things are more difficult for me than others. Where are key points in my life that made me who I am and what can I do to change. I can never change those points, I just have to find them so I can fix me now. I have no…

[er-cryptid]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Jason L. Riley

Published: Dec 12, 2023

A decade ago, New York City launched a campaign to combat teen pregnancy. It featured ads on buses and subway cars that read: “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.”

That advice, more popularly known as the “success sequence,” is often credited to research done by Brookings Institution scholars Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins, though others have made similar observations. In his recent book, “Agency,” Ian Rowe of the American Enterprise Institute writes that the message ���has attracted many admirers because of the simplicity of the three steps that young people, even if born into disadvantaged circumstances or raised by a young single parent, can themselves control and take in their lives.”

The effort nevertheless faced significant backlash from detractors who accused then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg of stigmatizing teen pregnancy and pushing a “moralistic, conservative agenda to revitalize marriage,” Mr. Rowe writes. Mr. Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, ultimately abandoned the effort. Public moralizing has since fallen further out of favor and been replaced by a kind of self-congratulatory nonjudgmentalism. In today’s New York, you’re likely to see ads for free syringes and directions to “safe” injections sites for junkies, even as drug overdoses have reached record levels.

We could use more of that moralizing from public officials, whether the issue is solo parenting, substance abuse or crime. The success sequence works to keep people not only off the dole but also out of trouble with the law. High-school graduates and children raised by both parents are much less likely to end up in jail. “Virtually every major social pathology,” political scientist Stephen Baskerville writes, “has been linked to fatherless children: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, unwed pregnancy, suicide, and psychological disorders—all correlating more strongly with fatherlessness than with any other single factor, surpassing even race and poverty.”

America’s crime debate tends to focus on so-called root causes, such as joblessness. But it’s worth remembering that the sharpest increase in violent crime began in the 1960s, a decade that saw low unemployment, strong economic growth and a doubling of black household incomes. As notable, labor-force participation rates of young black men fell during the 1980s and ’90s, one of the longest periods of sustained economic growth in U.S. history.

A new academic paper from the Institute for Family Studies doesn’t deny that economic conditions play a role in criminal behavior. And co-authors Rafael Mangual, Brad Wilcox, Joseph Price and Seth Cannon write that “changes in law-enforcement and the prosecution of criminals have also had a hand in the recent uptick in violent crime in American cities.” The paper’s main argument, however, is that family instability may be the biggest factor of all and that it’s not receiving the attention it deserves.

“Cities are safer when two-parent families are dominant and more crime-ridden when family instability is common,” the authors write. Nationwide, the total crime rate is about 48% higher in cities “that have above the median share of single-parent families, compared to cities that have fewer single-parent families.” Even when controlling for variables such as race, income and educational attainment, “the association between family structure and total crime rates, as well as violent crime rates, in cities across the United States remains statistically significant.”

Having a father around, the authors note, is about more than an additional paycheck. Fathers teach their sons responsibility, self-control, how to carry themselves, how to treat women. They tend to be more effective disciplinarians, and their involvement in childrearing is linked to positive outcomes in the academic development of their children, “especially in mathematics and verbal skills.” That finding “has been established for both sons and daughters but, unsurprisingly, it is especially pronounced among boys. The presence of married fathers is also protective against school suspensions and expulsions, as well as the risk of dropping out of high school.”

Between 1960 and 2019, the percentage of babies in the U.S. born to unwed mothers grew from 5% to almost 50%. “Shifts from the late-1960s to the 1990s away from stable families have left some cities, and especially some neighborhoods, vulnerable to higher rates of crime, especially violent crime,” the study concludes. “We need to realign material and cultural incentives in our cities to favor marriage and stable families, not undercut them.”

We all know single mothers—some of us even may be related to them—who heroically beat these odds and raised children that have gone on to lead productive lives. The public-policy goal should be to reduce the number of people who will have to face those odds. And that means calling out behavior that is objectively harmful to people and society in general.

--

Study: Stronger Families, Safer Streets: Exploring Links Between Family Structure and Crime

Executive Summary This Institute for Family Studies report finds that strong families are associated with less crime in cities across the United States, as well in neighborhoods across Chicago. Specifically, our analyses indicate that the total crime rate in cities with high levels of single parenthood are 48% higher than those with low levels of single parenthood. When it comes to violent crime and homicide, cities with high levels of single parenthood have 118% higher rates of violence and 255% higher rates of homicide. And in Chicago, our analysis of census tract data from the city shows that tracts with high levels of single-parent-headed households face 137% higher total crime rates, 226% higher violent crime rates, and 436% higher homicide rates, compared to tracts with low levels of single parenthood. We also find that poverty, education, and race are linked to city and census-tract level trends in crime. In general, in cities across America, and on the streets of Chicago, this report finds that public safety is greater in communities where the twoparent family is the dominant norm.

==

Not everything needs to be normalized or destigmatized.

The problem with the discussion around addressing social issues is that many people only want to do the politically virtuous thing, not the harder, more politically difficult thing. They want to shout, "defund the police!" But they don't want to do anything that would actually facilitate a reduction in the need for police.

What this tells us is that they don't really care about actually solving it, they just want to be seen to care about it. Indeed, if it was resolved, it would be politically inconvenient, as they'd no longer be able to posture around it.

[the-expose-on-girls]

New vocabulary word: Schadenfreude

Definition: the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.

It is a borrowed word from German, with no direct translation, that originated in the 18th century. Schadenfreude has been detected in children as young as 24 months and may be an important social emotion establishing "inequity aversion".

"To envy is human, to savor schadenfrude is devilish." -Arthur Schopenhauer

[zafar68]

Did Freud abandon his theory of childhood seduction?

According to psychoanalytic folklore, on 21 September 1897 Freud wrote a letter to Fliess which signalled the abandonment of his theory of childhood seduction:

And now I want to confide in you immediately the great secret that has been slowly dawning upon me in the last few months. I no longer believe in my neurotica [Freud’s theory of the neuroses]. This is probably not intelligible without an explanation: after all, you yourself found credible what I was able to tell you. [1]

Freud’s explanation hinged on several different factors: firstly, he refers to his ‘continual disappointments’ in bringing his analyses with his patients to a ‘real conclusion’ (although he doesn’t explain why this necessarily meant his neurotica was wrong); secondly, he simply couldn’t bring himself to believe that all his patients’ fathers must have been ‘perverts’ (paedophiles, sexual abusers) in order to account for the frequency of the hysteria he was encountering; thirdly “…the certain insight that there are no indications of reality in the unconscious, so that one cannot distinguish between truth and fiction that has been cathected with affect.”[2] This introduced the idea that unconscious fantasy had a large role to play in his patients’ ‘recollection’ of childhood trauma. And fourthly:

…in the most deep-going psychosis the unconscious memory does not break through, so that the secret of childhood experiences is not disclosed even in the most confused delirium. If one thus sees that the unconscious never overcomes the resistance of the conscious, the expectation that in treatment the opposite is bound to happen, to the point where the unconscious is completely tamed by the conscious, also diminishes.[3]

This letter has been seized upon by many of Freud’s outspoken critics and added fuel to the flames of the ‘Freud wars’ which underwent a resurgence in the 1980s.[4] For many feminists and survivors of child sexual abuse in particular, Freud’s apparent rejection of the reality of childhood sexual trauma was evidence that psychoanalysis itself was no longer helpful in tackling the problem of such abuse. For example, Nicole Sütterlin argues that: “Today, Freud is often discredited for abandoning the notion of real trauma as a pathological determinant and subsuming it into a model of intrapsychic conflicts”.[5] And Nadia Abu El-Haj makes the important point that, to be taken seriously, the ‘victims’ of trauma need traumatic events which are ‘literal’ rather than the result of psychical construction and whose ‘actuality’ could be called into question. As she notes, this applies particularly to the memory of traumatic events:

For those advocating on behalf of victims of sexual assault, rendering traumatic memory literal likewise served crucial forensic purposes. Sexual assault victims’ memories needed to be accurate, not just credible if fathers, boyfriends, acquaintances, and even strangers were going to be prosecuted for the crimes of incest and rape. This battle was waged not only against existing psychiatric practice, or even just against a particular social and political imaginary, but also against a judicial environment in which refusing to believe and/or blaming the victim was the norm.[6]

Such critics accuse psychoanalysis of being a theory and a clinical practice that denies the actuality of childhood ‘seduction’, which may include sexual abuse and the trauma that accompanies it, and that instead propagates the idea that the ‘memories’ of such events are psychical constructions. And, unfortunately, some of Freud’s own reflections on this subject only appear to reinforce this view. For example, in the opening part of his On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement Freud seems to confirm his abandonment of the theory:

If hysterical subjects trace back their symptoms to traumas that are fictitious, then the new fact which emerges is precisely that they create such scenes in phantasy, and this psychical reality requires to be taken into account alongside practical reality. This reflection was soon followed by the discovery that these phantasies were intended to cover up the auto-erotic activity of the first years of childhood, to embellish it and raise it to a higher plane. And now, from behind the phantasies, the whole range of a child’s sexual life came to light’.[7]

However, as Karin Ahbel-Rappe points out in her paper on Freud’s seduction theory, the question of whether or not he really did ‘abandon’ his belief that his patients’ neuroses were rooted in actual childhood sexual experiences is a contested one. She argues that:

Recent accounts of the seduction theory and the question of its abandonment have emphasized the continuity of Freud’s work before and after the seduction theory, claiming that Freud did not abandon his concern with the event of seduction but rather came to appreciate that an understanding of fantasy was also essential.[8]

As Laplanche and Pontalis note: “Right up to the end of his life, Freud continued to assert the existence, prevalence and pathogenic force of scenes of seduction actually experienced by children.” Furthermore, ”… Freud could never resign himself to treating phantasy as the pure and simple outgrowth of the spontaneous sexual life of the child. He is forever searching, behind the phantasy, for whatever has founded it in its reality….” [9] And even more critically they go on to argue that:

…the crucial question is to decide whether the seduction-phantasy has to be considered merely as a defensive and projective distortion of the positive component of the Oedipus complex or whether it is to be treated as the transposed expression of a fundamental datum, namely, the fact that the child’s sexuality is entirely organised by something which comes to it, as it were, from the outside: the relationship between the parents, and the parents’ wishes which pre-date and determine the form of the wishes of the subject.[10]

In other words, it is not a case of either/or: either there is an actual event in the subject’s early childhood, or such an event is constructed in phantasy at a later date. Rather, the ‘childhood trauma’ is probably best viewed as a complex interweaving of phantasy and actuality; something did happen, but not necessarily in the manner that it is recalled by the subject at a later date. Another way to express this is to argue that Freud augmented his original theory of (actual) childhood seduction by adding the dimension of psychical construction to it. And linked closely to this is his concept of Nachträglichkeit, which I have written about in a number of previous articles. Put very simply, the argument here is that ‘childhood’ trauma is a retroactive construction. Something did indeed happen earlier on in the subject’s history, but at the time of its occurrence this ‘something’ was not registered by the subject as ‘traumatic’. It is only at a later date that another event generates a retroactive associative chain ‘back’ to the ’original’ event and constructs, in the here-and-now, a trauma. It is important to emphasise that this is not denying that something actually occurred in the subject’s history, for example, sexual abuse. Rather, it is to argue that the subject was unable to register the nature of the ‘original’ event; such a registration only occurs later on. And, bearing in mind that Freud introduced the concept of Nachträglichkeit prior to his alleged ‘abandonment’ of his theory of childhood seduction, it suggests that even in his early work Freud was not positing a ‘naïve’ concept of trauma, that is, a traumatic experience occurs in the subject’s early life, the memory of which is repressed and which in turn produces a psychoneuroses in adulthood. Rather, Freud was already aware that psychical (re)construction played a key role in the development of adult psychopathology.

But what’s at stake here for psychoanalysis? Why does it matter if Freud ‘abandoned’ his belief in actual childhood sexual ‘seduction’ (abuse) or not? One answer, as I’ve already touched upon above, is that it calls into question the viability of a psychoanalytic engagement with childhood sexual abuse; which is somewhat ironic bearing in mind it is probably only thanks to Freud that the recognition of such abuse entered the public discourse in the first place. And, as I also noted above, this is precisely the charge that many critics of Freud level against him: that he came to deny the existence of actual childhood sexual abuse and instead argued that it was some elaborate psychical construction. The implication here is that psychoanalysis would have very little, if anything, to offer someone who had suffered such abuse in their childhood. The problem here is that this focus on childhood sexual encounter and its subsequent effects on the subject’s history and psychopathology would seem to be psychoanalysis’ ‘unique selling point’, its modus operandi; without such a focus what is the point of psychoanalysis? Why not just stick to psychotherapy and trauma counselling?

Although, as I hope I have already made clear, I do not believe that Freud ‘abandoned’ his theory of actual childhood ‘seduction’, let’s just imagine for a moment that he did. Furthermore, let’s just imagine for a moment that someone visits a psychoanalyst who adheres to Freud’s theory, that is, that there is no actual childhood sexual experience, but, rather, a psychical construction of such abuse, which for many subjects remains unconscious – at least until they enter psychoanalysis. If, during the course of the analysis, the analysand starts to recount certain events from their early childhood that suggest they may have been sexually abused, is the analyst then going to turn round and say to the analysand: ‘this is just an elaborate fantasy, clearly it never actually happened’? Of course not! Hopefully they will say very little at all, but instead allow the analysand the time and space to tell their story. The key point here is that for the analysand their (hi)story is real and it has real effects. And lurking in the shadows is an even more fundamental question, which is that of the ‘actuality’ of the ‘past’ itself. All history is, ultimately, a construction, a narrative; no one knows what ‘really’ happened at the time. Even people who are still alive to tell their stories still have to rely on their not-so-reliable memories, which are constantly reconstructing the past to suit the needs of the present. As I touched upon above, this is the work of Nachträglichkeit. When it comes to the question of childhood sexual experience and abuse this is not for one moment to deny it ever happened; rather, it is to acknowledge that all we ever have to go on is the retroactive reconstruction of events.

However, the difficulty here, I would argue, is that it is precisely the ‘actuality’ of past events that’s at stake for many individuals. This is especially true for people who have actually been abused in their childhood and who at the time were met with disbelief and denials when they tried to recount such experiences. In other words, for them it is critical that they are believed by their analyst or therapist, and anyone else they tell their story to. The complexities of the transference, let alone Nachträglichkeit, are simply not going to cut it with such individuals! And, as I noted earlier, if criminal proceedings are involved, it is even more critical that such events are deemed to have actually happened.

Returning now to my contention that Freud did not ‘abandon’ his theory of childhood ‘seduction’, but, instead, augmented it with the theory of psychical construction and working over,[11] what are the implications for clinical practice? In fact, does it make any difference if the analyst believes that an analysand’s account of childhood sexual abuse is based on ‘actual’ events or is a retroactive construction? As I indicated earlier, all the analyst (and the analysand) has to go on is the (re)construction of events, so in one sense their ‘actuality’ is beside the point. However, the key issue to remember here is that just because all we have to go on is the (re)construction, the representation, of events, this does not mean that such events never occurred. In fact, even if we subscribe to Freud’s theory of Nachträglichkeit (which I do), he argued that there always remains a trace of the actual event. Bistoen, Vanheule, and Craps, in their paper on Nachträglichkeit and PTSD argue that Lacan’s ideas regarding the signifier are especially instructive in terms of developing a deeper understanding of the mechanism of Nachträglichkeit. They argue that there is an ‘original’ distressing event that cannot be fully understood at the time of its occurrence because the subject is unable to symbolise it. However, the event leaves behind a ‘mnemic trace’ that is engraved in memory by a single signifier, which both signals and covers up the senselessness of the experience. Commenting on Freud’s ‘Emma’ case (one of his early uses of the theory of Nachträglichkeit), they write:

This single signifier, which is metonymically chosen by the subject, hems in or borders the hole of the nonsensical experience. In Emma’s case, this could be the linguistic element ‘clothing’ or the visual trace of the shopkeeper’s grin, something that simultaneously points to and obscures the original mystifying scene. It is crucial to grasp that this single signifier or representation remains ‘mute,’ as it does not become associated with other elements that would confer meaning upon it.[12]

Their argument here is that it is only when this single signifier can form part of a signifying chain that it can allow the subject to confer meaning and ‘sense’ on their experiences. This happens at the time of the ‘second’ event where the subject realises, for the first time, the full meaning of the ‘original’ experience, and at this point becomes traumatised by it. The crucial point here is that something has to have actually occurred for such a trace to be there in the first place. The difficulty, of course, is knowing precisely what this something is. However, for those of us who subscribe to a realist epistemology then this should be the focus of the analytic, however difficult it may be, rather than denying that there was something there in the first place.

Notes

Sigmund Freud, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess 1887-1904, trans. Jeffrey M. Masson (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belkap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), 264. ↑

Ibid., 264. ↑

Ibid., 265. ↑

See for example Jeffrey Masson’s vitriolic attack on Freud’s so-called abandonment of the seduction theory: Jeffrey M. Masson, The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1984). ↑

Nicole A. Sütterlin, “History of Trauma Theory,” in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, ed. Hanna Meretoja and Colin Davis (Milton: Taylor and Francis, 2020), 13. ↑

Nadia Abu El-Haj, Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America (Kindle Edition) (London: Verso, 2002), 91. ↑

Sigmund Freud, “On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XIV (London: Hogarth Press, 1914), 17-18, italics in original. ↑

Karin Ahbel-Rappe, ‘“I No Longer Believe”: Did Freud Abandon the Seduction Theory?’, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 54.1 (2006), 171, italics in original. ↑

Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis (London: Karnac Books, 1988), 406-407. ↑

Ibid., 407, my italics. ↑

Here I am following Laplanche and Pontalis’ argument in The Language of Psychoanalysis that, “Understood very broadly, psychical working out (or over) might be said to cover all of the operations of the psychical apparatus.” (366). However, they are also clear that Freud’s specific use of the term was in reference to the transformation of energy through binding or diversion. ↑

Gregory Bistoen, Stijn Vanheule, and Stef Craps, “Nachträglichkeit: A Freudian Perspective on Delayed Traumatic Reactions,” Theory and Psychology, 2014, 9.

[tmarshconnors]

Psychology: Understanding the Human Mind

Psychology is a fascinating field that delves into the intricacies of the human mind and behavior. From cognitive processes to emotional responses, psychology seeks to understand why we think, feel, and act the way we do.

Throughout my exploration of psychology, I’ve been particularly intrigued by concepts like motivation, personality, and mental health. Understanding psychological theories helps us comprehend our own behaviors and those of others, fostering empathy and improving our relationships.

Moreover, psychology’s application in various fields—education, therapy, and business—demonstrates its relevance in everyday life. By learning about psychological principles, we can equip ourselves to navigate challenges, enhance our well-being, and promote positive change in our communities.

[mysteriesandthrillers]

RARE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS

2. Alien Hand Syndrome - a rare medical neurological condition that was first discovered in 1908. In this syndrome, a person loses control of one of their hands. Their minds cannot seem to dictate the actions of this hand which performs tasks on its own with a will of its own. There have only been 40-50 recorded cases until now.

People with a type of Parkinson’s disease called corticobasal syndrome (CBS) are at especially high risk of developing the condition, and 30% of people with CBS have alien hand syndrome.

Causes - Doctors do not completely understand why this happens but the most common causes are -:

A. In rare cases, a person may develop a variant of AHS after an ischemic stroke.

B. Neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease are the leading causes for AHS. It affects breathing, movement, balance, and heart function.

C. A midline tumour which can cause a lot of problems such as difficulty in swallowing, balance, etc.

D. An aneurysm is known to cause AHS.

Symptoms -

movements of a limb, usually the left hand, that appear intentional but are involuntary.

no control over the movement of the limb.

a sense of loss of ownership over the limb.

Treatment -

There is no treatment for AHS but as of 2021, after a lot of research, it is seen that the condition can be brought under control by repeating a number of bimanual tasks that involve the usage of both hands.

Real life cases -

A woman was found to have Alien Hand Syndrome after she suffered from a stroke, another woman suffered from the same for 18 years after an operation.

[abbs85]

Emotions in a box

Just being oneself is never an easy task to undertake.

So yesterday I did something I have tried to do several times before, but have always failed to do. In the past there has been moments I have tried to shut my emotions off, but there has always been a light in the end of a tunnel. I know this is cliche to say it like that, but there have always been moments in my past that was good. I would say it`s like eating a candy and getting a sugar rush,…

[baraaelmorsi2000]

The importance of mental health and its impact on activity and life

[artisticdivasworld]

Mental Health Disorders:  the Real Struggles Faced by Individuals

I would like to engage in a conversation about a matter that holds great importance to me – mental health disorders. You have probably encountered numerous discussions on this topic, but do you truly comprehend the lived experience? It extends beyond mere feelings of sadness or worry; it entails intricate complexities and formidable obstacles. Unraveling Mental Health Disorders First and…

[starfishinthedistance]

I talk to many people who say things like "oh I have trauma but I don't have PTSD", but then when I talk to them a little more I realize that they most likely do, they just can't recognize it as such due to how lacking PTSD awareness is, even beyond the whole "it's not just a veteran's disorder" thing.

The main reason they think they don't have PTSD usually has to do with flashbacks and nightmares, either they have one but not the other or have neither. But here's the thing, those are only two symptoms out of the 23-odd recognized symptoms. Flashbacks and nightmares are two of the five symptoms under Criterion B (Intrusion), which you only need one of for a diagnosis. The other three symptoms are unwanted upsetting memories, emotional distress after being reminded of trauma and physical reactivity after being reminded of trauma (i.e. shaking, sweating, heart racing, feeling sick, nauseous or faint, etc). Therefore you can have both flashbacks and nightmares, one but not the other, or neither and still have PTSD.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people give me for why they don't think they have PTSD are literally a part of the diagnostic criteria.

"Oh, I can barely remember most parts of my trauma anyway." Criterion D (Negative Alterations in Cognition and Mood) includes inability to recall key features of the trauma.

"Oh but I don't get upset about my trauma that often because I avoid thinking of it or being around things that remind me of it most of the time." Criterion C (Avoidance) includes avoiding trauma-related thoughts or feelings and avoiding trauma-related external reminders, and you literally cannot get diagnosed if you don't have at least one of those two symptoms.

"Oh I just have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, but I don't have nightmares." Criterion E (Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity) includes difficulting sleeping outside of nightmares.

"But I didn't have many/any trauma symptoms until a long time after the trauma happened." There's literally an entire specification for that.

Really it just shows how despite being one of the most well-known mental illnesses, people really don't know much about PTSD. If you have trauma, I ask you to at least look at the criteria before you decide you don't have PTSD. Hell, even if you don't have trauma, look at the criteria anyway because there are so many symptoms in there that just are not talked about.

PTSD awareness is not just about flashbacks and nightmares.

[sparkriel]

was gonna add more but i ran out of steam 😔👎 anyway here’s an infographic on how people with complex dissociative disorders are not that different from you lol

[maybe-an-aspd-angel]