Theories of Depression by 4 Geniuses

Albert Bandura - The Social Learning Theory
In his Social Learning theory, Banduras implies that aggression is learned through behavior modeling. Bandura in his theory believes that individuals do not inherit violent tendencies they are rather moldered. He argues that individuals, especially children learn aggressive responses from observing those around, whether it be personally, through the media or environment. Moreover, the theory states that aggression will produce reinforcements, reduction of tension, financial rewards, praise of others, or building one’s self esteem. Bandura, through his Bobo doll experiment is able to show that children imitate the aggression of adults because of rewards. Bandura was intrigued by children’s aggression and asked himself whether aggression in children would be reflected in their adult years, would they turn into criminals? He argued that aggression in children is shaped by reinforcement offered by the family and their environment as a whole.

Julian Rotter – The Social Learning Theory
Julian Rotter in his Social Learning theory explains that personality represents an interaction of an individual with his or her environment. He says that one cannot speak of a personality internal to the individual, it should rather be reflected as independent of his or her environment. Rotter also shows that behavior should not be considered to being an automatic response to an objective set of environmental stimuli. One must rather, take both the individual and the environment into account. Personality, according to Julian Rotter is a stable set of potentials for responding to situations in a unique way. Personality is therefore considered to be changeable. Rotter strongly believes that the more life experience one has on building a set of beliefs, the more effort and intervention is required for personality to change. He seem to be quite optimistic on the subject, he sees people as being drawn by their goals who seek to maximize their life style rather than avoiding punishment. The theory has to it 4 main components: behavior potential, expectancy, reinforcement value, and psychological situation.

Martin Seligman – Learned Helplessness Theory
Seligman, an American psychologist decided to challenge B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism theory by conducting an experiment with three individual groups. The first group was the control group, out of 150 dogs, a group was places in harnesses for a set period of time and then released. Group two dogs were put in pairs; one dog in a pair would receive mild electrical shocks. The dog could end pain of electrical shock by pressing a lever. Group three dogs were also put in pairs and one dog would be wired in parallel with a dog in group two, who was receiving shocks. The dog would therefore receive group two’s dog electrical shock but his own lever couldn’t stop the shock, group three dogs received a shock that was inescapable. Groups one and two dogs recovered quickly but group three dogs didn’t, they presented depression and learned to be helpless. Through this experiment Seligman developed this theory, which showed that people learn to be helpless when given a task a being miserable at it. A term that also shows this is the vicarious trauma. Learned helplessness as shown by Seligman is the state of mind created by an animal or human in which they learn to behave helpless even with the means to escape or avoid an unpleasant situation. The theory states that it facing helplessness, mental illnesses may arise from the lack of control one has over a situation.

Aaron Beck – Cognitive Behavior Theory
Aaron Temkin Beck is an American psychiatrist who has developed research on psychotherapy, psychopathology, suicide and more. He is considered the father of cognitive behavioral therapy. Indeed, he developed a cognitive behavior theory in which he states, “If beliefs do not change, there is no improvement. If beliefs change, symptoms change. Beliefs function as little operational units”. Beck shows through this theory that dysfunctional behavior is caused due to dysfunctional thinking and that basically thinking is shaped by our beliefs. Moreover, he says our beliefs decide the course of our actions. They take hold of our actions. Aaron Beck shows that patients can be persuaded to think constructively and reject negative thinking.

Works Cited:
Isom, Margaret Delores. "Theorist - Albert Bandura." Criminology.fsu. 30 Nov. 1998. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. .
Mearns, Jack. "The Social Learning Theory of Julian B. Rotter." Psych.fullerton.edu. 30 Nov. 2000. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. .
Pollick, Michael. "What Is Learned Helplessness?" Wise Geek. 25 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. .
"Aaron Beck Cognitive Behavior Theory." Buzzle.com. Google. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. .

The Lobotomist

Recently, in class we saw a video that was quite shocking for myself. Its pretty interesting how scientists as well as psychiatrists were speculating on the reasons why people suffer from depression. Such controversial “disease” had to be treated someway and somehow. Over the years, Dr. Walter Freeman, a prestigious American physician who specialized in lobotomy, conducted tons of lobotomies on typically adults. Not only was Walter Freeman’s prestige acquired through his famous lobotomies but he was as well part of the American Psychiatric Association. It is said that Freeman performed over 2500 lobotomies all over the United States. With just having the knowledge of neurology and no surgical training, Freeman initially worked with some surgeons, one of them James W. Watts. Watts become popularized because of the fact that he performed prefrontal lobotomies. Once in handy, the idea of practicing lobotomy skills on Freeman’s patients, he and Watts perform a more easy and effective procedure. In it, they first had to gather ice picks and a hammer, using the ice picks, Freeman hammered the ice picks into each frontal lobe, through the back of the eye socket. The advantages to this procedure was that it could be effectively carried out outside an operating room and without a surgeon. While Freeman was impatient about the famous pioneer, Moniz, he was finally able to come up with a momentarily effective way to treat mentally ill patients. Just with a light tap of a mallet, and the wishing back and forth of the ice picks he could make miracles. The prior difficult patients were no passive. Freeman recommended this intense procedure for everything, whether it be psychosis, depression, neurosis or criminality. Freeman even developed what people called assembly line lobotomies, in which he went from one patient to another ice picking their eye ball sockets and jiggling what is the frontal lobes of the brain. It is said that some of his surgeons even fainted at experiencing such hard method to which patients were summoned. Studies show that even Watts agreed on the level of harshness in this experiment. Among the strengths of this experiment lie the fact that it was a procedure of minutes which was most likely to stabilize the patient. Moreover, Dr. Freeman himself performed between 3,500 and 5,00 “soul surgeries”, of which he claimed to be used in schizoprenics, depressive people, people suffering from chronic pain and other mental and physical conditions. This “soul surgery” was not only aimed at functioning in a brief amount of diseases it rather helped treat and even cure many diseases. Amonf the weaknesess of the experiment lie, the violence that is induced in its patients, this considered to be totally unethical should not be implemented whatsoever. Furthermore, the procedure had not been tested before, they rather used it without testing it before, due to this results were not always the desired ones. Likewise, lobotomies were said to “violate the principles of humanity and chanfe and insane person into an idiot”. Even worst, psychiatrists were accustomed to performing long-term care for their patients in order to assess the surgery’s effectiveness. In the end lobotomies were very useful during its due time, through the course of history its uses include, treating patients with psychological illnesses and behavioral disorders, and in place of recommending medications, talk therapy and other forms of treatment, these lobotomies were performed as a fast track to end the disease or illness. Freeman in psychology history is a well known neurologist who awakened people since his texistence into brainstorming new and improved ways on performing lobotomies, he was the one to discover that it was passible to access the frontal cortex thrugh a human’s eye sockets. With this he was able to improve some person’s lives but also damage others’.



Works Cited:

Renato Sabbatini, "The History of Psychosurgery" (Brain and Mind, June 1997). A selection from this article is available at http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/lobotomy.htm.

Freeman, Shanna. "How Lobotomies Work." Discovery Health. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. .

Evan Perry Video Reflection

The video shown in class has completely changed my perspective on the Bipolar Disorder. The boy, Evan Perry and his family made apparent the fact that the bipolar disorder does not only affect the victim but as well the victim’s surroundings. It totally amazes me the rapidness of the bipolar cycle and the fact that it cannot be cured; only treated. Although it can be controlled it does not have and guarantee of better symptoms, it rather makes the victims of this tragic disorder feel helpless and born for nothing. The disease apparently, varies among those who are born with it. A person might not be treated in the same way as another; the steps involved in the treatment of one might vary in another. The video has also shown me that there are different levels of the disorder, Evan Perry unfortunately withholds a strong level of bipolar disorder in him, this being shown through his constant suicidal thoughts and his feeling of uselessness in the world. It worries me the fact that neither psychologists nor scientists have been able to develop a cure for this disorder which seems to be non important but is rather of great importance. This video has definitely increased my awareness on this disorder; it has made me understand the implications it has to it and the implications on the victims of this disorder.