Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Anxiety

Anxiety is an unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension it can occur in many psycho-pathology commonly known as emotion of fear and it is very common in all of us and is a common topic of study in psychology. It varies from person to person in terms of intensity and duration. Anxiety disorders were commonly known and grouped as neurosis characterized by unrealistic anxiety and related problems. This interpretation was based on Freud’s psycho analytical theory. D.S.M.II identifies certain disorders like phobia (fear and avoidance behaviour) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD –the irrespirable urge to perform certain acts over and over again) Conversion disorder (paralysis and neurological symptoms).
All these varied symptoms are grouped under one group based on the psycho-analytical theory as they all reflect an underlying problem of repressed ‘id’ impulses. Further discussion and development in diagnosis found the above classification baseless. In D.S.M.III & D.S.M.IV T.R. we have more distinct diagnostic classes instead of neurosis. They are:

1.Anxiety Disorder
2.Somatoform Disorder
3.Dissociative Disorder.

Anxiety disorder is diagnosed when subjectively experienced feelings of anxiety are clearly present. D.S.M. IV T.R. proposes six categories of anxiety disorders. They are:-

1.Post-traumatic stress
2.Phobia
3.Panic Disorder
4.G.A.D
5.Acute stress Disorder
6.O.C.D

Co-morbidity- A person with one anxiety disorder may meet the diagnostic criteria for other disorder as well. It is because of two reasons:
1.Symptoms of various anxiety disorders are not entirely disorder specific. E.g. Somatic signs of anxiety like perspiration, fast heart beat are not entirely disorder specific.
2.The ethological factors or casual factors which give rise to various anxiety disorders may be applicable to more than one disorder.
PHOBIA
Phobia is a disrupting fear motivated avoidance that is out of proportion to the dangers posed by a particular object or situation and is recognized and realized by the sufferer as unreasonable. e.g. Extreme fear from height, fear of closed spaces, fear of snakes and spiders.
D.S.M. IV T.R. criteria
1. Excessive unreasonable persistent fear triggered by object of situation.
2. Exposure to the trigger leads to intense anxiety.
3. The person recognized the fear is unrealistic.
4. The object or situation is avoided or endured with intense anxiety.
The term phobia usually implies that the person suffers intense distress and social or occupational impairment primarily because of anxiety. The term phobia is derived from a Greek myth legend Phoebes, who frightened his enemies.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Post-structuralism

Three ideas dropped with the world “Post” were:-
1. 'Post' represented time which meant after
For example – India after independence is post-independent India.
2. 'Post' represented the idea itself.
For example – Raja Rao, R K Naranyan are looked at as post colonial writers but most of their post colonial writing stated in the pre-independent era itself (1930s).
3. Result of experience – represented the unconscious shift in ideas.
For example – Post globalisatuib could be used to suggest a state created due to the experience of globalisation

1942 the issue was termed as Babri Masjid.
1990 the same issue was termed as Ram Janmabhuma.
Now it’s known as the disputed site issue.

Ideas in sciences cease to exist once proved wrong. This does not happen in Social scines and humanities. The ideas of Plato, Shakespeare and various thinkers continue to exist.

Post-Structuralism has borrowed ideas from early philosophers like Nietzsche. Thus in a way post-structuralism started even before structuralism. The new thinking in philosophy, sociology and literature in the works of Jacques Derrida, Ronald Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault gave a new dimension in the study of post-structuralism.

The relation between post-structuralism and post-modernism is similar but the two are not the same. Post-structuralism is the theory of reading and analysis, thus there can never be post-structuralist poetry, post-structuralist play or a post-structuralist painting. On the other hand post-modernism is concerned with the practicality of theory or the theory of doing. Post-modernism unlike post-structuralism can have a post modern architecture, post modern painting, or a post modern novel. Post-structuralism and post modernism does not have a certain standard to measure anything therefore challenging the "center". Nietzsche’s famous remarks, “There are no facts, only interpretation” undercuts and questions commonsensical questions and assumptions. Post-structuralism inherits the habit of skepticism and intensifies it. They distrust the very notion of reason and the idea of human being as an independent entity where by defining and individual as an entity of social and linguistic intermingling.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Dalit Lit. and Sensibility 3




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Dalit Lit. and Sensibility 2

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Dalit Lit. and Sensibility 1

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Monday, August 17, 2009

Historical Development of Organizational Psychology (from the net)

Psychology was not recognized as a science until 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory. Of course, organizational/industrial psychology was accepted as a branch of psychology not until 1910. Yet many issues important to I/O Psychology had been discussed long before then. Below are a few examples:
  • Aristotle, in Politics, developed foundations for many modern management concepts, including specialization of labor, delegation of authority, departmentalization, decentralization, and leadership selection

  • Medieval European guilds functioned like modern-day quality circles to ensure fine craftsmanship.

  • Machiavelli (in The Prince, 1527) offered practical advice for developing authoritarian structures within organizations.

  • Thomas Hobbes (1651) advocated strong centralized leadership as a means for bringing "order to the chaos created by man". He provided a justification for autocratic rule that helped establish the pattern for organizations through the nineteenth century.

  • John Locke (1690) outlined the philosophical justification later manifested in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which in effect, advocates participatory management in his argument that leadership is granted by the governed.

  • Jean Jacques Rousseau, in The Social Contract (1762), in effect supported Locke's position.

  • Adam Smith (1776), in The Wealth of Nations revolutionized economic and organizational thought by suggesting the use of centralization of labor and equipment in factories, division of specialized labor, and management of specialization in factories.

The Early Years (Pre-World War I)


  • 1881: the first school of professional management was started at the University of Pennsylvania when Joseph Wharton donated $100,000 to do so.

  • 1883: Frederick W. Taylor began experiments at the Midvale and Bethlehem Steel plant, which later led to the development of his "scientific management" philosophy.
  • Walter Dill Scott gave a talk to Chicago business leaders on the application of psychology to advertising, which led to books on the topic published in 1903 & 1908.
    • By 1911 he had published two more books (Influencing Men in Business and Increasing Human Efficiency in Business), and became the first to apply the principles of psychology to motivation and productivity in the workplace.
    • He also became instrumental in the application of personnel procedures within the army during World War I.

  • Hugo Munsterberg, considered by many as "the father of industrial psychology", pioneered the application of psychological findings from laboratory experiments to practical matters
    • In 1911 he cautioned managers to be concerned with "all the questions of the mind...like fatigue, monotony, interest, learning, work satisfaction, and rewards."
    • He was also first to encourage government funded research in the area of industrial psy
    • In 1913 his book Psychology and Industrial Efficiency addressed such things as personnel selection and equipment design

  • Munsterberg's early I/O psychology became influential well into the 1950's
    • It assumed people need to fit the organization, thus applied behavioral sciences largely consisted of helping organizations shape people to serve as replacement parts for organizational machines

  • about the same time as Munsterberg, Frederick W. Taylor began publishing similar philosophies on management -- which had a tremendous impact on organizational management

    Frederick W. Taylor

    • Taylor realized the value of redesigning the work situation (thru use of time and motion studies) to achieve both higher output for the company and higher wages for the worker
    • His writings were one of the first reasonably comprehensive philosophies of management
    • 1909 Taylor's book Shop Management explained management's role in motivating workers to avoid "natural soldiering", i.e., the natural tendency of people to "take it easy"

    • 1911 Taylor's book The Principles of Scientific Management; two of his key principles:
      1. scientifically design work methods for efficiency
      2. select the best workers and train them in the best methods
      • e.g., showed workers who handle heavy iron ingots more productive given use of work rests
        • training when to work and when to rest raised productivity from 12.5 to 47.0 tons moved per day
        • Less fatigue reported
        • Increased wages
        • Costs dropped from 9.2 to 3.9 cents per ton

    • Taylor's methods led to charges that he inhumanely exploited workers for higher wages and that great numbers of workers would be unemployed because fewer were needed (which was a sensitive topic since unemployment was already high at the time)
      • Both the Interstate Commerce Commission and the U.S. House of Representatives began investigations
      • Taylor replied that increased efficiency would produce greater not lesser prosperity
      • Outbreak of WWI distracted most from the controversy before much was resolved.

World War I (1917-1918)


  • Robert Yerkes was the psychologist most influential in getting psychology into the war
    • proposed ways of screening recruits for mental deficiency and assigning selected recruits to army jobs
  • committees of psychologists also investigated soldier motivation, morale, psychological problems of physical incapacity ("shell shock"), and discipline

  • Army was skeptical and approved only a modest number of proposals, primarily in the assessment of recruits -- which Yerkes and others developed as a general intelligence test

  • Meanwhile Walter Dill Scott was doing research on best placement of soldiers in Army
    • He classified and placed enlistees, conducted performance evaluations of officers, and developed and prepared job duties and qualifications for over 500 jobs

  • However, the final authorization for the testing program came in August 1918, only three months before the Armistice was signed -- thus the intelligence tests weren't as utilized as much as Yerkes had hoped

  • 1917: Journal of Applied Psychology began publication
    • Even today it is still perhaps the most respected, representative journal in I/O field.

Between the Wars (1919-1940)


  • Psychological Corporation started by James Cattell in 1921
    • Main purpose was to advance psychology and promote its usefulness to industry
    • Also to maintain quality reputation of field by serving as a place for companies to get reference checks on prospective psychologists
      • Helped companies weed out quacks from qualified professionals
    • Mission has shifted: Today serves as one of largest publishers of psychological tests

  • 1920's: doctoral degrees specializing in industrial psychology begin to be offered at U.S. universities
    • Among the first: Ohio State, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Univ. of Minnesota, and Stanford University

  • Greatest influence on I/O psychology from this time was the Hawthorne studies

    The Hawthorne Studies

  • 1924 series of experiments began at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company
    • Researchers from Harvard University (who were not psychologists) were attempting to study the relation between lighting and efficiency
    • Increased lighting resulted in increased efficiency, but to their surprise, efficiency continued to improve as the lighting dimmed to faint moonlight levels

    • These seemingly "bizarre" results were eventually explained in terms of previously unrecognized aspects of human behavior in the workplace
    • Researchers hypothesized that these results were due to the employee's desire to please them
      • They were flattered at having distinguished investigators from Harvard study them and were trying to impress them, which caused them to be more productive
    • Quite some time later the employees got used to the researchers' presence and began returning to their original levels of productivity

  • The Hawthorne Effect -- change in behavior following the onset of a novel treatment (new or increased attention, most commonly)
    • Effect eventually wears off (behavior returns to original) as the "novelty" dissipates

  • 1933 Elton Mayo made the first significant call for the human relations movement in his interim report on the Hawthorne studies
    • Showed the existence of informal employee groups and their effects on production, the importance of employee attitudes, the value of a sympathetic and understanding supervisor, and the need to treat people as people -- not simply as human capital
    • This was one of the benchmark events in the development of industrial psychology
  • 1939 the definitive account of the Hawthorne studies was published.

Between the Wars: During and Shortly After the Hawthorne Studies


  • Major advances in measurement of attitudes during 1920's and 1930's
    • Likert and Thurstone among those particularly prominent

  • One of the earliest with clinical roots to enter I/O psychology was Morris Viteles
    • Viteles was student of Lightner Witmer (who many consider the father of clinical psych)
    • Among Viteles' books were:
      • Industrial Psychology (1932) (perhaps first book to use that term in its title)
      • The Science of Work (1934)
      • Motivation and Morale in Industry (1953)

  • In 1939, Kurt Lewin led the first publication of an empirical study of the effects of leadership styles; this work initiated arguments for the use of participative management techniques.

World War II (1941-1945)


  • By this time industrial psychologists had improved many of their techniques for employee selection and placement, and were sought after by the army for their help with these functions
    • Successful I/O contributions included development of:
      • Army General Classification Test
        • used to classify an estimated 12 million soldiers into military jobs
      • Tests of performance under situational stress for U.S. Office of Strategic Services
        • the OSS was the first U.S. intelligence agency (precursor to CIA)
        • tests highly successful for identifying best candidates to be OSS agents
        • innovative assessment methods used
          • original basis for assessment center techniques of today

  • 1945 Kurt Lewin formed the Research Center for Group Dynamics at MIT to perform experiments in group behavior
    • 1948 the research center moved to the University of Michigan and became a branch of the Institute for Social Research

  • 1946: I/O psychologists form Division 14 of the American Psychological Association
    • incorporated as the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 1983
    • by 1996, grown to approximately 2,500 members.

1950's and 1960's


  • Late 40's & early 50's: clinical psychologists Carl Rogers' and Abraham Maslow's theories of motivation supported the human relations movement

  • Skinner initiated discussions of behaviorism's applications to organizational settings

  • 1954 Peter F. Drucker outlined his Management by Objectives (MBO) approach
  • 1954 John C. Flanigan outlined his Critical Incidents Technique

  • Rise of Motivation Theories in late 1950's through 1960's

    • Late 1950's: Douglas McGregor proposed his Theory X and Theory Y assumptions of the relations between employees and organizations

    • Early 1960's: contingency models of leadership proposed a need for different styles under different circumstances -- a view that rose with work of Fred Fiedler in mid 1960's

    • 1964: Vroom's VIE theory (valence, instrumentality, expectancy) of motivation proposed
      • Influencial in development of later expectancy theories

    • Mid 1960's: David McClelland proposed need for achievement theory
      • Argues there are two groups of people, the majority who aren't concerned about achieving and the minority who are challenged by achieving

    • Late 1960's: Frederick Herzberg proposed his two-factor theory of motivation (satisfiens/motivators & hygiene factors)

    • Late 1960's: Edwin Locke outlined his goal setting approach to motivation

  • 1964 Civil Rights Act passed. Title VII, section 703a states: "it is unlawful to discriminate in any employment practice on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin"

  • 1966: Katz & Kahn published classic text outlining theory and research of organizational behavior as embedded in open, sociotechnical systems

  • Mid 1960's into early 1970's: advances in job analysis techniques included:
    • 'task inventory' approach developed from research with U.S. Air Force
    • Dictionary of Occupational Titles published in 1965 (third edition)
    • 1960's research at Purdue Occupational Research Center led to publication of the Position Analysis Questionnaire in 1972
    • Edwin Fleishman developed 'ability requirements' approach.

1970's


  • 1971: B.F. Skinner, in Beyond Freedom and Dignity, advocated behavior modification strategies to motivate people in organizations
  • Organizational behavior modification's successes increasingly demonstrated
    • e.g., in Luthans & Kreitner's (1975) and Frederiksen's (1982) books

  • Rise of cognitive approaches to studying topics in psychology (which grew in 1960's) continued in 1970's, including their influence on a wide range of I/O research

  • Early 1970's: Porter & Lawler proposed revised expectancy model of motivation

  • Early/mid 1970s: Civil rights laws, and related Supreme Court decisions, led to increasing research on bias in organizations.

1980's & 1990's


  • As entered 1980's, the rigidity of classical theories of management produced harsh consequences for American businesses (e.g., in the automobile industry) during these times of rapid change in the technological and business environments
    • Japanese were prospering with methods first proposed by Americans: Edward Deming, Joseph Juran, and Noam Crosby
      • First adopted after WWII in Japan when U.S. companies resisted their ideas

  • 1984 article in the Academy of Management Review outlined explanations for the success of Japanese management techniques as:
    1. Superior manufacturing processes
    2. Increased quality and quantity coupled with reduced cost
    3. Participatory management techniques
    4. Use of statistical quality control techniques
    5. Consensus decision making
    6. Lifetime job security (although in 1990's some Japanese companies moved away from this guarantee)
    7. Long-term planning

  • Mid 1980's: increasing attention to use of quality circles and other participatory management techniques
  • Late 1980's: renewed interest in organizational climate and groups
  • Late 1980's: rise of participatory management techniques known by such terms as
    Total Quality Management (TQM), Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), and
    Continuous Process Improvement (CPI)

  • 1990's: rise of meta-analysis as statistical technique (spurred by Hunter & Schmidt's 1990 book -- an extention of their 1977 Schmidt & Hunter journal article)
    • Enables combining data from many different previously-published studies (that individually had led to varying and perhaps even contradictory conclusions)
      • Technique analyzes overall pattern across all studies included
    • Although somewhat controversial, this technique advocated by many
    • Increased optimism that validity findings for mental ability tests (used in selection) can be generalized to a wide range of other samples
      • In other words, direct evaluations of validity for each new sample argued to be unnecessary

  • 1986: first ruling by U.S. Supreme Court on subject of sexual harassment
    • Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson: hostile work environment standard supported
  • 1990's: rapid rise of attention to the issue in both employment law and psychology
    • 1991: Anita Hill's charges against Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings to become a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court raised public's attention to issue
    • 1991 Civil Rights Act provided first legal basis for SH victims to sue for punitive damages
    • 1993: second sexual harassment ruling from U.S. Supreme Court
    • 1998: U.S. Supreme Court handed down four landmark decisions
      • more rulings on sexual harassment in 1998 from Supreme Court than in all previous years combined
    • 1999 and 2001 brought additional Supreme Court decisions

  • Late 1980's & into the 1990's: work stress received increasing attention in I/O research, theory, and practice
  • Balancing work and family lives received increasing attention in I/O research in late 1980's, and again in mid/late 1990's
  • Workplace aggression / workplace violence emerged as topic of study in mid/late 1990's
  • Sunday, August 16, 2009

    DSM

    Objectives of DSM -
    1. It clearly identifies and separates one particular bhr from the other.
    2. It helps to make different groups of problems under different major groups.
    3. It helps us to understand the nature, cause and treatment of a particular problem.
    4. It helps us to discuss professionally to have more understanding about the problem.

    Process of DSM -
    1. It classifies each maladaptive bhr according to the symptoms and signs.
    2. It groups different syndromes into major categories according to the common symptoms they exhibit .
    3. It also considers the severity,the nature of the causes in it's classifications.

    History of DSM -

    1. DSM I appeared in 1952 in the background of the mental breakdowns of millitary personnel in WWII

    2. DSM II published in 1968. DSM I and II have identified some mental diseases and defined it, but the problem was it was too narative and vague, the mental health professionals could not agress on their meanings and definitions therefore, the reliability of classifications was very much limited.

    3. DSM III appeared in 1980 it used operational definitions to remove subjective interpretation. Operational definition is based on the exact observations for each disorder to be identified a specific number of symptoms from a designated list must be present. This approach was more accepted and continued in indentifying more disorders. In 1987 a revised version of DSM III appeared which is named as DSM III R and in 1994 DSM III R again revised and named as DSM IV. We have new syndromes and sub-divisions of early diagnosed syndromes in DSM I to DSM III R. In 2000, the test is again revised and is named as DSM IV TR

    4. DSM IV TR specifies what sub-types of mental disorder are currentlyand officially recognised. It provides a set of rules for defining criteria. It is very categorical and draws sharp boundary line between one disease from another. It classifies the mental disorders into signs and symptoms.

    About DSM IV TR - [This one is Carson and Butcher and Mineka Gyaan + Fr. V Notes]

    Since the advent of DSM III in 1980, DSM IV evaluates an individual according to five foci or "axes". The first three axes assess as individual's present clinical status or condition:

    Axis I - The particular clinical syndromes or other conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention. This would include schizophrenia, generalised anxiety disorder, major depression and substance dependence. Axis I conditions are roughly analogous to the various illnesses and diseases recognized in general medicine.

    Axin II - Personality disorders. A very broad group of disorders that encompasses a variety of problematic ways of relating to the world, such as paranoid personality disorder, anti-social personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder. These disorders are considered as a long standing mal-adaptive personality trait that may or may not be involved in the development of Axis I disorder. Mental retardation also can added in Axis II.

    Axis III - General medical conditions. It is situation which refers to some chronic medical diease which in turn causes any disorder of Axis I.

    On any of these first three axes where the pertinent criteria are met more than one diagnosis is permissible, and in fact encouraged. That is, a person may be diagnosed as having multiple psychiatric syndromes, such as, panic disorder and major depressive disorder; disorders of personality, such as, Dependent or Avoidant; or poyentially relevant mediacal problems, such as Cirrhosis and Overdose, Cocaine. the last two DSM IV axes are used to assess broader aspects of an individual's situation.

    Axis IV - Psychosocial and environmental problems. This group deals with the stressors that may have contributed to the current disorder, particularly those that have been present during the prior year. The diagnostician is invited to use a check list approach for various categories of impinging life problems -- family, economic, occupational, legal, etc

    Axis V - Global assessment of functioning. This is where clinicians note how well the individual is coping at the present time. A 100-point rating scale, the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale, is provided for the examiner to assign a number summarising a patient's overall functionability.

    Saturday, August 15, 2009

    models of abnormality (Alloy) - what to study???

    1. The behavioural Perspective:
    Page 75-98

    2. The Psychodynamic perspective:
    Page 105-118, 120

    3.The humanistic perspective:
    page 123-126

    4.The interpersonal Perspective:
    Page 127-128

    Models Of Abnormality (Carson and Butcher)

    BIOLOGICAL VIEW-POINT FOR UNDERSTANDING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR (not for mid-sem)

    The traditional biological view-point focuses on mental disorders as diseases, many of the primary symptoms of which are cognitive, emotional, or behavioural. Mental disorders are thus viewed as disorders of the central nervous system, autonomic nervous system, and/or the endocrine system that are either inherited or caused by some pathological process.
    The disorders first recognized as having biological or organic components were those associated with gross destruction of brain tissue. These disorders are neurological diseases - i.e. they result from the disruption of brain functioning by physical or biochemical means and often involve psychological or behavioural aberrations.
    Nevertheless, most mental disorders are not caused by neurological damage. For example, biochemical imbalances in the brain can lead to mental disorders without causing damage to the brain. Moreover, the bizarre content of delusions and other abnormal mental states like hallucinations can never be caused simply or directly by brain damage.
    Four categories of biological factors that seem particularly relevant to the development of maladaptive behaviour are:
    1. neurotransmitter and hormonal imbalances
    2. genetic vulnerabilities
    3. temperament
    4. brain dysfunction nad neural plasticity.
    Each of these categories encompasses a number of conditions that influence the quality and functioning of our bodies and our behaviour. They are often not independent of each other, and they often occur in varying combinations in different people.

    Biological discoveries have profoundly affected the way we think about human behaviour. We now recognize the important role of biochemical factors and innate characteristics, many of which are genetically determined, in both normal and abnormal behaviour. Many new developments in the use of drugs can dramatically alter the severity and course of certain mental disorders - particularly the more severe ones such as schizophrenia. Biological treatments seem to have more immediate results that other available therapies.

    PSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE IN UNDERSTANDING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR attempts to understand humans not just as biological organisms, but also as people with motives, desires and perceptions. It emphasizes the importance of early experience, and an awareness of social influences and psychological processes within an individual.
    There are 5 major psychosocial perspectives on human nature and behaviour:
    1. Psychodynamic
    2. Behavioural
    3. Cognitive-Behavioural
    4. Humanistic
    5. The existential perspective.

    1. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE
    Freud founded the psychoanalytic school which emphasized the role of unconscious motives and thoughts, and their dynamic inter-relationships in the determination of normal and abnormal behaviour. Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes on the primacy of libidinal energies and inter-psychic conflicts. According to Freud, the conscious part of the mind represents a relatively small area whereas the unconscious part is like the submerged part of an iceberg. In the depths of the unconscious are the hurtful memories, forbidden desires and other experiences which have been repressed. However, unconscious matter continues to seek expression in dreams, slips of the tongue, and when the individual is under hypnosis. Until such unconscious matter is brought to awareness and integrated into the conscious part of the mind, it may lead to maladaptive behaviour.
    (Mention the fundamentals of Freud's psychoanalytic theory: the structure of personality - id, ego, and super ego; defence mechanisms; psychosexual stages of development)
    Freud was chiefly concerned with the workings of the id. He also paid attention to the super-ego but hardly gave any importance to the ego. Later, many theorists developed some of Freud's basic ideas in three somewhat different directions: Anna Freud was concerned with how the EGO performed its central function as the 'executive' of the personality. According to her and some psychodynamic theorists who constituted the ego psychology school, psychopathology develops when the ego does not function adequately to control or delay impulse gratification or does not make adequate use of defence mechanisms. The second school stressed on the role of an infant's early relationships - especially the mother-infant relationship, on the development of the individual's personality and self-concept. The third group focused on social determinants of behaviour and on the importance of people's interpersonal relationships.
    Many theorists like Margaret Mahlet, D.W. Winicott, Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairburn developed the object-relations theory - which focuses on individual's interactions with real and imagined other people (external and internal objects) and on the relationships that people experience between their external and internal objects. Object refers to the symbolic representation of another person in the infant's or child's environment, most often the parent.
    The inter-personal perspective which began with the defection of Alfred Adler in 1911 states that psychopathology is rooted in the unfortunate tendencies we have developed while dealing with our inter-personal environments. According to Adler, people are social beings motivated primarily by the desire to belong to and participate in a group. Erik Erikson extended the inter-personal aspects of psychoanalytic theory. He elaborated and widened Freud's stages of psychosexual development into more socially oriented concepts, describing crisis or conflicts that occured at 8 stages - each of which could be resolved in a healthy or unhealthy way.
    Bowlby's Attachment Theory emphasizes the importance of early experiences, especially early experience with attachment relationships, as laying the foundation for later functioning throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. He stressed the importance of the quality of parental care to the development of secure attachments, but he also saw the infants as playing a more active role in shaping the course of their own development, than had most of the earlier theorists.

    Freud's psychoanalytic theory can be seen as the first systematic approach to showing how human psychological processes can result in mental disorders.
    2. BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE
    The behavioural perspective arose in the early 20th century in part as a reaction against the unscientific methods of psychoanalysis. Behavioural psychologists believed that the study of subjective experience did not provide acceptable scientific data because such observations were not open to verification by other investigators. In their view, only the study of directly observable behaviours and of the stimuli and reinforcing conditions that control it could serve as a basis for understanding human behaviour, normal or abnormal.
    Although this perspective was initially developed through laboratory research rather than clinical practise with disturbed patients, its implications for explaining and treating maladaptive behaviour soon became evident. The roots of behavioual perspective are in Pavlov's study of classical conditioning and in Thorndike's study of instrumental conditioning - later renamed as operant conditioning by Skinner. Learning - the modification of behaviour as a consequence of experience - is the central theme of the behavioural approach. Because most human behaviour is learnt, te behaviourists addressed the question of how learning occurs. Behaviourists focused on the effects of environmental conditions on the acquisition, modification, and possible elimination of various types of response patterns, both adaptive and maladaptive.
    (Discuss what is classical conditioning, operant conditioning,the concepts of generalization and discrimination, and observational learning).
    The behaviourist perspective attempts to explain the acquisition, modification and extinction of nearly all types of behaviour. Maladaptive behaviour is viewed as the result of: a failure to learn necessary adaptive behaviour or competencies, OR the learning of ineffective or maladaptive responses.
    Maladaptive behaviour is thus the result of learning that has gone awry and is defined in terms of specific, observable, undesirable responses. For the behaviour therapist, the focus is on changing specific behaviours and emotional responses.

    3. COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE
    Albert Bandura developed the cognitive-behavioral persepctive and placed considerable emphasis on the cognitive aspects of learning. Bandura stressed that human beings regulate behaviour by internal symbolic processes - thoughts. According to him, we prepare ourselves for difficult tasks by visualising the consequences. We do not always require external reinforcement to alter behaviour patterns - our cognitive abilities allow us to solve many problems internatlly. He developed a theory of self-efficacy - the belief that one can achieve desired goals.

    Today, this perspective focuses on how thoughts and information processesing can become distorted and result in maladaptive behaviour. The central construct for this perspective is SCHEMA - an underlying representation of knowledge that guides the current processing of information and often leads to distortions in attention, memory, and comprehension. People develop different schemas based on their temperament, abilities and experiences.
    (Discuss assimilation and attribution)
    Different forms of psychopathology are characterized by different maladaptive schemas that have developed as a function of adverse learning experiences. These maladaptive schemas lead to the distortions in thinking that are characteristic of certain disorders such as anxiety, depression, and personality disoders. Cognitive psychologists study non-conscious mental activity which refers to mental processes that are occuring without our being aware of them.
    Beck is the founder of cognitive therapy. Following his lead, many clinicians have shifted focus from overt behaviour itself to the underlying cognitions assumed to be producing the maladaptive behaviour.

    4. HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE
    The humanisitic perspective views human nature as basically good. Paying less attention to unconscious processes and past causes, it emphasized present conscious processes and places strong emphasis on people's inherent capacity for responsible self-direction. Humanistic psychologists think that much of the empirical research designed to investigate causal factors is too simplistic to uncover the complexities of human behaviour. This perspective is concerned with processes of love, hope, creativity, values, meaning, personal growth, and self-fulfillment. Although these abstract processes are not readily subject to empirical investigation, certain underlying themes and principles of humanistic psychology can be identified, including the self as a unifying theme and a focus on values and personal growth.
    Humanistic psychologists stress on individuality. Carl Rogers developed the formulation of SELF-CONCEPT i.e. each individual exists in a private world of experience which is I, Me, Myself. The most basic striving of an individual is toward maintenance, enhancement, and actualization of the self, and his or her inner tendencies are towards health and wholeness under normal conditions. A perceived threat to the self is followed by a defence including a tightening of percention and behaviour and the introduction of self-defence mechanisms.
    (Discuss Maslow's hierarchy of values)
    According to this view, psychopathology is essentially the blocking or distortion of personal growth and the natural tendency toward physical and mental health.

    5. EXISTENTIAL PERSEPECTIVE
    This emphasizes on the uniqueness of the individual, the quest for values and meaning, and the existence of freedom for self-direction and self-fulfilment. It places more emphasis on the irrational tendencies and the difficulties inherent in self-fulfilment - particularly in modern, dehumanising mass society.
    Existential psychologists focus on the importance of establishing values and acquiring a level of spiritual maturity worthy of freedom and dignity bestowed by one's humanness. Avoiding such central issues creates corrupted, meaningless, and wasted lives. Abnormal behaviour is therefore the product of a failure to deal constructively with existential despair and frustration.

    SOCIO-CULTURAL VIEW-POINT IN UNDERSTANDING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOUR (not for mid sem)
    is concerned with the impact of culture and other features of the social environment on mental disorders. It is concerned with the contribution of socio-cultural variables to mental disorder. Although many serious mental disorders are fairly universal, the form that some disorders take and their prevalence vary widely among different cultures. Low socio-economic status, unemployment, and being subjected to prejudice and discrimination are associated with greater risk for various disorders.

    Thursday, August 13, 2009

    summary on the moral -philosophical approach


    MORAL -PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH:

    As old as classical Greek and Roman critics.

    PLATO emphasized moralism and utilitarianism

    HORACE literature should be delightful and instructive

    Basic function of such critics larger function of literature is

    · Teach morality

    · Probe philosophical issues

    · Interpret literature within the context of philosophical thought of a period or group.

    1.Pope’s ‘ Essay on man’--- understood if on e understands the meaning and role of reason in the 18th century thought.

    ---can also be religiously oriented.

    2. Hawthorne’s ‘Scarlet Letter’--- study of the effects of secret sin on a human soul – sin unconfessed before man and god.

    3. Robert Frost’s ‘stopping before woods over snowy evening’--- suggesting that duty and responsibility take precedence over beauty and pleasure.

    MATTHEW ARNOLD (Victorian critic)

    - Great literature work must possess high seriousness.

    - Moral critics -----aware of form, figurative language, aesthetic considerations but these are secondary.

    - moral or philosophical teaching asserting and stating what is right

    These approaches give total meaning of any literary work. They are less likely to err on the side of over interpretation

    Reader on the surface of text at least now understood part of it

    Reader who extracts interpretations neither supportable nor reasonable may miss key meaning

    Dull, pedestrian, uniformely literal approach anithesis to informed, imaginative, creative approach.

    Shortcomings-

    - deficient in imagination

    - neglected newer sciences( should be given fullest possible chance to explain any knowledge or insight)

    - Too content with common sense interpretation.

    Positives-

    - avoided cultism and faddism

    - preserved scholarly discipline and maintained balance in literary criticism


    the 2 types of deviance behaviour( last year's question)

    All substantial departure of behavior from social norms can be caught up in the single concept of DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR. Since departure from established norms differ greatly both in character and social consequences, they should not be indiscriminately grouped together.

    The 2 major varieties of deviant behaviour can be usefully distinguished on the basis of their structure and the consequences on social system

    (a) Non conforming behaviour and (b) aberrant behaviour

    -Both the types retain the technical conception of deviant behaviour in sociological analysis

    - the distinction does not smuggle in moral judgments through the back door of connotative language.

    -only helps us to identify the norm that has been prescribed by a particular society more clearly.

    - both have different social consequences

    - what is non comformity to one group may not be to the other and vice-versa.

    differences---

    NON CONFORMER ABERRANT

    -Announces his dissent publicly and does not try to hide his departures from social norms

    - political or religious dissenter insists on making his dissent known to as many as possible and spread his deviant behaviour(can also be to influence them)

    -Does not reveal his deviations from norms to society

    -aberrant criminal seeks to avoid the limelight of public scrutiny

    -challenges the legitimacy of the social norms he rejects or at least challenges their applicability to certain situations

    -eg campaigns ,rallies to attack local norms

    - acknowledges the legitimacy of the norms he violates

    -he finds these norms expedient and expressive of his state of mind to violate them

    - he may try to justify his own behaviour but he does not argue that theft is right and murder virtuous.

    -aims to change the norms he is denying in practice.

    - wants to replace what he believes to be morally right and more applicable.

    -when subject to social sanction, he appeals to higher morality

    -tries primarily to escape the sanctioning force of existing norms , without proposing substitutes for them

    - at most he appeals to extenuating circumstances.

    - is acknowledged , however reluctantly, b y conventional members of social system to depart from prevailing norms for disinterested purposes and not for what he personally can get out of it.

    - deviance from norms to serve his own purpose and interest

    -with his appeal to an allegedly higher morality, can in historically propitious circumstances lay claim to legitimacy by drawing upon the ultimate values, rather than the particular norms of the society

    - trying to make justice a social reality rather than an institutionalized form

    - for his genuine freedom of speech rather than its everyday pretense.

    -rearrange social structure to provide actual equality of opportunity for all men to develop prized talents.

    -appeal to moral values that in some measure have been denied in social practice while being reaffirmed in ideological doctrine.

    - not a private affair but a thrust towards a new morality of restoring a morality held to have been put aside in social practice.

    - nothing new to propose and nothing old to restore

    - seeks only to satisfy his private interests or to express his private cravings.

    Wednesday, August 5, 2009

    RISE OF ENGLISH - AN OVERVIEW

    The Rise of English

    15-16 During 18C, and by the Romantic period (19C), lit began to refer only to imaginitive works.

    17 Utilitarianism and early industrial capitalism are dominant in England. State reacts to working class protests with “brutal political repressiveness”. The literary work is seen as spontaneous and creative, unlike society, and ‘poetry’ as an idea has political force.

    18 But the creative artist and his ideals were isolated from society, and it was only at the time of William Morris “that the gap between poetic vision and political practice was significantly narrowed”.

    18 Art/lit past and present began to be seen as an unchanging object, the ‘aesthetic’, ‘art’, no purpose but an end in itself above ordinary life.

    19 The Symbol was at the centre of aesthetic theory at turn of 18C. Conflicts in ordinary life were resolved within it, away from the middle-class’s crass empiricism. It was irrational and couldn’t be explained — you saw it or you didn’t — and it brought together the concrete and universal, motion and stillness. [Examples of what this means would have been good.]

    21 By mid-Victorian period religion was ceasing to be the unifying and pacifying form it had been. Eng lit was seen as something that could “heal the State”. Matthew Arnold saw the middle class as harsh and unintelligent and unable to lead and educate the working class in order to prevent anarchy. They needed to be shown “the best culture of their nation”.

    22-4 Lit could impart universal ideals, putting its readers’ “petty” concerns in perspective, and let them experience lives they couldn’t afford. Arnold, Henry James and FR Leavis are exponents of the idea that lit is an imparter of morality — or “is moral ideology for the modern age”.

    24-26 Eng lit was seen as feminine and an amatuerish subject Oxbridge tried to avoid, but also a way of promoting English values in an imperial age. WW I created a “spiritual hungering” and Eng lit provided the answer.

    26-27 Eng lit was transformed at Cambridge after WW I under FR Leavis, QR Leavis and IA Richards, as the offspring of the provincial petty bourgeoisie entered universities for the first time. Leavises launched Scrutiny in 1932 and Eng lit became the important subject and established how it is discussed today.

    29-30 Scrutiny was “the focus of a moral and cultural crusade”. But it didn’t seek to change (apart from through education) mechanized society and its withered culture, just to withstand it. Closely reading lit would not turn Eng into an organic and moral country. They disapproved of those who didn’t have their knowledge. But if lit made you better how, after WW II, to explain away educated Nazis? Scrutiny became an isolated elite.

    31-2 “Organic societies are just convenient myths for belabouring the mechanized life of modern industrial capitalism.” The organic society lived on in good lit for the Leavisites, “rich, complex, sensuous and particular”. “Dramatically concrete” writers like Donne and Hopkins manifested the essence of Englishness unlike the “latinate or verbally disembodied” Milton and Shelley.

    33 In 1915 TS Eliot came to London from St Louis and

    began to carry out a wholesale salvage and demolition job on [England’s] literary traditions. The Metaphysical poets and Jacobean dramatists were suddenly upgraded; Milton and the Romantics were rudely toppled; selected European products, including the French Symbolists, were imported.

    He thought Eng lit was on the right track in early 17C but “language drifted loose from experience” resulting in the “literary disaster” of Milton.

    34 Liberalism, Romanticism, protestantism, economic individualism were perverted dogmas and a right-wing authoritarianism was Eliot’s solution. Literary works were only acceptable if they were part of the Tradition, or the “European mind”, which was a largely arbitrary definition.

    35 “Poetry was not to engage the reader’s mind: it did not really matter what it actually meant.” “A language closely wedded to experience.” Meaning was just to distract the reader while the poem worked on him “in more physical and unconcsious ways”. Maybe there are deep roots that poetry can reach, going beyond history and the crisis of European society.

    36 Eliot’s ideas about the need for language to become more primal was shared by Ezra Pound, TE Hulme and the Imagist movement. Middle class liberalism was finished — like Eliot, they were more right wing.

    37-8 Leavis is associated with “practical criticism” (assessing the qualities of passages and ignoring historical context) and “close reading”.

    38-40 Cambridge critic IA Richards was a major link between Leavis and the American New Criticism. He thought that modern science was the model of true knowledge [unlike Leavis’s technophobia] but that poetry was needed to balance the human psyche, something religion could no longer do.

    40-42 New Criticism, 1930s-50s: Eliot, Richards, maybe Leavis and Empson, with American movement of John Crowe Ransom, WK Wimsatt, Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, Monroe Beardsley and RP Blackmur. Roots in a US South that was being industrialised. A poem was internally coherent but not cut off from reality; reality was somehow included within it making the poem a self-sufficient object in itself. New Critics broke with the Great Man theory (works are ways to access the author’s soul): “the poem meant what it meant, regardless of the poet’s intentions or the subjective feelings the reader derived from it”.

    42-43 New Critical methods offered a method of dissecting poetry. These critical instruments were a way of competing with hard sciences on their own terms and by 1940s and 1950s New Criticism was part of the Establishment, perfectly natural.

    44-46 Empson seems like a New Critic because of his analysis and unravelling of meaning but he has an old-fashioned liberal rationalism. Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), Some Versions of Pastoral (1935), The Structure of Complex Words (1951), Milton’s God (1961). He treats poetry as something that can be paraphrased, and takes into account what the author probably meant. The reader brings social context and assumptions to the work.